Dreaming of Manderley

When is a romance novel not a romance novel?

When it’s a gothic suspense thriller fairy tale romance novel, such as Daphne duMaurier’s Rebecca (Victor Gollancz, 1938, republished by Avon in 1971). The book’s staying power can perhaps be best explained because it combines all the trashy, page-turning suspense of modern writers like Stephen King and John Grisham, without the pedestrian prose that make King or Grisham such an insult to the intellect.

Rebecca is well-crafted without requiring the same kind of concentration a modern reader would employ when tackling the heightened language of older classics. And it’s fun without resorting to the formulaic styles of today’s mass market paperbacks.

The story is a first-person account of an awkward young maid who, while assisting her mistress on vacation in Monte Carlo, falls in love with the dashing widower, Maxim DeWinter. Maxim marries her and whisks her off to his Cornish estate of Manderley, where the memory of his first wife, Rebecca, looms larger than life. While the shy narrator tries to fill the shoes of her sophisticated predecessor, Rebecca’s presence haunts the foreboding mansion until the new, younger Mrs. DeWinter can find out exactly what became of Rebecca.

Rebecca is widekly considered an homage to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre – the haunting mansion, with its own name, ruled by a mysterious master hiding dark secrets about his first wife. But, stylistically, the two are very different.

The poor little anonymous narrator of Rebecca lacks the strength and conviction of Jane Eyre’s titular heroine. DuMaurier’s is a darker novel than Bronte’s and her protagonist’s final victory is dubious at best. While both novels have gothic elements, Jane Eyre strives for realism; Rebecca is a sinister fairy tale, with its melodrama and stilted, exaggerated characters. And, of course, Jane Eyre is Victorian.

DuMaurier herself was shocked at Rebecca’s popularity, saying she had written the novel merely as a study in human jealousy. But her readership saw it differently.

First dramatized for radio by Orson Wells shortly after publication, then adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, Rebecca remains duMaurier’s best-known and best-loved work, trumping even her 1952 short story, "The Birds" (which was also made into a Hitchcock film and is more often associated with him than with its original author).

What duMaurier didn’t acknowledge is that this rags-to-riches Cinderella story may contain its own Oedipal influences. DuMaurier was born in London in 1907 to actor-manager Gerald duMaurier, the son of artist and writer George duMaurier.

Her mother a sophisticated socialite, the young Daphne was closer to her father and followed in the artistic footsteps of the paternal side of her family. In 1943, she married Major General Sir Frederick Browning, who had lost his beautiful and worldly fiancé in an unusual accident. The constant sense of competition between the narrator and Rebecca may reflect duMaurier’s own feelings of inadequacy in loving men whose hearts were already given to women far above her.

Beginning with her first novel, The Loving Spirit, published in 1928, duMaurier’s work reflects her passion for Cornwall. Manderley is based on Milton, near Peterbrough (where duMaurier visited as a girl), and Menabilly in Cornwall, where she eventually settled with her husband and raised three children. When Hitchcock filmed Rebecca, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, du Maurier’s only complaint was that he changed the setting to America, cutting out entirely her beloved Cornwall.

In 1969, duMaurier was made dame for literary achievement, credited with writing the first gothic romance of the 20th century. She died on April 19, 1987. Two sequels were later published with the blessing of the duMaurier estate – Mrs. DeWinter, written by Susan Hill and published in 1993 by William Morrow and Company, and Rebecca’s Tale, written by Sally Beauman and published in 2001 by Little Brown.

So what makes Rebecca a romance? This is not a tale of passionate embraces or the love at first sight of destined paramours. The heightened emotions are those of jealousy, inadequacy, and self-doubt.

The narrator is an appealingly gauche, insecure little girl, given to universal flights of wild fancy and fears of improbable disaster. That we never know her Christian name underscores her subordination to Rebecca, whose name dominates the cover of the book as well as every corner of Manderley. The narrator’s life did not begin until her arrival at Manderley, at which time she gained the name of Mrs. DeWinter (albeit the second). This also gives us a sense of intimacy with the narrator. As if, perhaps, we are a dear friend for whom repeating her own name would be redundant and unnecessary.

But if it’s not clearly a romance, it is thoroughly modern. Rebecca has no truly moral characters in spite of its melodrama. All its heroes are deeply flawed and face ethically ambiguous dilemmas. Its villains, if viewed in the proper light, may be sympathetic and we’re given a chance to identify with the baddies.

Nor is the ending clean and neat. From its opening line – one of the more well-known in modern literature – “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”, the narrator tells us that she is writing from a place of relative peace, but still running from what happened to her as a naive young bride. When the final revelation comes, it’s uncertain how the narrator will respond and, in fact, her response seems incongruous with the rest of her character.