Rebecca
a novel by Daphne Du Maurier
Character Analyzation: Mrs.de Winter
Another example of how Mrs.de Winter is insecure is that she believes Maxim still loves Rebecca. "How could I come to you when I knew you were still thinking about Rebecca' I said. 'How could i ask you to love me when I knew you loved Rebecca still?'… 'Whenever you touched me I thought you were comparing me to Rebecca." (271). This makes her insecure about her relationship with Maxim because she still thinks he is in love with his first dead wife.
To add on, another reason of her insecurities about herself was that she could never please Maxim. For example "I could not move, I went on standing there, my hand on the banister. 'It's the picture,' I said, terrified at his eyes, at his voice. ' Its the picture, the one in the gallery.' There was a long silence. We went on starring at each other . Nobody moved in the hall. I swallowed my hand move to my throat. ' What is it?' I said. 'What have i done?" (213). This shows that she tries to please Maxim by trying to be like his first dead wife. This would defiantly lead to insecurities when she doesn't please Maxim.
Lastly, her age and the age difference between them also makes her question how Maxim thinks of her. "I wish I was a women of about thirty-six dressed in black satin and a string of pearls.' … 'You'll think I'm imperetent and rude, I dare say,' I went on, ' but I would like to know why you ask me to come out in the car day after day. You are being kind that's obvious, but why do you choose me for your charity?" (37). This shows how she is uncomfortable with how young she is and how she wishes she was older. The second part of the citation shows how she doesn't think that he could be in love with her and that he is just being nice. He also refers to her throughout the text as "child".
The new Mrs. de Winter has many insecurities and many reasons for her insecurities. Once she finds out that Maxim loves her (the main reason for her insecurities) she conquers them and has a better relationship with Maxim.
Claim
'Mrs. de Winter afraid?' said Mrs. Danvers. ' She was afraid of nothing and no one." (343). Also, " Mrs. de Winter never needed a doctor. Like all strong people she despised them. We only had Doctor Phillips from Kerrith here once, that one tike she sprained her wrist. I've never heard her speak of this Doctor Baker, she never mentioned his name to me." (347). These examples show how Mrs.Danvers thought she knew everything about the late Rebecca de Winter so when someone suggested something that went beyond her knowledge and image of Rebecca, she refused to accept it. Like in the first example when someone said that maybe she had an enemy or a fear. Mrs. Danvers immediately responded no because she didn't know for sure and it went against her belief of this strong fearless person. In the second example she demonstrates the same thing where she never heard Rebecca speak of the doctor and she couldn't possibly be seeing one for "all strong people despised doctors". It went once again against her idea of Rebecca. Another way Mrs. Danvers shows this is through her actions towards Mrs. de Winter. Throughout the text Mrs. Danvers demonstrates that she believes that Manderley still belongs to the late Rebecca de Winter. At the end of the book when Maxim and Mrs. de Winter are driving back from London, they see Manderley up in flames. The author leads the reader into concluding that Mrs. Danvers burnt down the mansion. Mrs. Danvers must have thought, if Rebecca can't live in Manderley, then no one can. This is most likely why she burnt down Manderley.
Another character that slightly represents this theme is the infamous late Rebecca de Winter herself. Rebecca not only feared growing old and dying of an illness, she thought that she should not grow old or die ill because she was so "strong". " If I had a child Max, 'she said, ' no one in the world ever prove its not yours. It would grow up here in Manderley, bearing your name. There would be nothing you could do. And when you died, Manderley would be all his'…
' When I killed her, she was smiling still. I fired at her heart. The bullet went right through her." (279-280). Rebecca lied to Maxim about the one thing she knew he would kill her about. This prevented her from dying of an illness or if she survived cancer, growing old. Also by not killing herself and having Maxim do it for her, when she died Maxim had to live with killing someone for the rest of his life. Rebecca was so concerned about her image as a strong and healthy women, she only saw the position of ending her life to preserve that.
As you can see, when someone believes in something so strongly about others or themselves they accept no other option or other side of the story. This causes them to make dangerous and life ending decisions.