A Feminist Double-Take: The Seductive Nature of Rebecca

Samantha Dever
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Critics often see romance novels ―as coercive and stereotyping narratives which invite the

reader to identify with a passive heroine who only finds true happiness submitting to a masterful

male‖ (Light 7). Romance novels are often marginalized in literary criticism because they extol

as a virtue the one thing that other literature seeks to avoid: formula. They often follow familiar

story lines, have almost interchangeable characters, and an inevitable, and therefore unsurprising,

conclusion—marriage. Daphne Du Maurier‘s Rebecca uses many of these elements and devices

commonly found in romance novels. The nameless narrator is a young and waifish female, and

her beau and eventual husband Max, a rich and dominating male. She is quickly overwhelmed by

him in all his mysterious masculinity, and swept off her feet with a marriage proposal; they then

go to live in his fairytale-esque estate, Manderley.

According to The Natural History of the Romance, by Pamela Regis, the simplest

definition of a romance novel is that it is ―a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the

courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines‖ (19). Regis also believes that although

Rebecca contains fragments of a romance novel‖ it is often ―misread‖ as such, when it should be

read, and categorized, under the more encompassing genre of gothic literature (48). The gothic

and romance novel genres overlap in many places. In fact, ―romance novels can be gothic novels

as well‖ (49). I would argue that because Rebecca is read, rightly or wrongly, as a pure romance

novel by its readers, examining Rebecca in that context provides important information on how

bendable the romance novel genre—a genre which is normally considered formulaic and

inflexible—truly is. The most important way Rebecca deviates from the romance novel formula

is with its title character. Rebecca is the antithesis of the typical romance novel heroine: strong,

willful, sexually promiscuous, and overtly manipulative and calculating. In her article, ―Between

Identification and Desire: Rereading 'Rebecca,'" Janet Harbord writes that "what Rebecca is
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ultimately condemned for within the text is also what makes her appealing: her transgression of

the categories of class, gender, and sexuality" (102). She operates outside of the societal rules of

the day. In her novel, Du Maurier juxtaposes Rebecca against the narrator of the novel, who has

many text-book romance heroine qualities. Throughout the novel the reader can identify with the

safer fantasy of the narrator while still able to explore the darker, yet appealing, fantasy that

Rebecca‘s character represents.

But what does being a ―romance novel‖ actually mean? Attempting to tease apart what

makes the romance novel genre different from other genres is complicated by the parts and

etymology of the word itself. The broadest definition of ―romance‖ refers to ―the story of

individual human beings pursuing their precarious existence within the circumscription of social,

moral, and various other this-worldly problems…‖ (Regis 19). The difficulty with this definition

is that it could encompass almost all of fiction. Because of the age of the genre, going back to the

Greeks, it almost seems as if there are almost as many definitions of the word romance as there

are romances. In a slightly more modern definition by Clara Reeve in her Progress of Romance,

she says that the romance ―in lofty and elevate language describes what has never happened nor

is likely to‖ (21). The word ―novel‖ confuses the situation even more. Currently the word

―novel‖ has evolved to refer to any fictional book of reasonable size. In fact, for the sake of

simplicity, later on I refer to Rebecca in this sense as a "novel.‖ However, in one of the oldest

definitions of the word, developed in the seventeenth century, a ―novel‖ is considered to be ―a

picture of real life and manners, and of the times in which it was written‖ (21). The most basic

and simplistic difference between romances and the oldest definition of the word novel is that

novels are entrenched in fantasy, while novels are fixed in reality. Knowing both of their

definitions, it is difficult to reconcile the two terms. However, ―romance novel‖ has come to
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mean something greater than the sum of its parts. This more contemporary term is much more

specific than its predecessors, and incorporates both fantasy and reality.

The romance novel genre is the most ―female‖ of all genres, featuring almost exclusively

female protagonists written by female authors (10). Many critics and even faithful readers

disregard anything but modern romance novels, seemingly wanting to believe that the genre only

appeared, an ancestor-less child, in the mid-twentieth century. They ―pay lip service to the

forebears of contemporary works. This practice robs the genre of its most distinguished

representatives, marooning it in the present…‖ (28). Romance novels were published much

earlier than the mid-twentieth century. Published in 1740, Samuel Richardson‘s Pamela; Or

Virtue Rewarded is considered to be the earliest example of a romance novel, and one of the few

written by a male. As time progressed, the genre became dominated by female writers, including

Jane Austen and her classic romance novel, Pride and Prejudice in 1813, Charlotte Bronte‘s Jane

Eyre in 1847, and of course, Daphne Du Maurier‘s Rebecca in 1938. All of these romance novels

were massive bestsellers in their day, and even sell well in present day. Taking this into

consideration, it seems as if there are two categories of romance novels, the ones that thrive on

the formula established, and the ones who ―demonstrate the flexibility of the form‖ (11) and

deviate, therefore distinguishing themselves from the more standard romance novels.

