REBECCA SYNOPSIS
CHAPTER 1
Narrator dreams of Manderley
she can’t access it
overgrown by nature
‘and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.’
‘nature had come into her own again and little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers’
‘there was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been’
‘the rohododendrens stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs’
‘the house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins’
‘We would not talk of Manderley. I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more’
CHAPTER 2
Narrator and Maxim are in a hotel room
Maxim is a shell of himself
the two are vapid and shell shocked
considers Mrs Van Hopper and Monte
have an unhappy meal
Maxim arrives, much interest
‘He will talk quickly and eagerly about nothing at all, snatching at any subject like a panacea to pain’
‘we have no secrets now from one another’
‘she is comparing me to Rebecca’; and sharp as a sword the shadow came between us’
‘I can see myself now, memory spanning the years like a bridge’
‘straight, bobbed hair and youthful unpowdered face, dressed in an ill fitting coat and skirt and a jumper of my own creation, trailing in the wake of Mrs Van Hopper like a shy uneasy colt.’
‘where we are today to that vast dining-room, ornate and ostentious, the Hotel Cote d’Azur
‘a plate heaped high with Ravioli’
‘and placed before me a plate of ham and tongue that somebody had sent back to the cold buffet half an hour before as badly carved’
‘How young and inexperienced I must have seemed’
‘You’ve heard of him of course. He looks ill, doesn’t he? They say he can’t get over his wife’s death’
CHAPTER 3
Ms Van Hopper tries to catch Maxim, she send the narrator for a letter
Maxim treats the pair equally
Narrator compares Maxim to the ‘gentleman unknown’
then realises, this is inaccurate
‘I wonder what my life would be today, if Mrs Van Hopper had not been a snob’
‘her curiosity was a disease, almost a mania’
‘Somehow she would manage to introduce herself, and before her victim had scented danger she had proffered an unvitation to her suite’
‘I would be sent across the lounge with a verbal message, the loan of a book or paper, the address of some shop or other, the sudden discovery of a mutual friend’
‘not for the first time I resented the part that I must play in her schemes. Like a Juggler’s assistant I produced the props then silent and attentive I waited on my cue'.’
‘Tact was a quality unknown to her, discretion too, and because gossip was the breath of life ti her this stranger must be served for her dissection.’
‘like a large complacent spider, spun her wide net of tedium about the stranger’s person’
‘her tone just casual enough to warn him of my footing’
‘for a moment she looked annoyed - this was not what she had intended’
‘of a certain Gentleman Unknown’
‘I heard Mrs Van Hopper giver her fat complacent laugh’
‘This including of me in the conversation found me at my worst, the raw ex-schoolgirl, red-elbowed and lanky-haired’
‘though I must say Monte is very dull this winter’
‘the fact thate was stiff and lifeless and the lace collar and the beard were like props in a charade’
CHAPTER 4
Hopper gets the flu
Maxim and the narrator have lunch
Narrator and the Maxim drive
Maxim briefly considers Manderley
The Narrator finds Rebecca’s poem book
‘he said nothing about his life there. No word about himself’
‘people who plucked bluebells from the woods were vandals; he had forbidden it at Manderley’
‘I fled him, down the nights and down the days’
‘Rebecca stood out black and strong, the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters’
CHAPTER 5
consider fever of first love
more driving with Maxim
Maxim attempts to dispel Narrators illusions
‘I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love’
CHAPTER 6
Narrator from present considers impact of packing and moving again
Hopper wants to leave monte for NYC
spend day packing
next day, say goodbye to Maxim
He proposes
sets fire to book of poems
tells Van Hopper about the marriage - she is disparaging
‘Here I say we have lived and we have been happy’
This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. Today we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed un some infitesimal way’
‘This is the present. there is no past and no future. here I am washing my hands and the cracked mittor shows me to myself, suspended as it were, in time, this is me, this moment will not pass.’
