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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