Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier could possibly be one of my favorite books. It's set in the early 1900's and is about this paid aquaintance whose name is never revealed. Her story starts off with taking care of an awful woman and then she meets this man of the name of Maxim Du Winter and they both fall in love. Although he is much older than her, he proposes to her and she quits her job of being an aquaintance and travels with him to his mansion in Manderly. She constantly feels that she is filling the shoes of his deceased wife, Rebecca. She feels that she is being neglected by Max and has the want to conform to the life he once lived. Little did she know, his hatred for his deceased wife is the only reason he is somewhat distance withe his new wife. Smaller problems and conflicts come up in the novel, but when Rebecca's dead body is found in a sunken ship, controversy arises. He has to explain to his wife that he is the true murderer of Rebecca, and the wife feels closer to him and actually has the sense that she is married to is man. Through dramatic trials and hard evidence, Maxim fully claims "innocence" ans moved on his life with his wife, but on their way home they find that Manderly has been set on fire by the evil Ms. Danvers. The thing that strikes me the most is that the main character's name is never once revealed throughout the whole novel. I see this is because she didn't necessarily have a profound identity and could never be pinned as a certain character. She was always unsure of herself and willing to conform for the sake of her own well being. It's important that her name is unknown because then she would have been seen as a profound character with a big voice when in fact her opinion barely mattered at all to anyone. I can kind of connect this to Frankenstein in the sense that the creature was never given a name because his opinion didn't necessarily matter at all, because Victor was going to do whatever HE wanted to do. Although I wasn't technically supoosed to make a connection from Rebecca to Frankenstein I found a perfect comparison of the whole "no name" thing. If none of you have read Rebecca, I highly suggest you do so. It starts off slow but gradually crescendos into a dramatic piece of literature, just like Frankenstein.