‘I think how in that moment I have aged, passed on, how I have advanced one step towards an unknown destiny’
‘No, I’m asking you to marry me you little fool’
‘instead of being companion to Mrs Van Hopper you become mine and your duties will be almost exactly the same’
‘the flame had a lovely light’
CHAPTER 7
drive up the road to Manderly
Narrator considers alternate life with Maxim
Ms Danvers assembles the staff
meet Ms Danvers
Ms Danvers shows the narrator her room
sit in living room with the dogs - In rebecca’s seat
‘the blood-red rhododendrens in bloom’
‘now the moment upon me. i wished it delayed…. a bride in love with her husband’
‘I was like a child brought to her first school, or a little untrained maid who had never left home before, seeking a situation’
‘spoken in a voice as cold and lifeless as her hands had been’
‘i guessed at once she considered me ill bred’
‘when she took my hand hers was limp and heavy, deathly cold and it lay in mine like a lifeless thing’
‘I could see that black figure standing out alone, individual and apart, and for all her silence I knew her eye to be upon me’
‘appraising me with her hollow eyes, set in that skeletons frame’
‘I was sitting in Rebecca’s chair. I was leaning against Rebecca’s cushion’
‘Maxim made instinctively for the chair on the left’
‘contented, comfortable, having assumed his way of living’
CHAPTER 8
breakfast
narrator sits at Rebecca’s writing desk
Ms Danvers on house telephone
comparison in handwriting
CHAPTER 9
Narrator stumbles into a closed up room
meet Beatrice and Giles
Narrator messes up the meeting
Beatrice and Narrator talk
Beatrice enquires about Danvers
‘don’t you know, she simply adored Rebecca’
CHAPTER 10
Narrator and Maxim go to Happy Valley
go down to the beach
Narrator meets Ben
Maxim gets upset at the beach
Narrator finds the handkerchief and smell in Rebecca/her coat
‘I saw then that he had the small sit eyes of an idiot’
‘There must have been a garden once, but now the grass was long and overgrown, crowded with nettles. The windows were boarded up.’
‘My good child, what am I supposed to excuse myself about’
‘the same as the crushed white petals of the azealas in the happy valley’
CHAPTER 11
Narrator mentions fear of mentioning the sea and overthinks
compares herself to rebecca
meet Bishops wife and she mentions Rebecca and ball
Frank mentions some events of the drowning
Frank comforts the narrator and her status
‘I began to dread any mention of the sea, for the sea might lead to boats, to accidents, to drowning…’
‘My dear what a dull girl. She scarcely opened her mouth’
‘she’s so very different to Rebecca’
‘She was tremendously popular, you know. Such a personality’
‘dipping her pen in the ink, writing upon them swift and sure in that long, slanting hand’
‘but I agreed with her at once to save embarrassment and I heard myself saying boldly, brazenly, Rebecca must have been a wonderful person’
‘his voice constrained again, difficult, the voice of womeone who is uncomfortable about his subject’
‘I had the impression he was being loyal to someone’
‘modesty are worth far more to a man, to a husband, than all the wit and beauty in the world.’
CHAPTER 12
introduction of Clarice
feels like a guest at Manderley
birthday gifts
narrator breaks the china cupid and hides it
its revealed and Maxim ridicules her
question the importance of age in marriage
‘I think she was the only person in the house who stood in awe of me. To her I was the mistress: I was Mrs de Winter.’
