The tale is an incredibly sad one. From the sunny France to the secluded Manderley, the gloom almost hovers around the plot, waiting to invade at the slightest opportunity, and coming full circle at the end for the nameless narrator of the novel.

I do not quite know or understand how to categorize this novel, the story is such a mixture of overlapping themes and occurrences, never a dull moment. The gloom can be credited to the nameless narrator, the new Mrs. de Winter of Manderley who moves around with a premonition of doom. From simple broken cupids to a meeting with the grandmother, things go astray easily, not to mention the seemingly restorative fancy dress ball at the house which marks the change of tone in the plot of the novel. Young and inexperienced in her new station of life, the new wife of Maxim de Winter is no match for dear Rebecca. The absent, dead protagonist casts a shadow over the narrator as nobody lets her forget how competent and likable the former mistress of the house was, how wonderfully charming and how happy she kept her “Max”. From the people she meets to the very house she now inhabits, the scent and invisible presence of Rebecca haunts her around. Mrs. Danvers’ unhealthy obsession with the late mistress is almost verging on insanity, from the hostile edge she keeps in her countenance to the way she has kept Rebecca’s chambers in pristine condition, in a manner that seems to imply that she has gone out for a moment and would return shortly, the role she plays in bringing about the unhappy circumstances regarding the fancy dress costume of the new Mrs. de Winter and finally her hand in the unfortunate event of the decimation of Manderley, is jarringly bizarre, especially, for the newcomer without friends in the country or much prior knowledge or context of the happenings of the years before her arrival.

The narrator keeps reminding the readers and her husband that she was not bred for a life like this and it is quite understandable that she is subjected to veiled, sometimes open hostility of the servants of the house. As for Maxim de Winter, the abrupt proposal for marriage and then the marriage itself does not give away much of his character. But it is apparent that he wants nothing to do with Rebecca’s memories, at least on the exterior. Renovating the east wing of the house and moving there from the west wing which he previously inhabited with Rebecca shows a kind consideration for the new bride on his part but the musty west wing becoming a tomb for Rebecca is hardly comforting for the narrator. The narrator’s eagerness in accepting the proposal is pitiful since she wanted to escape her employer Mrs. Van Hopper at any cost and held on to the first log she found while drowning. The love she feels for a man twice her age after less than a month’s acquaintance is questionable since the beginning and voiced by the cynical Mrs. Van Hopper. It is curious that the narrator is not made aware of any details of the accident which cost Rebecca her life until much later in the book when she has been living in Manderley for quite some time, and that too, not courtesy her husband but of Beatrice Lacy, Crawley and Mrs. Danvers. The information about Rebecca and the circumstances of her accident comes in bits an pieces, making her even more a mysterious figure, almost something superhuman. The scene where Mrs. Danvers recounts Rebecca’s daily life, preferences and the grim details of her accident is almost horrific, and the effect is spooky when she admits that she can feel Rebecca’s presence in the house sometimes in her usual spots. This is later carried on to the confrontation after the fancy dress incident where Mrs. Danvers goads Mrs. de Winter to replicate the portrait of Caroline de Winter, from an ancestral portrait in the gallery, which was exactly what Rebecca had chosen to wear at her last fancy dress ball.

It is notable how the women of the novel help make the narrator feel increasingly insecure in her position in both Maxim’s life and as the lady of Manderley. Even the Bishop’s wife within the short span of the first visit, makes her feel inadequate and lacking in comparison the previous mistress of the house who organised parties at the house with ease and attended the guests with equal grace and politeness of manner.

The narrator’s childish jealously in Monte Carlo when she tears the page of a poetry book with Rebecca’s handwriting on and burns it, slowly transforms into a defeated reverence where she simply accepts that she is not going to match up to the people’s expectations, after Rebecca, maybe not even her husband’s. This sad defeat makes her visibly sick as she loses much of her color and gets thinner. Rebecca becomes a topic she tries to avoid, at the same time, the mythical creature takes up her mind space as she keeps wandering in a space that is marked by her presence and keeps interacting with people who hold her to Rebecca’s standard. The air of secrecy between the new couple was not comforting for the narrator. Maxim never volunteered any information about Rebecca or what he was feeling or why he was angry at certain turn of phrases, and questioning him was not in the nature of the narrator. She talked to Crawley, Beatrice talked to her and is probably the only one who treated her without prejudice, Mrs. Danvers was eager to show and tell her all about Rebecca but her foreboding figure made her unpleasant to the narrator.

Finally, when the air of mystery is stripped off the figure of Rebecca, Mrs. de Winter is faced with a horrible reality where her beloved is a murderer. Through sheer brilliance of writing and story-telling, the focus of the reader is diverted to the questionable character of Rebecca which Maxim reveals as his cause for the murder. Interesting characters like Favell, Ben and the coroner makes up the rest of the novel which keeps the readers on the edge of their seat. The mystery thickens and is explored at the same time. Curiously, the secret is revealed with a shipwreck, symbolic for the outer world invading the carefully protected world of Manderley. This small world is referred to as the thing that matters to both the living protagonists immensely as they keep up appearances for the sake of the people, and Maxim had come to a compromise with Rebecca suffering great personal loss to protect the honor and name of the house.

The reference to Jane Eyre and Othello is apparent in the plot and taken further into the dark realities of the human psyche. As the novel ends with Manderley up in flames, the image is extraordinarily similar to the end that we see in Jane Eyre. The exile that the de Winters suffer is described at the beginning of the novel and now that the narration is given more context, their satisfaction with their stagnant life in Europe is made clear to the readers.

The case of dual identities explored in the novel gives it a kind of haze where the narrator is trying to replicate what Rebecca did while at the same time abhorring her silent presence in their life. Almost Gothic in setting, the house plays a prominent role in the course of the novel as the events revolve around it. The identity of the house engulfs the identity of Maxim who in turn imposes his identity upon the new Mrs. de Winter, this is too apparent in the novel as she is referred to by that one name concerning her husband only. Rebecca’s rebellion against this imposition is blurred as her unfaithful character is highlighted and her cruel nature given more emphasis.

In the ashes of Manderley, the narrator finds a kind of liberation that sets her free from the growing shadow of her predecessor, and she finds the quiet life in Europe with her fatherly husband fulling. She ends her life exactly as she began it, companion to a much older person of a prestigious name, the only difference, her payment from Maxim de Winter is affection and not money.