1 PLOT:
A young, shy woman , the I-person, stays in a hotel in Monte Carlo with Mrs Hopper, a snobby, old, rich woman ,who she has to serve. One day Mrs Hopper gets ill and the I-person has to lunch alone, but Maxim the Winter, a man the I-person had met the day before, is there to and he invites her to lunch with him. Max was married but his wife, Rebecca, drowned in a sailing accident. Mrs Hopper stays ill for a while and Max and the I-person see each other everyday, very often they take the car to watch Monte Carlo.
This continues for a while and the I-person gets a crush on Max, but then Mrs Hopper’s illness is gone and she wants her to go with her to New York, when she tells Max about it, he asks her to marry him and join him to Manderly, the castle he lives in. The I-person is very happy about that and they get married. After their honeymoon they go to Manderly, and the I-person finds out that not everybody likes her, Mrs Danvers doesn’t want her to take Rebecca’s place, because she liked Rebecca very much. Beatrice, Maximilian’s sister, likes the I-person and she is happy about that.
In the beginning the I-person doesn’t know ho to act, but after a while she gets used to the life at Manderly.
One night the I-person and Max give the Manderly fancy-dress ball which was given when Rebecca was alive to. The I-person bought a dress on the advise of Mrs Danvers, which was the same as a dress at one of the paintings, a painting with Caroline the Winter on it, but the I-person didn’t know that Rebecca wore the same dress at the fancy ball of the other year. Max gets very angry, so the nasty trick of Mrs Danvers had succeeded. Then captain Searle comes and tells that the boat Rebecca had been drowned in was found. That’s weird because there already was a body found, which Max had identified as Rebecca. Max tells he knew it wasn’t Rebecca when he identified the body as her. He tells that Rebecca had other relations going on and that she told Max she was pregnant of an other man, and that he got so angry of it that he killed her and made it look like an accident. Because of the boat with Rebecca’s body in it Max is suspected and an investigation starts, because Favell wants one, which Colonel Julyan leads. It was Max’ word against Favell’s but because everybody likes Max they all help him so he isn’t suspected anymore. When the I-person and Max return to Manderly, it’s on fire and Mrs Danvers is gone. Max and the I-person take of and go to a hotel, from where the story actually is told.
2THEME: secrets from the past
3+4CHARACTERISATION
I-person: A young shy woman who gets married to Maxim the Winter
Max/Maxim/Maximillian the Winter: the owner of Manderly, first he is married to Rebecca but when the book starts she is dead and he gets married to the I-person
Mrs Hopper: an old rich snobby woman who has the I-person as employee in the beginning of the book.
Mrs Danvers: the housekeeper of Manderly, the castle Max lives in.
Beatrice Lacy: Max’ sister, she’s a nice woman.
Giles Lacy: Beatrice’ husband
Frith: one of Max’ employees
Robert: one of Max’ employees
Ben: a foolish boy Caroline met on the beach
Jack Favell: Rebecca’s cousin and lover
Frank Crawly: Maxim’s agent, a nice man
Captain Searle : The man who had found the boat Max had put Rebecca in.
James Tabb: A boat-maker
Doctor Baker: The doctor Rebecca went to.
Caroline the Winter: the woman on the painting, where The I-person copied the dress from.
Colonel Julyan: He leads the investigation on Rebecca’s dead
Round characters: Caroline, Max, Rebecca, Beatrice ( because she really isn’t how you expect her to be when you have read a little about her)
Flat characters: Giles, Robert, Jack, Mrs Hopper, Mrs Danvers, Frith, Ben, Frank, James Tabb, Caroline the Winter, Doctor Baker, Colonel Julyan, Captain Searle
5+6 NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE
“Rebecca” is written in the I-form, the name of the I-person isn’t given.
The interpretation of the reader is influenced a lot because of the narrative perspective. That’s because you feel sympathy for the I-person right from the start, she is very sweet and innocent, but there are a lot of people who aren’t nice to her so you dislike them right from the start. Examples of that sort of persons are: Mrs Hopper, Mrs Danvers, Jack Favell, and Rebecca herself, because The I-person is constantly being compared with her and everybody loved Rebecca, and the reader wants the I-person to be liked more , that’s why you dislike Rebecca right from the start.
7 TITLE
The title of the book is ”Rebecca” and that is a very good title because everything in the book is about Rebecca’s influence, after her death, on the people who live at Manderly. The book is about the mystery around her death to, and at the end you find out how it really is and then the book ends.
8 SYMBOLS AND METAPHORES
There aren’t any symbol or metaphors in the book.
9 PERSONAL OPINION
I think this book won’t become an old-time literary classic, because the story isn’t written that good. After a while the book gets less interesting , because nothing really happens it’s all about how everybody compares the I- person with Rebecca and that Rebecca wins it. The book gets good again when you find out that Rebecca was killed and that it wasn’t an accident, I only think it got the writer to long to get you there and there isn’t a good building of tension. My opinion on the book is that it is a nice book when you read it one time, if you would read it a second time you already know the clue, and the clue is the best of the book, not the way things are described, like in some books, or any humor, because there isn’t any, and I really missed that in the book.
REACTIES
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