Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca; desire and identification.

Examine the different ways in which Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca engages with the issues of desire and identification.

In Du Maurier's (2003) Rebecca, identification and desire are key, entwined ideas. To explore them I will focus on the narrator and Maxim's desires and how they change their identities, the performance of desire and identity in costume and gender including theory of Butler's Gender Troubles (1990), the narrator's desire for Rebecca, the 'ghost' of Rebecca in relation to queer theory and Castle's The Apparitional Lesbian (1993) and well as Mrs Danvers and her involvement with the narrator and Rebecca. I will also look at the genre's used in the novel.

In Rebecca, the desire between man and wife isn't shown in a conventional romantic way as they seem to not have a usual adult and loving relationship since they only ever passionately kiss after Maxim's confession to murdering his late wife, which is strange enough alone.

If this isn't odd enough, the reader finds that the two have a Father and daughter relationship through most of the novel, it being subverted in the opening (at the beginning of the novel where the narrator holds a Motherly role caring for Maxim who has become shell-like after the burning of Manderley).

Due to this novel being marketed at the time, and still today, as part of the Romantic Fiction, this relationship is most peculiar as heterosexual desire is a leading element within this genre, however it is arguable that this text may be attempting, like many modern text, to be intentionally questioning the conventions of this genre to the means of confronting same sex female desire and the repressions it can have of female sense of identity, something I will discuss later in this essay.

Still, Du Maurier does employ some aspects of the Romantic genre rather effectively in this novel such as; the plot being centred around a heterosexual relationship and marriage, use of exotic locations or occasions (e.g. the ball and Monte Carlo) and intense emotions within the romantic relationship between people of high social class. However, other techniques that she uses such as marriage used as a devise of desire to encourage the plot and help the heroine discover her identity (such as in conventional Romantic Fictions) yet she chooses to alter it by to not having 'happily ever after' in the conclusion, as the two seem to be in exile from everything they love and be in a state of punishment, perhaps a result of them both killing Rebecca (physically/her memory).

She also chooses for the romantic hero in Maxim becoming aggressive, fatherly and passive, a combination not likely to have many followers of the genre swoon.

However to start she follows Romantic conventions, in the quotation below we can see her using intertextual references to other Romantic texts such as Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847) and other Romanticised heroes like Conan Doyles' Sherlock-Holms (1904) to form the description of a man walking a fifteenth-century city, to create 'Man-about-Town' imagery and the descriptions of his items of clothing that suggest richness and high class, much to the same effect as Atwood's character of the Polish Count does in Lady Oracle, (1976) and Walter in Sarah 'Waters' (1998) Tipping the Velvet.

He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires…His face was arresting, sensitive, medieval in some strange inexplicable way, and I was reminded of a portrait seen in a gallery…Could one but rob him of his English tweeds, and put him in black, with lace at his throat and wrists, he would stare down at us in our new world …from a long-distant past… men walked cloaked at night, and stood in the shadow of old doorways. (Du Maurier, 2003, pp.15)

Also, the slow pace in this quotation created by the long sentence structure seems to frame Maxim in the readers first encounter of him as a man who is worth of a woman to stop, observe and romanticise about.

However Maxim could also been seen in an entirely different light in relation to the Gothic genre, for in the quotation we see the first glance at the problems in their relationship, the paternal and aggressive masculinity which is a prominent side to Maxim in the novel.

Du Maurier uses the words 'dark', 'medieval' and the phrase ' he would stare down at us' (Du Maurier, 2003, pp.15) and create the image of an aristocratic tyrant, observing the narrator with disdain to question whether he is the romantic hero or gothic villain.

Maxims character is questioned further by the reader with his aggressive outbursts towards the childlike innocent narrator and the reader begin to feel a perversion in the romantic attraction between the pair.

