摘 要

达芙妮·杜穆里埃是英国最伟大的女作家和剧作家之一，另一位著名的英国作家E.M.福斯特高度评价她时说没有人能复制达芙妮·杜穆里埃的成功-- 即打破通俗小说和纯文学之间的界限，让他的作品同时满足这两种文学的所有需求。 《丽贝卡》出版于1938年，是杜穆里埃最成功的作品之一。本书中女二号丽贝卡长久以来被视为“蛇蝎女性”的代表并一直为评论家所批判。然而本文认为就像每个硬币都有两面一样，每个人都有他的优点和缺点，因此丽贝卡不会完全是一个反面角色。本文将抛弃对丽贝卡的陈见，从德温特夫人的叙述中分析丽贝卡的行为和思想,以此挖掘出这个像幽灵一样徘徊在曼多丽庄园的女人更真实的一面。

关键词： 达芙妮•杜穆里,《丽贝卡》, 人物形象分析, 肖像描写，行为分析

Abstract

Daphne du Maurier, one of the greatest female English authors and playwrights, was highly valued by another famous English writer E.M.Foster. He praised that no one else can repeat the success of Daphne du Maurier , that is to say, she breaks the line between popular fiction and pure literature, and makes her works meet all demands of these two kinds of literature at the same time. Du Maurier’s work Rebecca was published in 1938 and it is one of Du Maurier's most successful works. For a long time critics see a female character Rebecca in this book as an evil who is wearing human skin. However, just as every coin has its both sides, every human has his virtues and blemishes. Thus Rebecca will not be a totally villain. This paper focuses on Mrs. De Winter’s narration to analyze Rebecca’s actions and thoughts, in order to dig up a more real characteristic of this woman who is hovering around Manderley like a ghost, and attempts to abandon the stereotype about Rebecca and analyzes her image in a new way.

Keywords:　Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca, character analysis, protrait description, behavior analysis

Contents

摘要 I

Abstract II

1. Introduction 1

1.1. The Author and Her Works 1

1.2 Literature Review 3

2. Rebecca’s Bright Side 5

2.1. Destructive Beauty 5

2.2. Unapproachable Capacity 6

2.3. The Courage of Resisting 7

3. Rebecca’s Dark Side 8

3.1 Unbearable Arrogance 8

3.2 Frivolous Behavior 8

3.3 Calculation at All Times 9

4. Conclusion 10

4.1 Summary 10

4.2 Further Study 10

References 11

Acknowledgements 13

Analysis of Rebecca in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca

1. Introduction

1.1. The Author and Her Works

Daphne du Maurier is one of the greatest female English authors and playwrights. Born on May 13, 1907 in London, Du Maurier lived in a family with a strong atmosphere of art from then on. Her grandfather, George Du Maurier, was a cartoonist and novelist, and her father, Gerard Du Maurier, was a famous British performance artist and theatre manager. Du Maurier was brought up in art.He began writing poetry and literature at the age of 15. She published The Apple Tree, a collection of short stories, in 1925, and the first full-length novel, Endearment, in 1931. At first her works are not taken seriously by critics, but her passion for literature has never waned. In less than a decade, she produced a string of captivating works. later she gets a chance to earn an enduring reputation. In 1936 her novel Jamaica Inn which writes about the adventures of smugglers on the coast first made her and her works famous. Many of her works have been successfully adapted into films and TV series. Here some of her famous works include the novels: Rebecca, My Cousin Rache, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories : The Birds, Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight.

Du Maurier is famous for writing novels, especially love stories. Although she is usually described as a romantic novelist, her stories have been judged as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her novels are mostly set in the county of carver where she lives, are so well known as "Cornish novels" for their portrayal of the rugged landscape of this remote and desolate seaside region. The book mentioned above named Jamaica Inn is one of the representative works of this style.

Du Maurier’s most famous work Rebecca was published in 1938 and it is one of Du Maurier's most successful works. After the book was published, it caused an immediate hit: selling nearly 3 million copies between 1938 and 1965. The novel has never gone out of print and has been adapted for both stage and film several times. In the U.S. Rebecca won the National Book Award for favorite novel of 1938, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. In the UK, it was listed at number 14 of the "nation's best-loved novel" on the BBC's 2003 survey “The Big Read” among 20 novels.