In The Natural History of Romance, Regis discusses eight essential elements that all

romance novels must incorporate within their text: the initial state of society in the world of the

characters, the meeting, the barrier, the attraction, the declaration, the point of ritual death, the

recognition, and the betrothal (30). Most of these are self explanatory and are innately

understood by readers as necessary to the romance novel formula. Although she acknowledges
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that the romance novel genre contains a certain amount of flexibility, she still would consider

Rebecca to be a gothic novel, more so than a romance novel. Even though she argues that

Rebecca does not fit this formula, I would argue that just because it bends the rules and

incorporates elements unusual to the genre (i.e. the character Rebecca) does not mean it does not

qualify as a romance novel—especially when she also claims that many readers perceive

Rebecca to be a romance novel.

These elements, essential to romance novels, are fairly easy to find in the relationship

between Max and the narrator. In the initial state of society, the society must be ―flawed; it may

be incomplete, superannuated, or corrupt" (31). The society of the narrator and Max is flawed in

that it is corrupt. They meet in Monte Carlo, the playground of the rich and bored. The narrator's

employer, the representation of society, spends all her time gossiping and trying to insinuate

herself with the other famous residents. The barrier is the reason why the hero and heroine

cannot marry, which can be anything from uncontrollable natural disasters to the internal

psychological conflicts of the characters (32). At first, the barrier is that the narrator is from a

lower class than Max and that she believes that she is not attractive enough, or experienced

enough for him—he's out of her league. A later barrier, not to their marriage, but to their

successful marriage is Rebecca, and all of the secrets associated with her. The attraction keeps

the hero and heroine together long enough to overcome the barrier (33). The narrator is attracted

to Max because he is worldly and handsome, and Max is attracted to the narrator because she is

the opposite of Rebecca. The declaration is when Max finally declares his love for her, nearly at

the end of the novel. The point of ritual death is when ―the union between the heroine and hero,

the hoped-for resolution, seems absolutely impossible, when it seems that the barrier will remain,

more substantial than ever‖ (35). This is when the narrator learns that she is leaving Monte Carlo
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with her employer. The recognition is when the author reveals new information that will help the

couple overcome the barrier (36). This happens when Max eventually tells the narrator about his

marriage with Rebecca, exposing his secrets, and therefore bringing them closer as a couple. The

betrothal is just as it sounds, when Max asks the narrator to marry him in the sixth chapter, and

she says yes. So Rebecca contains all of these essential romantic elements, but unusually crams

most of them within the first several chapters, bringing the betrothal to the front, and kicking the

declaration and recognition to the back of the novel.

Rebecca has all the necessary properties of a romance novel—that much is clear.

However, one important difference between a typical romance novel and Rebecca is inclusion of

the title character. Because the novel is titled Rebecca, readers expect its heroine to be Rebecca,

instead, the reader finds out that she is Max‘s dead wife. Only through hearsay does the reader

learn anything about Rebecca, but the text still revolves around her. Alison Light writes in her

journal article ―Returning to Manderley – Romance Fiction, Female Sexuality and Class,‖ that

"Rebecca becomes the figure of the [narrator's] unfulfilled desires...the absent center around

which the narrative and its definitions of femininity turns" (12). She is the spinning axis of the

world of Manderley, and the most influential character, despite her physical absence from the

action of the novel. It‘s no accident that the book is titled Rebecca, and the narrator is given no

name. The narrator is meant to fade into the background, and Rebecca is intended to catch, and

hold, the reader‘s attention. Rebecca is a romance novel that does not quite fit the mold of a

traditional romance novel, and Rebecca, the character, is mainly what makes this so.