'Listen my sweet. When you were a little girl, were you every forbidden to read certain books, and did your father put those books under lock and key?’‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Well, then. A husband is not so different from a father after all. There is a certain type of knowledge I prefer you not to have. It’s better kept under lock and key. So that’s that. And now eat up your peaches, and don’t ask me any more questions, or I shall put you in the corner.’ ‘I wish you would not treat me as if I was six,’ I said. ‘How do you want to be treated?’ ‘Like other men treat their wives.’ ‘Knock you about, you mean?’ ‘Don’t be absurd… You’re playing with me all the time, just as if I was a silly little girl.’ (Du Maurier, 2003, pp. 226-7)

Indeed, the relationship between Maxim and the narrator seems to be prompted by a desire for innocence, which is rather reminiscent of Stokers Dracula (1897) in which Dracula feeds from the innocence in order to corrupt them sexually, however by Maxim taking a role closer to the father than the lover, his desire for innocence seem to be less destructive and more protective of sexuality and the identity of the narrator and fearful of what others, perhaps others like Rebecca, could do to his new angelic wife.

Horner and Zlosnik write that 'Rebecca is associated throughout the novel with several characteristics that traditionally denote the vampire: facial pallor, plentiful hair and voracious sexual appetite.' (pp.111) and notice that she was killed more than once 'she was shot; she had cancer; she drowned' (pp.111). This idea of Rebecca being the enemy and who Maxim is protecting her new wife from is reminiscing on Gothic heroes' like Van-Helsing of Dracula. Comparisons are drawn further after the discovery that Maxim murdered Rebecca as she is revealed as the threat that intends to corrupt his two loves, Manderley and now new wife due to her growing identification to Rebecca and her desires .

Also by Du Maurier using this form of relationship for the 'normal' desire bond in the novel, we could see how Mrs Danvers raising Rebecca, "She ought to have been a boy, I often told her that. I had care of her as a child" ( Du Maurier, 2003, Rebecca, pp. 272), Du Maurier maybe drawing on the similarities between the two relationships to suggestion the sexual nature between the two women.

Prior to meeting Maxim, the narrator is a young woman struggling to find her identity and understand her desires. Throughout this novel, Du Maurier uses performance and costume similar to Sarah Waters (1998) Tipping the Velvet to explore this.

Butler argues that gender exists as a form of social performance. She argues that woman isn't a fixed identity and that gender;

'intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities. As a result, it becomes impossible to separate out "gender" from political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained.' (Butler, 1990, pp.6).

She goes on to write; 'in this sense, gender is not a noun, but neither is it a set of free floating attributes, for we have seen that the substantive effect of gender is performatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practice of gender coherence.' (1990, pp.33) which questions how much of gender identity is performance.

'Put a ribbon in your hair and be Alice-in-Wonderland' (Du Maurier, 2003, p 219)

In the quotation we see Maxim attempt for the narrator to assume the innocent to please him for fear of her dressing as a 'femme-fatal' , associated with Rebecca. His suggestion of childlike 'Alice' from Carroll's children's books (1865, 1871) is an example of intertextuality, used in the Romantic genre, such as in Atwood's Lady Oracle, (1976), Sarah Waters (1998) Tipping the Velvet, Morrison's Sula (1973) and Winterson's Oranges are not the Only Fruit (1985).

Both of Maxim's wives dress to replicate Caroline de Winter, , and all of her social desirability in attempt to achieve different reactions in Maxim. Horner and Zlosnik (1998) writes of the narrators 'overwhelming desire is to please and surprise maxim by 'dressing up'' (pp118) by becoming as something virginal and pure, but as Rebecca also dressed up this way they go on to argue that she used it to aid her identity shield and perhaps disguise her bisexuality and construct 'heterosexualized femininity' to anger Maxim.

In the line "And my curls were her curls, they stood out from my face as hers did in the picture" (Du Maurier, 2003, p238) the narrator uses the costume become the identity of Caroline, rather than mimic. As Rebecca dressed this way in the past she is also, invertible, becoming Rebecca.

This scene is like the narrators dreams of transforming into Rebecca, in which Du Maurier explores the narrators hopes of pleasing her husband by presenting herself as stronger and closer to Rebecca, who, at this point, she believes Maxim loved dearly.

Du Maurier referred to Rebecca as 'a study of Jealousy', jealousy the result of unobtainable desires. This is shown most prominently in a passage on pages 261-262 where the narrators lists her fears about Rebecca and the reminders of her she has encountered, this creates a tone of hysteria in the narrators voice which shows how greatly she has identified herself to Rebecca.

Yet, one must question the use of Rebecca being dead throughout the novel but the fact she has a presence which creates the illusion of her being alive.