Clarice would never know real lace from false’
‘Did not you know. She simply adored Rebecca'
‘I could not help it if I felt like a guest in Manderley’
‘they were out of place in that fragile, delicate room’
‘He fell to the ground, hitting the waste paper basket as he did so, and broke into fragments’
CHAPTER 13
Maxim leaves, narrator feels he may never return
sees Je reviens
conversation with ben about Rebecca
walks back through the pvergrown nature
Jack favell arrives
‘I felt exactly as though it were to be a final parting and I should never see him again’
‘Je Reviens, wjhat a funny name. Not like a boat’
‘she gave you the feeling of a snake’
‘naked eucalyptus tree stifled by branches looked like the white bleached limb of a skeleton’
‘Dear old Danny’
‘the mistress of the house was hiding behind the door’
CHAPTER 14
Narrator goes into rerbecca’s room
Danvers appears, obsessed with
Danvers mentions how rebecca died
‘even the flowers could not destroy the musty smell’
‘there was something sane and comforting about the ticking of the clock’
‘I shall never forget the expression on her face, triumphant and gloating ina. strange unhealthy way’
‘I haven’t washed it since she wore it for the last time’
‘the rocks had battered and hit her to bits you know, her beautiful face unrecognisable’
CHAPTER 15
dream about Maxim in the woods, he is too far away
Beatrice arrives, visit Ms de Winter Sr who wants Rebecca
‘we were waling through the woods, Maxim and I, and he was always just a little ahead of me’
‘when I looked in the glass. I looked plain, unattractive’
‘just his figure, striding away in front of me’
‘There was a long pause, a moment of agony’
CHAPTER 16
Lady Crowan mentions a masked ball
she suggests DRESDEN SHEPERDESS
Maxim suggests Alice in Wonderland
Narrator wants to be old
Danvers suggests picture in the hallway
Maxim catches narrator pretening to be narrator and says she looks like a criminal
Maxim comments on nature of women vs men
Frank suggests Joan of arc
tells Maxim how amazing her dress is
excited, puts on dress, confident, drummer announces her
silence
‘dressed as a little dresden shepherdess’
‘i never dress up said Mxim’
‘put a ribbin in your hair and be alice in wonderland’
‘would we never be together, he a man and I a woman, standing shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, with no gulf between us? I did not want to be achild. I wanted to be his wife, his mother. I wanted to be old’
‘you look like a little criminal’
‘or Joan of Arc said Frank shyly’
‘make the drummer announce me’
‘There is a certain type of knowledge i prefer you not to have’
‘A husband is not so very different to a father after all’
CHAPTER 17
rips off dress
goes down, is shamed by people, Maxim ignores her
Maxim never comes to bed
‘I began tearing the hooks of my dress, ripping the stuff’
‘It was. ucha frightful shock for him’
‘No beatrice I’m not coming down, I can’t face them not, not after what’s happened’
‘Think of MAxim, you must come down for his sake’
‘of course I have heard beofre the marriage is not a wild success’
‘They say her dress didn’t please him’
‘This new ones not like our mrs de winter, she’s different altogether’
‘He never spoke to me. he never touched me.we stood beside one another, the host and the hostess' and we were not together’
CHAPTER 18
Narrator considers age, how much Maxim loves Narrator
Frank says how different she is to Rebecca
Beatrice leaves a note
Maxim still gone
Danvers salivates over Rebecca
Danvers says Narrator should jump out the window
‘He still thought about Rebecca. He would never love me becuase of Rebecca’
‘You’re so very different from Rebecca’
‘Rebecca always Rebecca’
‘he seemed to me, as I sat there in the bed, staring at the wall…. there was nothing quite so shaming as a marriage that had failed’
The fact that I loved him in a sick, hurt desperate way like a child or a dog did not matter’
‘Rebecca always Rebecca. I would never be free of Rebecca’
‘And her I could not fight. She was too strong for me’
‘the angry colour flooded her dead white face’
‘my lady with her smile and her lovely face and brave ways’
‘she ought to have been born a boy, I often told her that. I had the care if her as a child,
. You knew that, didn’t you’
‘she cracked her whip over her head and down he came, head over heeks cursing and laughing’
‘digging the sours into his side, an when she got off his back he was trembling all over, full of froth and blood’
‘she’s still mistress here, even if she is dead’
‘It’s you who ought to be dead, not Mrs de Winter’
‘there’s not much for you to liver for is there? Why don’t you jump now and have done with it’
CHAPTER 19
Rebecca’s boat is washed ashore
Max already gone
sees Ben on route to the beach
speaks to the Captain
MAx hugs narrator, very close
Maxim reveals his secret
‘It was maxim. i could not see him bit i could hear his voice’
‘I wanted to bury for evermore, deep in the shadows of my mind with ld forgotten terrors of childhood’
‘her, he said, the other one’
‘he put his arm around me and pulled me very close’
‘i saw how thin his face was, how lined and drawn’
‘my little love’
‘I knelt there watching his face, watching his eyes’
CHAPTER 20
discuss murder
discuss Rebecca’s life
‘I accepted everything - because of Manderley’
‘Do you realize that I could get danny, as my personal maid to swear anything I asked her to swear in a court of law? Amd that the rest of the servants in bling ignorance, would follow her example and swear too?’
