What The

I don't know what emotion to feel about the ending. I don't think I really do feel one towards the ending itself. It seemed like such a huge build up for that. Of course the ending result is a big deal, the author makes it seem like it's not a big deal. While the narrator was coming in and out of sleep you could for some reason feel the tension rising in the book and then it was just over. I don't know.
I've also come to the conclusion that I still hate Maxim. Actually I don't think there is anyone in this book that I enjoyed even a little bit. Anyways, i'm rather curious as to if he had known that instead of being pregnant, she in fact had cancer, if he still would have killed her..
Lastly, Rebecca never fails to win against Maxim even this far after her death. Without Rebecca, there is no Manderley. Originally, it was in the sense that without her Manderley would be unknown and just another home. But now that physically Rebecca truly is gone, so is Manderley.

The End.

1) I found it fitting in a way and good in a way (team Maxim) that Rebecca was not physically able to have children (page 373) because that makes team Max +1 and gives him power over her. The whole situation we read about earlier in the book of the potential of Rebecca having a child that was not Max's  was never even possible. This now makes me think that in the scene before Rebecca is shot, she said that to sort of mess with Maxim because she was the only one that knew the real truth.

2) The fact that Rebecca used a false name when seeing Dr. Baker could maybe signify that a tiny part of her did want to protect Manderlay and she did not want anyone to recognize her name. The de Winter's are practically famous, and this would have started a whole bunch more gossip that Rebecca was already stirring up. So maybe, just maybe, she had a tiny heart?

3) The End..... no Rebecca= no Manderlay
The narrator was describing all the things she was going to do when she got back, which sounded an awfully lot like Rebecca's qualities, (upholding the house, respect from the staff) but we have been shown there can never be another Mrs. de Winter because Manderlay won't allow it. Without Manderlay, all of this is irrelevant and all of these characters are no longer anything! Was proving Max innocent all for nothing?

Goose bump ending

I've read this book a zillion times. I just finished it for the zillionth and one. And it rocks. I'm sitting here in study hall wanting to tell the form 3 kid next to me that this book is brilliant and crazy and fantastic. What an ending. I can't wait to talk about the twists and turns and images and impact of the last three chapters.

ugh maxim

I do not like maxim. I know, sure I should I feel bad for him I guess, like he's never really had love or happiness blah blah blah okay. BUT he is a MURDERER and as much as Rebecca seems like she was a bitch, he is lying to everyone around him and making his new wife (whom he originally treated horribly and paid no attention to) lie as well. He also waited until this crucial moment (being when they discover Rebecca's body) to be honest with his wife. Okay yeah, wait until you're possibly about to be in trouble for murder to be honest with the woman you only married for the purpose of having a wife that you could control and manipulate into constantly putting out love and affection without receiving any in return. I don't know, it's frustrating to me that the way the narrator wrote these past few chapters makes me want to side with Maxim. Because she is biased, she's able to make me feel like I want him to get away with murder.

Assumption

Corresponding to my post about Offending, I have been looking at assumptions throughout the book. What I think is that- when a character assumes something (or takes someones word for something), examples being all the things the narrator assumes and also how during the trial it is not based on hard evidence, it is based on people's word, that that person is not in power any more. (the townspeople make all types of assumptions too) I think that every time an assumption is made, that person has just made themselves inferior. (ps. we as narrators assumed a bunch of things too) I'm sure you can argue my point in many ways but if you think about how assumption makes people loose power, in the end that person ends up in a predicament or as someone who has been controlled/influenced therefore not all knowing which equals the all mighty/powerful.

The Narrator's Reliability (abstract)

So, once again, I'm interested in the concept of the narrator's reliability.  I want to incorporate into my analysis the words the narrator uses to describe herself versus the words other people use to describe her.  Similar to The Virgin Suicides, I am interested in how the narrator gives us bad information, such as her assertion that Maxim had always loved Rebecca.  Her assumptions and flawed information, in turn, makes us become bad readers.
Questions to consider:
-Should we blame the narrator herself or her lack of confidence?
-How does this actually make us bad readers?
-Do we, as readers, ever get firsthand information? (Consider Ben for this.)
-What will happen now that we know the truth about Rebecca?