Narrated by the anonymous main character – “I”, the second wife of Mr. De Winter from the first person perspective, Rebecca tells a story going on through what “I” has experienced. When “I” newly graduated from school “I” met a decent, handsome man— Mr. De Winter during her trip with her aunt. They fell in love with each other and get married soon after that. Nevertheless , while these two couples were going on a honey moon in Manderly (Mr. De Winter’s ancestral manor) “I” found that the influence of her husband's ex-wife,the dead Rebecca was still lingering in this mansion. The estate was swarmed with objects with Rebecca's initials. Every one seemed to be whispering that “I” was not good enough as this capable fair lady. The worse thing was that Mrs. Danvers, the wacky stewardess of Manderly who regarded Rebecca as her own daughter, was hostile to “me” and accused her for deeming that “I” had stolen everything which should belong to Rebecca. Under pressure from so many sides the “I” was on the verge of collapse. However when “I” finally could’t bear the strain and break out an argument with Mr. De Winter , she learned an appalling fact. Mr. De Winter confessed that Rebecca was actually murdered by him. In his narration Rebecca was actually a licentious woman. And she had a strong willing to hold every one and everything in her hands. So he had to kill her in order to not to be overshadowed by her. Out of admiration for him Mrs. De Winter decided to cover up the fact. At this time, Rebecca's body was found, and the cause of her death renewed people’s attention. After investigation, the truth finally came to light: Rebecca committed suicide but she arranged everything that showed superficially the fact that she was killed by Mr. De Winter to revenge him. Mrs Danvers could not accept the truth then lit a fire and turn to dust and ashes with Manderley (Bernhard Frank, 2005: 4).

1.2 Literature Review

In most book reviews and papers Mrs. De Winter is highly praised for her innocence and purity, while Rebecca is usually misinterpreted as the embodiment of the evil, seductive, lewd, and cunning Satanic women. Some critics and scholars are even more indifferent to her. They prefer to discuss the gothic elements and feminist factors in Rebecca rather than analyze this so called infamous woman. Critics also make a comparers between Mrs. De Winter and Jane Eye created by Charlotte Bronte because they share so many similar features.They are both orphan but well educated. They are not strikingly beautiful, but both of them have a kind heart. They both married a very rich man successfully in the end…. In the mean time scholars studying Daphne du Maurier tend to research the combination between her life experience with the plots and characters appear in her work. They are trying to find out the influence of the author’s personal life experience exerted on the novel. It is regrettable that in almost all of these studies Rebecca is described as an evil. Due to this kind of bias when readers know she was murdered by her husband, they are delighted to hear that Mr. De Winter can get away with punishment, despite he is an ignominious murderer (indeed he did the horrible thing though he failed). As they finally know her death was eventually defined as suicide, most of them breathed a sigh of relief. They may possibly even complain about the hypocrisy of this malicious woman,much less to feel sorry for her death.

This situation finally changed in 2000. In Nigro, K. B’s paper Rebecca as desdemona: 'a maid that paragons description and wild fame' he posted a question that whether most readers' rejection of Rebecca are actually originated from the narrative of the author Daphne Du Maurier? In other words, whether the perspective of this novel has mislead readers (Nigro, 2000: 8)? In this paper Nigro and K. B put forward that Daphne Du Maurier played trick on her readers. She did not let the characters in this book tell the whole truth. The main characters Mr. and Mrs. De Winter choose to hide some fact and blacken Rebecca’s name for the sack of escaping punishment. This paper might be the first step in the road of regaining Rebecca’s reputation. Later in 2005, Bernhard Frank’s Du Maurier's Rebecca highly prised Rebecca as a suffragette who fight against oppression from male-dominated society. K. B and Bernhard Frank’s viewpoints were subversive, but they both made a similar mistake with former critics. Just like other critics who were accustomed to describe Rebecca as pure black, the innovations only focused on her flawless side. They still regard Rebecca as a one- sided role and overlooked her complexity.

This paper references previous point of view and thinks that every coin has its both sides, that is to mean every human has his virtues and blemishes. Even Rebecca is not a character who has a positive image, she won’t be a totally villain.

2. Rebecca’s Bright Side

2.1. Destructive Beauty

There are a great deal of writing techniques used in Rebecca for delivering a kind of mysterious graceful atmosphere to readers. The most successful one used in this novel is flashback. Although the book is called Rebecca, but actually Rebecca is not the main female character in this novel. She is dead when this story happens. However, she appears through out the whole story. In a manner of speaking she is still alive. She makes her first debut in the main female character’s first reminiscing about what happened in Manderly in the past when all the dust is settled. “ When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress, and when they shiver suddenly, and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the patter, patter, of a woman's hurrying footstep, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe” (Daphne, 1983: 4). The woman here, of course, is Rebecca. Readers are not told her appearance her age and her voice, but readers may imagine that what kind of a beauty she is so that she is blessed with such elegant grace (Petersen, 2009: 5).

Then time flashes back to the days in Manderly. Apart from guests’ compliments and servents’ praises, readers may feel of Rebecca’s charm from the furnishings displayed in this ancient manor as well. The living room, in which she has chosen every particle of furniture with great care is graceful and fragile, so that each chair, each vase, each small, infinitesimal thing should be in harmony with one another, and with her own personality.