In the Haunted Heiress, Auerbach writes ‘she [Du Maurier] had a passionate self within herself: the boy in the box, that independent entity who fell in love with women while preserving the wife and mother from the tarnish of lesbianism’ (pp.74). In this Auerbach argues that Du Maurier had repressed lesbian feelings and as the novel suggests, Rebecca may have been modelled upon Maurier's own identity and desire as Rebecca is 'boxed' in death, however, her acted upon her desires in life and became an example for Du Maurier's fear of displaying the true lesbian ultimately destroying the individual.

We can see evidence in the text that Rebecca too was a 'boy-in-the-box' but she expresses her 'boxed' desires by choosing the masculine-female fashion of short hair and taking part in boisterous activities such as sailing and horse riding.

‘Everyone was angry with her when she cut her hair…of course short hair was much easier for riding and sailing’ (Du Maurier, 2006, p. 190)

Du Maurier uses Gothic Genre conventions to create the ghost-like character of Rebecca by imitating a technique of 'haunting' used in other Gothic text, such as Jane Eye, which often leaves the narrator becoming strongly associating and psychologically linked with the identity of the ghostly 'Other'. The 'Other', Rebecca, grows in the mind of the narrator and, with much help from Mrs Danvers, attacks her identity.

Horner and Zlonik write 'The narrators identity is haunted by an Other' (1998, pp. 99) and in this text this is shown in many ways, including when the narrator dreams her handwriting and appearance become that of Rebecca's.

I got up and went to the looking-glass. A face stared back at me that was not my own. … The face in the glass stared back at me and laughed. And I saw then that she was sitting on a chair before the dressing-table in her bedroom… Maxim was brushing her hair. He held her hair … and as he brushed it he wound it slowly into a thick rope. It twisted like a snake, and he took hold of it and … put it round his neck. (Du Maurier, 2003, Rebecca, pp. 426)

In this quotation the use of the narrator slowly becoming Rebecca and the application of snakes, which biblically links to 'Eve' (female curiosity, Original Sin and the temptation of men) in the readers mind, Du Maurier is showing the power of Rebecca and expressing that she is wanting to link into the narrators identity.

In The Apparitional Lesbian, Castle argues that in fiction the Lesbian is 'ghosted' as is her desire and she is drained of “any sensual or moral authority” ( Castle, 1993, pp.32) Castle refers to this process as “derealization” (Castle, 1993, pp.6) meaning an attempt that the Lesbian is now disappeared and no-existent and a ghost like entity is formed to take her place, a form that is easier to be completely removed.

Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been "ghosted" or made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised. (Castle, 1993, pp.32)

With this in mind, we can further see how Du Maurier may have felt her to be too risqué of a character to explore her time, as I have written before, thus she is dead.

However, Rebecca, although ghosted, is most overtly desired throughout the novel (by Maxim ,Jack Favell, Mrs. Danvers, the narrator and in their social circles). By doing this Du Maurier is attempting to 'un-ghost' her and expose her sexuality , be it Lesbian or bisexual. In the quotation below, Maxim indicates to a tabooed side of her personality that he seems reluctant or ashamed to provide detail to.

You thought I loved Rebecca?... I hated her I tell you…She was vicious, damnable, rotten … We never loved each other, never had one moment of happiness together. Rebecca was incapable of love, of tenderness, of decency. She was not even normal.’ (Du Maurier, 2004, p. 304.)

In this we see how Maxim, who perhaps represents society hence why Du Maurier deemed it necessary to 'ghost' this desire, finds her to be abnormal and associates her and her sexuality with evil and something for women to be shielded from, hence his paternal attitudes altering his desires. Whether this 'normal' is due to her being incapable of love etc. or if it is due to her sexual preferences we can only speculate, although Mrs Danvers line of ' She despised all men' (pp.382) the reader is readied to question it outright.

In this novel Du Maurier engages with the two issues of desire and identification to explore female taboos of sexuality, the performance of gender and the fear of the lesbian. Her novel is a complex argument between how desire shapes ones identity. I believe that this text is moreover a Gothic Novel, with the concern regarding female desire and a fear to express selfhood relating to ones own identity rather than the performance assigned by gender of woman.

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12 December, 2015