The Ideal Woman

The image of the ideal woman is different in the eyes of Maxim, Frank, Mrs. Danvers, and the narrator

-What makes the qualities of Rebecca better than the narrator's? Why is Rebecca considered more like the ideal woman when she herself has flaws?
            - Rebecca "should have been a boy" because she had "spirit", courage, strength, control and was "uncaring"
            - the narrator describes herself as a boy (but based on appearance, not personality traits)
- Why does the narrator describe herself as a boy physically, when Mrs. Danvers describes Rebecca a boy based on her qualities?
- Does the ideal woman exist? In a character or if at all
            - we talked about how the ideal man needs an ideal woman, which don't exist, so they make one up
- How could Du Maurier fulfill the two female characters to make them whole? Why is the narrator passive and Rebecca aggressive? Why couldn't the two characters have been combined? What point was Du Maurier trying to prove about the ideal woman?

Max and the narrator

I'm interested in the marriage of Maxim and the narrator. My questions are:

-Why did Max choose her as his new wife?
-Why did she accept?
-Is there love? When? What do the call "love"?
-How is their marriage different from Max's first marriage?
-How do people (Beatrice, Frank, Danvers,...) see their marriage, what are their opinion of that marriage?
-Can we call this relationship a "marriage"?
-How does the knowledge that Max killed Rebecca affect the narrator?
-Is this marriage more successful than the first?

Manipulation

I would like to explore the idea that the novel would lack most of it's unfortunate and rather thrilling events if the narrator wasn't so easily changed and manipulated to say or be what she thinks everyone wants her to be.
Some questions:
who does she let manipulate her?
how does she manipulate herself?
how does this change her?
who does she think wants her to change? how does she think she needs to change for them?
what are her main reasons behind changing?

QUOTES:
Maxim shortly after telling the narrator that he murdered Rebecca, "You don't love me, that's why you did not feel anything. I know. I understand. It's come too late for you, hasn't it." (272) Maxim knows she loves him and knows he can twist anything to make her say it.

Ben is Awesome (Abstract)

Ben is the only reliable narrator in the entire book
     -Lots of irony since he is viewed as an "idiot"

My Questions: (With help from Callie)
-How is he a reliable narrator?
-How is everyone else unreliable?
-What are examples of him being reliable, others being unreliable?
-Why is he the only reliable narrator, what makes him so special?
-How is the only one who makes sense?
-What makes him reliable?
-Who views him as an idiot and why?
-When does it become clear that he is reliable?
-What is he reliable about and why is everyone else unreliable about this?
-How do we know for sure he is reliable?

Some Quotes from Last Night's readings:

"'She's run aground,' I repeated. 'I expect she's got a hole in her bottom.' His face went blank and foolish. 'Aye,' he said, 'she's down there all right. She'll not come back again'"(262).

"'She'll break up bit by bit,' he said, 'she'll not sink like a stone like the little 'un.' He chuckled to himself, picking his nose. I did not say anything. 'The fishes have eaten her up by now, haven't they?' he said. [...] 'Fishes don't eat steamers, Ben,' I said"(263).

First of all, sorry again for being such a spoiler the other day.

So we found out about all of Rebecca's dirty secrets, and the real reasons of everyone's attitude toward her image. Now the narrator knows about everything, her husband killed his first wife. But despite the fact that he is a murderer, she tells him that she loves him despite everything. Maxim was open to her just once, and she claims to love him. I believe that she doesn't really know what love is. She also doesn't understand trully the concept of marriage. She doesn't even want Maxim to love him. "I don't want you to love me. I won't ask for impossible things. I'll be your friend and your companion, a sort of boy"(269). But before that, she claims that she will "... never be a child again."(269). She has good intentions, but she is too childish to understand the situation that Maxim has gone into.