‘to watch my son grow bigger day by day and to know that when you died, all this would be his’
CHAPTER 21
realises Maxim didn’t love Rebecca
sit close together in the library
reporter from the County chronicle rings
Colonol Julyan arrives
Maxim reflects on killing narrator’s youth
‘Its gone in 24hrs you are so much older’
‘There was nothing feverish or urgent about this. It was a quiet, still happiness’
‘It was not like stroking Jasper anymore’
‘I would lie and perjure and swear'
‘He did not love rebecca. he ddi not love Rebecca’
CHAPTER 22
Frith brings in newspaper
Narrator goes with Maxim to the police
inquest of the coroner and boat builder
Maxim nearly loses his temper
Narrator faints
‘she said Mrs danvers looked very ill indeed’
‘The talked about him as Max de Winter. it sounded racy, horrible’
‘I ddi not want you to come said Maxim, I was against it from the first. You’d much better have stayed at Manderley’
‘Oh God, don’t let Maxim lose his temoer. Don’t let him lose his temper’
‘were relations between you and the late Mrs de Winter perfectly happy?’
CHAPTER 23
Narrator waits for Maxim
drive back to Manderley
a storm
Maxim returns - verdict is suicide
Maxim leaves to see the vicar
Favell arrives and is mean to Robert
reveal they were lovers
Favell says Rebecca was murdered
‘why did he say that? What did he mean? Why didn’t he looka t me?’
‘blue mootonous, like spectators lined up in a street to watch us pass’
‘you think I’m the big bad wolf, don’t you? he said, but I’m not, you know’
‘that’s the sort of death Rebecca would choose, she’d go out like she lived, fighting’
‘He’d look well hanging wouldn’t he?'
CHAPTER 24
Favell goes off his rocker
bring Ben in to testify
Danvers come in to say her piece
‘she despised all men, she was above all that’
‘she had a right to amuse herself, hadn’t she. Love-making was a game with her, only a game’
CHAPTER 25
continue investigation
lockied into the bedroom
‘I held out my arms to him and he came to me like a child’
‘I held him and comforted him as though he were Jasper’
CHAPTER 26
leave manderley
MAxim is ill, child like
visit Rebecca’s doctor
Rebecca couldn’t have children
Rebecca had cancer
‘where the flowers themselves drooped upon their stalks, the petals brown and dragging after last nights rain’
‘the peace of Manderley could not be broken or the lovliness destroyed’
‘No one would ever hurt manderley. It would lie always in a hollow like an enchated thing, guarded by the woods, safe, secure while the sea broke and came again in the little shingles below’
‘I woke Maxim. He stared at me at first like a puzzled child and then he held out his arms’
‘wondering why they had the power to touch me, to sadden me, as though they were children that did not want me to go away.’
‘our storm must have been local, there was no rain here’
‘I wondered how tired Maxim was. He was pale and there were shadows under his eyes, but he did not say anything.’
CHAPTER 27
reflect on secret of Rebecca’s
Favell comments on how well this worked out for Maxim
Colonel Jolyan suggests going abroad
Maxim reflects
narrator falls asleep
she and narrator are one and the same
Manderley burns
‘The law can get you yet, and so can I, in a different way…’
‘it was like the bursting of an abscess’
‘Switzerland is a very nice this time of year’
‘I believe, said Maxim that rebecca lied to me on purpose. the alst supreme bluff. She wanted me to kill her. She foresaw the whole thing. that’s why she laughed. That’s why she stood there laughing when she died.’
‘It looks almost as though the dawn was breaking over there, beyond those hills.’
‘I was writing letters in the morning room. I was sending out invitations. I wrote them all myself with a thick black pen’
‘the face in the glass stared back at me and laughed’
‘The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon.’
‘And the ashes all below toward us with the salt wind from the sea.’