Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - Essay Example

Rebecca The first few pages of the novel “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier deal with a dream about the return of the narrator to Manderley where she once lived. In essence, it describes the narrator entering the barred gates and walking down the overgrown drive to the main house. The scene is striking in its visualization because it conjures up before the reader’s eyes, an image and presentiment of the evil which was once associated with Manderley. The initial description is especially significant when viewed in the context of the story that follows, where the narrator was subjected to the horrific experience of living in a house which appeared to be haunted by the presence and spirit of a dead woman. There are two specific images that the narrator successfully creates through the description in the first few pages: (a) a sensation as if Manderley is a living being and (b) the association of evil with Manderley and (c) mobility, or the passage of time. In effect, the dream sequence is like a brief capsule that captures the essence of the storyline that is to follow. Scarry describes vivacity in the direction of reader visualization as the gap between the object that is imagined based upon the description and the perceptual object, which is what the author describes as the actual objects the reader is seeing. In the book “Rebecca”, the narrator is describing an overgrown driveway, where beeches from both sides have grown closer together to encroach on the driveway. This is what the narrator is actually seeing; however the perception of the reader is that nature is akin to a naked, devouring monster that is rapaciously gobbling up the remains of civilization and life that once existed at Manderley. Nature is described as having encroached on the drive with “long tenacious fingers”, the woods are described as “always a menace....dark and uncontrolled” and the gnarled roots are likened to “skeleton claws” and the ivy is described as “malevolent” (Du Maurier 1,2,3). The text also creates solidity through the use of material antecedents; for example the description of the uninhabited lodge with no smoke from the chimney and the little lattice windows gaping forlorn, which provide an indication that Manderley has been left as an empty shell. The earlier description of the malevolence of the forest also provides an indication of the nature of the edifice that is named Manderley and the unhappiness that resides within. The shadowy evil which is the background context of the entire dream is conferred solidity through kinetic occlusion as described by Scarry (1995). For instance, the woods are used as the objects that depict the evil – the hydrangeas grown “black and ugly” with “nameless parasites” the rhododendrons “twisted and entwined” with bracken in an alien marriage with shrubs that are described as “poor bastard things”. All these objects serve to solidify the notion that the shadow of evil has spread wide over Manderley and are the visible representation through which the background evil becomes manifest. The visual description of the dream is also replete with the sensory perceptions of the narrator, which are also entwined with her earlier memories and experiences at the same property. The underlying awareness of the narrator that Manderley in reality is not quite the same Manderley of her memories, is evident as she clarifies that “a change had come upon it” (DuMaurier 1). The elms are not merely elms, they are “tortured” elms, the shrubs are “monster” shrubs and the woods are “dark and uncontrolled”, the hydrangeas have risen to “monster height” without any flowers on them and they’re “black and ugly” with “nameless parasites” growing beside them (DuMaurier 1). The manner in which the narrator describes the land and woods surrounding Manderley, i.e, bereft of floral life that imparts beauty and overgrown to the point where they seem to be suffocating life and beauty, all reflect the perceptions of the narrator about Manderley. It becomes clear to the reader that Manderley is not a place where there is much sunshine or beauty; rather the reader gains a distinct impression that the general atmosphere of the place is such that it is suffocating, evil and unhappy. According to Scarry (1995), the principle of radiant ignition in reader visualization tends to confer mobility on objects through the use of light sources and surfaces that catch or reflect light. In “Rebecca”, this is evident in the narrator’s use of moonlight to capture the essence of Manderley and the beauty of the edifice which exists despite the unhappiness that dwells therein. The narrator describes Manderley as “secretive and silent” but the stone, albeit grey in colour and therefore dull and depressing, is “shining” in the moonlight like a “jewel in the hollow of a hand” (Maurier 2). As is revealed later in the story, Manderley was burnt down in the end, so the building the narrator would have been viewing would be an empty burnt out shell of a building. But as the narrator states, the light makes a difference and “play odd tricks upon the fancy” (Maurier 3). It is the effect of the moonlight in the narrator’s dream that gives the impression that the building is still rife with life, reverting back to the lived in home it once was, where the narrator lived with her husband. She gains the distinct impression that the lights inside the house are on, ashtrays still carry the remains of cigarette stubs and the dog is still in the library by the fire. The curtains as they “blew softly in the night air” are a rarity as Scarry (1995) indicates, conjuring up an image of curtains so soft and airy that they appear to float. The narrator’s “handkerchief on the table beside the bowl of autumn roses” confers a sense of easy movement because as Scarry (1995) explains, when something is only cloth, its pliability confers on it an ability to be moulded and shaped which also imparts movement. Hence, the narrator’s use of these techniques to promote reader visualization, draw the reader along on a path which the narrator takes, moving along from the woods outside to the outside of the building and then into the library, imparting a sensation of constant movement of the narrator, so that the images she is viewing and perceiving keep changing. The first four pages of Rebecca are notable in that they convey this sense of movement, of the narrator moving through and picking up perceptions that are a combination of both the past and the present. As