The Narrator is Honest with Herself

So I thought that these last two chapters were full of detail, and I felt there were many good quotes that can be used for the paper.  The narrator seems to finally make sense of her relationship with the narrator; she admits: "Maxim was not in love with me, he had never loved me. [...]  [Maxim] did not belong to me at all, he belonged to Rebecca.  He still thought about Rebecca.  [...]  Rebecca was still mistress of Manderley.  Rebecca was still Mrs. de Winter.  I had come blundering like a poor fool on ground that was preserved" (233).
I found this part very interesting because the narrator finally seems to be enlightened and understand where she stands with Maxim.  It was as if she always knew this, but never wanted to admit it to herself.

Maxim's Point of Emasculation

"I could not forget the white, lost look in Maxim's eyes when we came up the path through the woods, and I could not forget his words, "Oh, god, what a fool I was to come back."  [...]  And although Maxim had recovered, and was himself again, and we lived our lives together, sleeping, eating, walking, writing letters, driving to the village, working hour by hour through our day, I knew there was a barrier between us because of it" (120).

Setting: Maxim previously opened up to the narrator about not wanting to go to the other beach because of all of his bad memories of Rebecca there.  He is portrayed as fragile in this context, mentioning how they should have stayed in Italy longer.

Assertion: Maxim and the narrator have a complicated relationship, and as a result, they are unable to appropriately and effectively communicate with each other.

Yes, Rebecca was popular, full of life, and possibly the most beautiful woman ever seen; however, we get a sense that Rebecca had a flaw when Frank tells the narrator that "kindliness, and sincerity, and if I may say so--modesty--are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world"(135). We know from the comments of many people, such as the bishop's wife, that Rebecca put on the magnificent parties/balls/tea parties, each "an attractive original idea"(126), for the crowds of people, but the reader doesn't know how she acted around Maxim.

I thought the narrator's walk down to Happy Valley with Maxim and Jasper and the whole boathouse scene seemed slightly off. Frank's hesitant responses to the narrator's questions about the boathouse weren't helping the situation either. He seemed suspicious, just as Maxim appeared on the walk, like he knew something private about the former deWinter couple. Not that Rebecca and Frank were having an affair, but the fact that Rebecca spent many nights in the boathouse (enough that "nobody knew she had gone"(132) sailing when the accident occurred).

It's possible Maxim didn't want to return to the boathouse, chasing after Jasper, because it reminded him of that suspicious thing we don't know and not because it reminded him of Rebecca's death.

Just a thought.

Offending

A point that I had wanted to make in class was my reaction to what happens in chapter 14 (the night of Rebecca's death/disappearance) but more specifically on pages 173-174. I think that a part of Rebecca's death happened or the fact that she was not found for two months and no one went looking for her on that night is that fact that all these characters don't want to offend one another, and that why they acted how they did. If someone, say Mrs. Danvers, were to just step out of her given role, it would have been different. In this book, so many other bound rues have been crossed already but here they were not able to step out of their roles. How much did they really love her in those moments that they were making up excuses of where she was and what she was doing but didn't exert the energy just to check on her

Area of Interest: Changing

I'm pretty sure mine is rather similar to Alayna's, but I'm more thinking along the lines of the narrators insecurities and other people's opinions causing unnoticed changes in her that when all put together, will basically create a second rebecca.

AOI

My current area of interest is things that the narrator does to become like Rebecca. We know that Max does not want her to be another Rebecca, but to me it seems like she is conforming or shaping herself into a Rebecca replica. A lot of this is to blame on the Manderlay staff and the gossip that the narrator is hearing. I believe that she is making a mistake by doing this, but she is so insecure she feels the need to do it.

Area of Interest: The Mrs. de Winters

My area of interest right now is the difference between the narrator as Mrs. de Winter and the original Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, and how Maxim wants his second wife to be nothing like Rebecca. I guess I understand why he doesn't want to be reminded of her death, but at the same time he had the best time with her (i think), so why wouldn't he want to create the same experiences with a new wife? Basically, I think there has to be a reason why he picked the narrator, like she has to relate to Rebecca somehow, and that relation between the two women is what I'd like to explore.

