Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson) displays the see-through nature
of Rebecca's nightdress to the new Mrs de Winter (Joan Fontaine)
in Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)
I.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley ... [a], whereas, as a matter of fact, I had simply rewatched Hitchcock's Academy Award winning adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca on TV [b].
Anyway, it was enough to make me want to return to the original novel and offer not so much a commentary or critical review, but a series of reflections on those inhuman and sometimes monstrous aspects that particularly interest ...
II.
Love, our idealists might argue, is the least monstrous and most human of all things; a unique feature of our evolutionary history. Other creatures may experience empathy and sexual attraction, but there is little evidence of love in anything resembling the spiritual sense as we know it.
But of course, as the second Mrs de Winter comes to recognise, love is also a kind of fever; something that causes us to act queerly; i.e., in a confused and frenzied, often violent manner behind the palm trees. Sometimes, it may even result in a crime of passion - just ask Maxim de Winter.
Not that he likes to speak about about such things or recall past events: "All memories are bitter, and I prefer to ignore them." [42] But, despite claiming to have never loved Rebecca, it's obvious she was the one who got him hot under the collar and who, when she put her arms around him, gave him a fever that was so hard to bear (in the mornin' and all through the night) [c].
III.
Rebecca: she was dead, of course, "and one must not have thoughts about the dead" [63].
And yet, how can one not say something about the ghostly Rebecca, with her enduring beauty and unforgettable smile ... So brilliant in every way! It would be impossible to cut her name out of this series of posts, no matter how sharp a pair of scissors one possessed. And the past - even if reduced to ash - can never just be blown away.
Rebecca is present by her absence throughout the novel and at the end of the book, her corpse itself manages to intrude back into world of the living, determining events and threatening to have an objects revenge upon Maxim de Winter.
Je Reviens is not merely the name on a boat - or a French-speaking terminator's catchphrase - it's Rebecca's posthumous promise.
But if she was the "most beautiful creature" [151] that Frank Crawley [d] ever saw in his life, one doubts Rebecca would still look so lovely after all those months beneath the waves (although I've heard it said that there's nothing more ravishing than a corpse) [e].
IV.
And if one must speak of Rebecca, one must also speak of her devoted representative on earth: the malevolent Mrs Danvers; "someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great, hollow eyes gave her a skull's face, parchment-white, set on a skeleton's frame" [74].
It's often said that cold hands are a sign of a warm heart. But not in the case of Mrs Danvers; she was cold of heart as well as hand, and cold too of voice and manner. Her dark eyes "had no light, no flicker of sympathy" [81].
The only time she becomes animated is when she recalls the first Mrs de Winter - particularly of course if she happens to be (fetishistically) admiring her dead mistress's handmade underwear [f] or the delicate sheer nightdress, that was so soft and light to the touch [g].
Notes
[a] This is the famous opening line of Daphne du Maurier's, bestselling 1938 gothic novel Rebecca, which tells the story of an unnamed young woman who (somewhat impetuously) marries a wealthy widower (Maxim de Winter) whom she meets on a trip to Monte Carlo.
All seems to be going swimmingly until they return to his estate in Cornwall and she realises that both Maxim and his household at Manderley are haunted by the memory and ghostly presence of his late wife (Rebecca).
It's a fantastic novel which has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen.
Here, I am reading the Virago Press edition of 2015 and all page numbers given in the text refer to this edition.
[b] Rebecca (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starred Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as the anonymous young woman who becomes his second wife.
It was Hitchcock's first American project and was a critical and commercial success, nominated for eleven Oscars - more than any other film that year - it picked up two, including Best Picture.
Despite certain changes made to keep the censors happy, it was a fairly faithful adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel and she was happy with the result. To watch a 1940 trailer for the movie on YouTube, click here.
[c] I'm paraphrasing lines here from the song 'Fever', written by Otis Blackwell (under the name John Davenport) and Eddie Cooley. It was originally recorded by American R&B singer Little Willie John for his debut album - also entitled Fever
(1956) - and released as a single in April of that year. However, Peggy Lee's 1958 version - with rewritten lyrics and a new arrangement - became the best known version (and her
signature song): click here to play on YouTube.
Interestingly, the second Mrs de Winter also confesses to a "fever of fear" [135] - a stab of sickness in her heart; a sweat of uncertainty, whenever she worried about saying the wrong thing to her husband, or reflected on those things that disturbed her, such as spiderwebs, rat holes, and the clamour of the sea. This is not the kind of fever born of erotomania that Peggy Lee sings about, although lover's too might display similar signs and symptoms of hypersensitivity, neurosis, and abnormality.
[d] Frank Crawley is the manager of the Manderley estate; loyal to Maxim and trusted by the second Mrs de Winter.
[e] The corpse of a loved one, inasmuch as it has startling physical presence, unleashes mixed feelings; of fear, of repulsion, but also - as evidenced for example in Wuthering Heights (1847) - of desire. It both seizes and seduces and is in that (quite literal) sense ravishing.
Bataille explored this in his work, although the phrase - 'She made a ravishing corpse' - is one taken from a 1926 novel by Ronald Firbank; Concerning the Eccenticities of Cardinal Pirelli (see chapter VIII).
[f] In contrast, the second Mrs de Winter's underclothes were, by her own
admission, nothing special: "As long as they were clean and neat I had
not thought the material or the existence of the lace mattered." [152]
[g] The full perviness of this is picturized in Hitchcock's film, despite the censors doing their best to ensure that Rebecca adhered to the Motion Picture Production Code that strictly enforced the morality of US films made between 1934 and 1968.
Joseph Breen may have been a censor-moron (and a vile antisemite), but he wasn't mistaken to recognise the queer nature of Danny's fascination with Rebecca's physical attributes and her clothing (particularly her see-through nightie), insisting that such obsessive love disorder be toned down in the final cut.
The astonishing (and disturbing) scene between the second Mrs de Winter (played by Joan Fontaine) and Mrs Danvers (played by Judith Anderson) in Rebecca's bedroom can be watched on YouTube: click here.
Those who wish to read part one of this post on natural chaos and Maxim de Winter's floraphilia, can do so by clicking here.