the dream begins, the narrator experiences the feeling of the iron gate to the property being barred to her (Du Maurier 1). This appears to conform to Kosslyn’s depictive representation theory, where the associative memory unit of the brain tends to match external perceptions to mental images already stored in the brain (Kosslyn 139). According to the story, the narrator Rebecca continuously felt that she could never ever really be the mistress of Manderley which was closed to her, because the spirit of her husband’s ex-wife lived on there. Her memory of her prior experiences in the house may have conditioned her perceptions, which are evident in the dream, so that the frustrations and the feeling of being barred out which she had experienced are revealed through the barred iron gate. The first four pages which describe the narrator’s dream, appear to be a prelude, encapsulating the actual story that is told through the later pages of the book. There is a symbolism in the author’s initial perception in the dream of the way being barred to her. This was how the narrator felt when she first came to Manderley as a young bride, uncertain of her place and whether the seemingly rich and gracious style of life exemplified through Manderley was an expression of her own personality or whether such a lifestyle was barred to her. The atmosphere of evil that she describes in the wood and through the flora are an expression of the experiences she had in Manderley. The descriptions using moonlight and cloth appear to suggest movement or the passage of time, covering the years that the narrator spent at Manderley, going through the somewhat frightening and unnerving experiences that she was subjected to in the house, due to the stubborn determination of the housekeeper to retain the memory and practices of her former mistress, the first wife of the narrator’s husband. As the narrator’s dream begins, she is aware of the reality that Manderley has changed, but as she moves through the drive, she is drawn back into that world, so that for an instant, she sees Manderley still breathing with life. But as the dream sequence draws to an end, the effect of the light wears off and the illusion fades. The author then describes Manderley as it exists in the present, “a desolate shell, soulless at last, unhaunted, with no whisper of the past about its staring walls.” (Maurier 4). This establishes the end of the story, where the destruction of Manderley by a fire at last destroys the persistent memory of a woman and a lifestyle that are not the narrator’s but which were inflicted upon her for a brief period while she was living at Manderley. While reading the text, I gained a definite perception that Manderley did not associate with happy memories for the narrator. The visual depiction offered by the narrator suggests an atmosphere of deep, dark gloom and foreboding – grounds overgrown by jungle and nature taking over what was once a stately mansion. In my own experiences, I have sometimes travelled through through and played in the woods and it was not always a pleasant experience for me, especially on dark, rainy days. Reading this description reawakened early memories of such scary times and thereby prepared me mentally to read about narrator experiences at Manderley which were somewhat frightening and unnerving. My own background reading about elements of supernatural and mystical elements also influenced my perception of the narrator’s description, because an impression of evil was conveyed to me in the manner she describes the overgrown woods and the encroachments on the drive. The narrator’s description of the moonlight shining on the house and the manner in which the light appeared to make the house seem alive further conformed to my existing memories of supernatural and mystical elements and enhanced my perceptions of these elements as they influenced the narrator’s dream sequence. Another strong impression I gained through the visualization techniques used by the narrator was the sensation of movement. The narrator’s description made me experience the sensation of movement, not merely in terms of physical location from the grounds to the house but also in terms of movement through time itself. The dream sequence suggested the movement of the narrator through time – from the present to a foray into the past and then a return into the reality of the present. At the end of the scene, the narrator makes it clear that whatever was the past she was visualizing in her dream is now over and she has returned to the present, where Manderley has been reduced to nothing more than a burnt out shell of a once stately building. The use of light and cloth as described by Scarry also had the same impact on me which she describes, i/e. It provided me the distinct impression of movement – a movement so light that it effectively floats through years of time in the space of the few seconds or minutes it takes to go through a dream sequence. Works Cited: Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca, Virago Press, (1938)2003. Kosslyn, Stephen M. Cognitive Science Notes: The case for mental imagery , Oxford Psychology Series, 2006 Scarry, Elaine. On Vivacity: The difference between daydreaming and imagining – under authorial instruction, Representations, 52. (1995) Please answer these questions and print them out. Please staple one copy of this Assessment form to each copy of your paper. Try to be concise but thorough in your answers. Questions: 1. What is the thesis (main point) of your paper? The main point in my paper is a focus on how the narrator uses words to establish mobility – both in terms of movement and time and to establish sensations and perceptions of evil and unease that also form a part of the storyline. 2. Which parts of your paper do you feel are most effective in getting your point across? I feel that my explication of the details and description of the woods and the kind of reader visualization the narrator has used were the most effective in expressing how the reader has encapsulated the entire experience described in the novel. 3. Which parts still need work? I feel that perhaps my explication of my personal experiences and perceptions in my response and receptivity to the material as well as its impact on me, could have been better written 4. What sort of feedback would help you the most in revising these particular parts? I feel that perhaps some explanation about how I could weave theoretical aspects into my description of my own perceptions would best help to revise the work. Read More