Reliability of the Narrator

My area of interest concerns the reliability of the narrator.  I feel that we are getting just vague stories and recollections of her ideas.  I'm curious why she describes herself with masculine features, and why she has nervous tendencies like biting her nails.  I guess the best way we can understand her is by listening to the recaps of people around her, despite the fact that she is telling the events.  The unreliable narrators makes us bad readers, like in The Virgin Suicides.

Maxim (AOI)

So my area of interest right now lies in Maxim. Unfortunately, that's as specific as I'll get right now. I'm not sure what it is about his character but it's very unsettling. I have said this before but I think that (Even though Hitchcock has already created a version) Tim Burton would make a great "Rebecca" movie. Just the darkness/mystery/unknown associated with Maxim and Manderley and Rebecca would work well with Tim Burton's style. But anyways, Maxim is my area of interest. More of a "what happened in the past and why does it make him what he is at this moment" focus though.

Disobeying

Our narrator is someone who is subject to other people and does not ever get to act on her own instincts. She is always being controlled by other people and has basically lost her sense of free-will. Although, we have seen her defy specific instructions on a few occasions, and if we look at those times,  those times resulted in the most problems or complications for her.

Examples are when a while back, the narrator was instructed to go change the travel reservations when they were to leave Monte Carlo, and that resulted in the marriage proposal and a doomed, superficial, relationship with an older man. Second, I would mainly like to focus on the instance when the narrator  goes after Jasper even though specifically instructed not to. Even though, in a positive manner, I semi-apprectiate that for one time she is not being insecure and that she does something she feels is right, this leads to the fight between the narrator and Max. Because they never worked out the root of this argument, I think that it is just another thing that will always be lying under the surface. Someday all these hidden problems will come out and blow up in everyone's faces.

Although this may sound terrible, when our narrator does what she thinks is best, it leads her astray and makes things worse when right now her life is less than ideal...


One other idea that I had about the relationship between Rebecca and the narrator is the the letter R. Page 120 says, "The R dwarfed the other letters" and this relates to the narrator because she is "dwarfed" by Rebecca, coming one of the "other letters." Rebecca is a big thundercloud over the narrators head that follows her every move. The rain will eventually pour, because Max and the narrator can not continue coasting through, or acting for the rest of their lives.

not mature enough for manderley

The narrators immaturity really shines through even more so in these next few chapters. For starters, she easily allows herself to feel very awkward and has through the whole book. Even Mrs.Danvers being quite kind and speaking with her in the west wing brought her to feel "vaguely uncomfortable" (93). She also continues to have some sort of idea that their marriage is real, or so it seems. She mentions that when his family came to visit, they had "spoilt" their day, and she felt like a "fool" for slightly disrupting Beatrice's water. She is very hard on herself. In terms of the family, there is an extreme competitive aspect, particularly between Beatrice and Maxim. Maxim rebuts to their comments about his health by mentioning he is "always very fit" and "never had anything wrong" with him in his life(95). To me, this was very strange, I feel like we haven't quite seen that side of Maxim before, that arrogant side and it seems to come out particularly in these two chapters. The siblings argue about extremely catty things and it becomes clear that Beatrice in particular constantly likes to mess with people's heads. Which brings me to my point of her making the narrator feel extremely inferior to Rebecca, and because of her young insecurities, it works. The narrator mentions as Beatrice and she begin talking that there is a "tiny doubt in her voice that made me afraid" (100). She immediately allows Beatrice inside of her head. Then, the comments continue, in reference to her hair, to her clothing, to Maxim changing, and it is very clear that although the Narrator has already changed from the "school boy" (31) we had in the beginning of the book, she still cannot be Rebecca. Beatrice then mentions that Mrs.Danvers dislikes the narrator and resented her being at Manderley because "she simply adored Rebecca" (102) and as the narrator already knew, "you are so very different from Rebecca" (107). After this conversation, when Maxim and the Narrator go to the shore and Maxim refers to her as "my good child" (117) which isn't quite what I would call a romantic name to call your spouse... He clearly begins to feel doubt and regret for bringing the narrator back with him: "We ought never to have come back to Manderley. Oh, God, what a fool I was to come back" (118). Finally, the end of the chapter, we see the tension and the chapter mist off and end with a smile from Maxim. "The smile was my reward. like a pat on the head of Jasper" (120). She compares her relationship with her husband with the relationship of an owner and their dog.
More or less, it is very clear that the narrator is extremely immature still and Beatrice knows how to get inside people's heads. Because of this, the Narrator begins to compare herself to Rebecca even more than she already had, particularly when it comes down to her relationship with Maxim. Finally, although she believes their relationship is real in some parts of the story, she contradicts herself in pointing out that he not only refers to her as "child" but also treats her similarly to the dog.

