Key AO4/AO5: Rebecca
Intertextuality = Blue
Critical Interpretations:
Du Maurier’s Style
Power and Gender
‘Rebecca represents in the novel the insecurity at the heart of all femininity’ –
Alison Light
‘A woman whose worst crime…was simply that she resisted male definition,
asserting her right to define herself and her sexual desires’ – Nigro
‘The domestic space becomes a prison rather than a refuge, a restricted space
confined by a system of values that privileges the male and active world beyond
the family’ – Botting
‘The Bluebeard plot confines the scene of action to the domestic arena…It stages
an oppressive reign of masculine tyranny and shows how the drive for knowledge
can imperil the female protagonist’ – Tatar
‘Du Maurier’s plot orchestration means that Rebecca is lethally punished for her
gender-subversion; her Eyreian autonomy is drowned’ – M.J. Severn
Psychoanalysis:
‘The overdevelopment of Maxim’s persona has dragged him into capricious
moods and gradually lead to the collapse of his mind’ – Libing Li
Theoretical Perspectives:
Feminist Reading
‘Maxim’s murder of Rebecca is an unjustifiable misogynistic and (arguably)
homophobic femicide, as a result of male hysteria motivated by Rebecca’s
breaking of every male-determined rule’ – Beauman
Stage/Screen Adaptations:
‘Like Shakespeare, Webster was almost pre-gothic.’ How far do you agree that
this is a Gothic play?
- Setting is gothic – castle and scenes set in the dark
- Supernatural elements – witchcraft, horoscope
- Secrecy
- Timescale is not very continuous, a lot of variation
- Women behaving badly, link to Lady Macbeth
- Innocence vs experience
- Transgressive sexuality (Ferdinand’s incest)
- Moral corruption
- Isolating characters to cause drama/murder
Intertextuality = Blue
Critical Interpretations:
Du Maurier’s Style
Power and Gender
‘Rebecca represents in the novel the insecurity at the heart of all femininity’ –
Alison Light
‘A woman whose worst crime…was simply that she resisted male definition,
asserting her right to define herself and her sexual desires’ – Nigro
‘The domestic space becomes a prison rather than a refuge, a restricted space
confined by a system of values that privileges the male and active world beyond
the family’ – Botting
‘The Bluebeard plot confines the scene of action to the domestic arena…It stages
an oppressive reign of masculine tyranny and shows how the drive for knowledge
can imperil the female protagonist’ – Tatar
‘Du Maurier’s plot orchestration means that Rebecca is lethally punished for her
gender-subversion; her Eyreian autonomy is drowned’ – M.J. Severn
Psychoanalysis:
‘The overdevelopment of Maxim’s persona has dragged him into capricious
moods and gradually lead to the collapse of his mind’ – Libing Li
Theoretical Perspectives:
Feminist Reading
‘Maxim’s murder of Rebecca is an unjustifiable misogynistic and (arguably)
homophobic femicide, as a result of male hysteria motivated by Rebecca’s
breaking of every male-determined rule’ – Beauman
Stage/Screen Adaptations:
‘Like Shakespeare, Webster was almost pre-gothic.’ How far do you agree that
this is a Gothic play?
- Setting is gothic – castle and scenes set in the dark
- Supernatural elements – witchcraft, horoscope
- Secrecy
- Timescale is not very continuous, a lot of variation
- Women behaving badly, link to Lady Macbeth
- Innocence vs experience
- Transgressive sexuality (Ferdinand’s incest)
- Moral corruption
- Isolating characters to cause drama/murder