Despite evidence against Rebecca, it is hard for the reader to consider her to be purely

evil. This sets her apart from other strong females in past literature. Up until the recent past,
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female characters in literature were often dichotomous: virgins or whores, good or bad, domestic

paragons or evil, manipulative women. In fact, this is the exact set-up of Rebecca. The narrator is

innocent and virginal, and Rebecca, her opposite. But usually in this set up, the ―evil‖ one comes

as less appealing, a cautionary tale as it were, and this is not the case. Alive, Rebecca represents

freedom, as she flouts the rules of society and conventional feminine behavior; dead, she

represents power, as she shapes the lives of the still living characters. Because she is so

unorthodox, Rebecca is the far more interesting character and it‘s difficult for the narrator to

compete with her. ―The reader, like the girl (narrator), wants to be Rebecca, but dare not‖ (13).

But although the narrator is not as fascinating as Rebecca per say, she is still necessary as a foil

to Rebecca‘s seductively dark nature. To truly appreciate Rebecca‘s freedom in the novel, the

reader must be able to see her beside the repressed narrator; the contrast makes Rebecca even

more appealing. It also allows the reader to explore the more dangerous fantasy of being Rebecca

and acting like Rebecca, through the safer, more orthodox fantasy of being the narrator.

Although Rebecca seems to fall more toward the evil, manipulative end of the spectrum

of typical female characters, Du Maurier gives the reader a few clues that Rebecca is more

complex than this spectrum allows for. Firstly, because she is dead, everything we hear about

Rebecca is hearsay from other characters; she is truly an unknowable character. There is always

a distance between her and the reader, and so, to the narrator and the reader Rebecca becomes

more important as an idea or concept, rather than a person. She is "a figment of the [narrator's]

imagination, invented from a sense of her own social and sexual limitations. ‗Rebecca' is a

projection of her own desires which both help to produce and ratify the girl's feelings of

inadequacy" (Light 11). Secondly, most of Rebecca‘s ―crimes‖ are tied to not being a proper

wife to Max, not being properly submissive and deferential, sleeping with other men, and the like.
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Her behavior from a man of the time would have been frowned upon, but probably tolerated by

the female spouses in Rebecca and Max‘s class. But being a female, Rebecca‘s actions are

unorthodox and not tolerated for long. Her biggest "crime" however, is not conforming to

society's idea of the feminine. Although Rebecca self-destructs before the novel even begins, in

her tale, the narrator discovers a way of living completely alien to anything she had ever

encountered before. The narrator admires Rebecca for being everything that she is not. ―Rebecca

emerges as an aristocratic mix of independent and ‗essential‘ femininity, a strong physical

presence, a confident and alluring sexuality‖ (11). Rebecca represents a dangerous and wild, yet

potently attractive, femininity—a femininity which knows no restrictions, a rarity in the literature

of the time.

Rebecca flouts Max‘s authority in many ways. Even the smallest ways she undermines

his authority have great significance. For example, she refuses to call him by his proper name—

which everyone else in his family calls him—Maxim, a word which literally means ―a principle

or rule of conduct.‖ Maxim, the character, is rule-driven. He is the authority figure, the head of

the household, and cares dearly about maintaining appearances in society. Rebecca deliberately

ignores his rules, has wild parties at Manderley, travels to the seedier parts of London alone, and

commits adultery. And when Max knows he can‘t keep the true nature of his marriage with

Rebecca a secret anymore, he kills her. Not in a jealous rage because she slept with other men

(he knew she was doing that for a while) but coldly. Rebecca told him she was going to have

another man‘s child who would become the heir to Manderley but, more importantly, was

becoming more careless about maintaining the flawless façade of their marriage. "At the

beginning of the marriage, we learn, the bargain is struck: the pretense of respectable married life

in exchange for discreet sexual freedom. Yet Rebecca does not simply invert a binary structure
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of virgin/whore; she refuses the terms of this restriction, to be contained by the structure"

(Harbord 101). Rebecca refuses to conform, so Max eliminates her.