Kind of Immature

So I noticed a few things during these chapters.
The narrator is a grown up women, but her relationship with Mrs Van Hopper is more the relationship between a 12 year old daughter and her mother. She secretly drives with Max, visits Montecarlo, but when she has to lie to Mrs Van Hopper about it she tells her "...false words, bringing me to panic, even as I spoke,..."(35). Her relationship with Max reminds me of that one of a young girl avoiding her parents to see some other boy just for the sake of doing something foolish, unexpected. In fact, she admits that Max "... was a stranger. I wonder why I was sitting beside him in the car"(39). But despite this, she falls in love with him. To me this is more like a childish crush. It seems like Max is a way to escape from the boring life as a companion of Mrs Van Hopper. But even though Mrs Van Hopper is arrogant and ignorant, I agree with her when she declares the whole point of the marriage is that "He just can't go on living there alone..."(61).
So far, the narrator has got rid of the obstacles that prevented her from returning to her life as a companion, but there is an obstacle that seems impossible for her to overcome, and that is the very alive memory of Rebecca. She is still present in the thoughts of everyone at Manderley, such as Max, and Mrs Danvers. When Mrs Danvers welcomes the narrator, she states that "...she bade me welcome to Manderley, in the name of herself and the staff, a stiff, conventional speech rehearsed for the occasion, spoken in a voice as cold and lifeless as her hand had been"(68).
How was Rebecca? Why did Max chose the narrator as his new wife just a year after her death?

First time I've seen this

Hey guys, I just wanted to share the surprise I felt when I saw Nature depicted as an evil entity. Plants are depicted as "...poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin"(2). I've always read of nature usually being a symbol of beauty or peace, but here it is described as ugly and menacing.

The Mysterious Manderley

Before I begin this blog post, I have a different book than everyone else so the page numbers won't correspond correctly.  Sorry.
So, I think it's interesting how Max de Winter behaves.  He is described by the narrator as "silent and detached, the man of yesterday wrapped in his secret self" (29).  The narrator notes "If he loved it all so much why did he seek the superficial froth of Monte Carlo?" (33).   I found that the majority of the information I've recovered from the first couple of chapters is relatable  depicts Mr. Winter to be mysterious.
Some observations I've gathered:
-Mrs. Van Hopper is extremely condescending and controlling of the narrator.
-Max de Winter seems to be playing the same role as the boys, with the exception that he is not narrating the novel.  For instance, I felt that Mr. Winter has an uncanny infatuation with the narrator, like the boys did with the girls in The Virgin Suicides.
-What is the deal with Rebecca?  Why does Mr. Winter not want to talk about her?
-Basically, I feel like the setting is just dark right now and there is a strange tension in the air; I feel we will learn about Manderley's significance as the novel progresses.
Passage I'm going to make assertion about:
"'An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel,' he said at length.  'The trouble is that it is less impersonal.'  He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to talk about Manderley at last, but something held him back, some phobia that struggled to the surface of his mind and won supremacy, for he blew out his match and his flash of confidence at the same time" (25). 
My assertion:
Mr. Winter is plagued by a past event at Manderley and fears to explain it, thus causing him to be edgy around others.

Quotes

Hey guys- I'm still struggling with finding quotes for my third paragraph, which deals with how the girls' voices are taken by the boys as narrators.  If you guys have any quotes that may be helpful and concern how the Lisbon girls are described with no individuality, could you let me know? Thanks.