The reader, along with the narrator, does not find out until very late in the novel that Max

considers Rebecca to be evil. In fact, throughout the majority of the story, the narrator believes

that Max was deeply in love with Rebecca, and that she was a paragon of virtue. Later, Max tells

her differently. He says of Rebecca: ―She was vicious, damnable, rotten through and

through…incapable of love, of tenderness, of decency. She was not even normal‖ (Du Maurier

275). The fact that the only person who confirms Rebecca‘s evil nature is the husband who killed

her is dubious enough. In fact, his greatest complaint—inferred from the fact that he lists it last

and separately from her other faults and uses the word "even" to emphasize the enormity of the

charge—is that Rebecca was not ―normal.‖ It was truly this that Max killed Rebecca for—her

―otherness,‖ not because she told him she was pregnant with another man‘s child. Rebecca‘s

refusal to conform to society's idea of the feminine, her "flaunting of the theatricality of gender

identity" (Harbord 101) infuriated Max, who represented society, stability, and the status quo,

not of class, as is so often the case, but of gender. ―What is at stake in [Rebecca's] murder is the

continuance of male authority and of masculinity itself, as it is defined through ownership and

the power of hierarchy‖ (Light 15).The catalyst, not the reason, for him killing Rebecca is her

adulterous pregnancy; the reason is that Rebecca threatened the structure of Max's world with her

refusal to confine herself within traditional boundaries of femininity.

Rebecca is such an alluring character because she represents freedom from the gender-

based expectations of society, especially regarding her marriage to Max. ―Rebecca refused to

obey the law whereby women exchange their bodies for social place‖ (Light 15). She had an
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extraordinary amount of freedom, which the reader hears about second-hand. Mrs. Danvers says

of her: ―She did what she liked, she lived as she liked‖ (Du Maurier 248). This was highly

unusual in a time where many women were expected to ―do what they liked as long as it didn‘t

conflict with their husbands‘ interests, and lived as their husbands liked them to.‖ Rebecca‘s goal

seems to be to do whatever she pleases selfishly, according to society, not considering her

husband in her actions. Rebecca broke wild horses, cut her hair short, left for London at a whim,

sailed boats alone, and had affairs; she did not care to please society beyond her extremely

surface behavior which she saw as a game, which pleased her. Mrs. Danvers describes Rebecca's

attitude toward the rest of humanity as this: "She laughed at you as she did all the rest. I've

known her to come back and sit upstairs on her bed and rock with laughter at the lot of you" (Du

Maurier 346). Even her death is part of her freedom and her hold on the lives of the other

characters.

Rebecca‘s death is also part of her freedom and her power. In some novels, when females

find they cannot fit within the constraints of the social paradigm, they kill themselves (The

Awakening, Madame Bovary). Rebecca‘s death is similar in a way but more calculating. Just

before he kills her, Rebecca seems to egg Max on, describing in detail how her child would be

raised at Manderley. She laughs, and says ―I‘ll be the perfect mother Max, like I‘ve been the

perfect wife. And none of them will even guess, none of them will ever know‖ (284). Then Max

shoots her. ―She lures Maxim into killing her and thereby alters forever the balance of his

authority and power‖ (Light 19). Later the reader finds out that earlier on the day of her murder,

Rebecca had visited a doctor who told her she was going to die of cancer, a way most definitely

out of her control. It makes sense that she would take her death into her own hands, or Max‘s for

that matter. For what is death but the ultimate freedom? As she gains more freedom in her death,
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she also gains more power. Her murder allows her to haunt and, to a certain extent, control the

present, heavily influencing the lives of the other characters.

Rebecca is a literary chameleon. It strikes a strange balance of incorporating elements of

both genres, being read as one genre by the general population and read as another by literary

critics. It is an unusual romance novel, not because of its exclusion of standard parts of the

romance novel, but because of its inclusion of the character of Rebecca and its manipulation of

classic romance novel elements, but it still conforms to the genre just enough that it still ―reads‖

as a romance novel. People's perceptions of genre often color their perception of the novels

within them. Because readers often categorize Rebecca in the romance novel genre, which is not

only marginalized and dismissed critically but not taken seriously by its readers either, they may

miss Rebecca's many complexities and undertones that they would expect to see, and therefore

easily find, in a "work of literature." Analyzing Rebecca is a way to figure out what ―other‖

material can be incorporated in a romance novel without making it ―read‖ as a member of a

different genre, and examining the character Rebecca in that context reveals a broader perception

of what "sum of parts" can make up a romance novel and what an unconventional writer, willing

to play with the rules of the genre, can produce.

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Works Cited

Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997. Print.

Harbord, Janet. ―Between Identification and Desire: Rereading ‗Rebecca‘‖ Feminist Review. 53

(1996): 95-107. Web. 10 November 2009.

Light, Alison. ―‗Returning to Manderley‘ – Romance Fiction, Female Sexuality and Class.‖

Feminist Review. 16 (1984): 7-25. Web. 10 November 2009.

Regis, Pamela. A Natural History of the Romance. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press,

2003. Print.