Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Published 1938 · 154,300 words · about 15 hours at an average pace · Horror, Literary Fiction, Mystery & Crime

How hard is Rebecca to read?

Rebecca scores 67 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
Du Maurier employs an elegant and descriptive vocabulary, featuring words like 'insidious,' 'mullioned,' 'inviolate,' 'malevolent,' 'ennui,' 'lorgnette,' and 'gaucherie.' While these terms are sophisticated, they are generally understandable within context, placing it above accessible contemporary fiction but below works with extensive specialized or archaic language like 'Moby-Dick' or 'Ulysses.'
Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
The novel features moderately long sentences, often employing multiple clauses and descriptive phrases to build atmosphere and internal monologue, such as '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.' While not reaching the extreme hypotaxis of Henry James or Faulkner, the prose demands sustained attention, similar to 'The Great Gatsby' but with slightly more intricate internal reflections.
Abstraction: 55 out of 100
While primarily a narrative, 'Rebecca' delves deeply into the narrator's psychological state, exploring themes of identity, memory, and the haunting presence of the past. The internal monologues often abstract from concrete events to philosophical reflections on fear, happiness, and the nature of self, placing it above purely concrete adventure stories but below works dominated by overt philosophical debate.
Information density: 52 out of 100
The text is rich in descriptive detail and internal thought, requiring readers to process both external events and the narrator's complex emotional landscape. While not as dense with allusions or multiple plotlines as 'Ulysses' or 'War and Peace,' the constant undercurrent of comparison to Rebecca and the narrator's self-doubt create a layered reading experience, demanding more attention than a straightforward plot-driven novel.
Narrative indirection: 72 out of 100
The unnamed narrator's profound insecurity and self-deprecation mean readers must constantly infer meaning, often reading against her own self-assessments and naive interpretations. The pervasive mystery of Rebecca's past and Maxim's guarded nature are revealed through subtle clues, silences, and the reactions of other characters, demanding active interpretation rather than direct exposition. This places it higher than direct narratives like '1984' and closer to 'Lolita' in its reliance on an unreliable perspective.
Symbolic density: 78 out of 100
Manderley itself functions as a powerful, almost oppressive symbol of the past and Rebecca's enduring presence, particularly in the opening dream sequence and the description of its overgrown state. Recurring motifs like the blood-red rhododendrons, the secluded cove, and Rebecca's distinctive handwriting ('the tall sloping R') carry significant meaning beyond their literal descriptions, representing wildness, hidden secrets, and an overshadowing personality. This is more dense than 'To Kill a Mockingbird' but less abstract than 'Moby-Dick'.
Ironic distance: 70 out of 100
A significant gap exists between the narrator's naive understanding and the implied realities of her situation, particularly concerning Maxim's true feelings and Rebecca's complex legacy. The narrator's self-effacing descriptions and her attempts to conform to Manderley's expectations are often undercut by the author's subtle hints of deeper, darker truths, creating a pervasive sense of dramatic irony. This is comparable to 'The Great Gatsby' where Nick's perspective is both sympathetic and critically observed.
Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
The novel opens with a dream of a desolate Manderley, immediately signaling that the narrator's 'happy ending' is anything but resolved, and the central mystery of Rebecca's death and Maxim's past is gradually unveiled through hints and evasions. The narrative deliberately postpones full disclosure, leaving the reader (and the narrator) in a state of prolonged uncertainty about the true nature of events and the characters' motivations. This is more pronounced than 'The Great Gatsby's' open meaning, as the plot itself has significant unresolved elements for much of the story.
Structural complexity: 65 out of 100
The narrative employs a framing device, opening with a dream sequence set in the future before flashing back to the main story, and is entirely filtered through the highly subjective and often anxious first-person perspective of the unnamed narrator. While largely chronological within the flashback, the constant intrusion of the past and the narrator's internal monologues create a psychological complexity that requires careful attention to her evolving perceptions. This is more complex than a purely linear narrative but less formally experimental than works like 'Ulysses'.

How Rebecca is regarded

Rebecca holds a literary regard score of 73 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

What Rebecca asks you to hold together

Rebecca sustains Abstract (10) on the Model of Hierarchical Complexity: a named quality. It peaks at Formal (11), a line between variables on pages 27–29. Read from the full text, all 286 passages. What the stages mean.

Where Rebecca sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (286 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Rebecca scores 58 out of 100. A second mythos, comedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
It was a situation for which I was ill-trained. I wished I was older, different.
Symbol: Formal
Rebecca was still mistress of Manderley. Rebecca was still Mrs de Winter. I had no business here at all.
Mythos: Tragedy i (Calumniated Woman) (tragedy i)
'Rebecca has won,' he said.
Genre: Romance + Confession
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Where the story of Rebecca takes place

  • Manderley, Cornwall, 1930s (1930 to 1938), the main setting
  • Monte Carlo, Hotel Cote d'Azur, 1930s (1930 to 1938)
  • Exile in a bare hotel on a sunlit foreign coast, years later (frame)

5 things that are true of Rebecca, with the passage for each

  1. The narrator tells Maxim she earns ninety pounds a year as a paid companion.

    she pays me ninety pounds a year.

  2. Maxim proposes over breakfast on a hotel terrace, calling the narrator a little fool.

    No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.

  3. Rebecca's sailing boat is named Je Reviens, French for 'I come back'.

    'Je Reviens' - 'I come back.'

  4. Maxim confesses that he shot Rebecca in the cove cottage.

    I killed her. I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the cove.

  5. The doctor's X-rays show Rebecca could never have had a child.

    which meant she could never have had a child

Scenes in Rebecca that Frye would name

28 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
I killed her. I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the cove. Maxim's confession pivots the whole story and re-reads every earlier silence.
Pathos, untitled
When I killed her she was smiling still. I fired at her heart. Rebecca's death scene is the sacrificial pathos at the heart of the book.
Alazon, untitled
to claim visitors of distinction as her friends had she but seen them once at the other end of the post-office Mrs Van Hopper is the blustering social impostor.
Lyric, untitled
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; An embedded poem, 'The Hound of Heaven', glosses Maxim's flight from his past.
Masque, untitled
'Miss Caroline de Winter,' shouted the drummer. The fancy-dress ball entrance is a staged masque spectacle that goes wrong.
Anagnorisis, untitled
'I ought to have known,' I said stupidly, staring at her, too stunned to understand. The narrator realizes the Caroline de Winter costume was Rebecca's own last-ball dress, which explains the horror on the stairs.

Books that share these scenes with Rebecca

About the author

Daphne du Maurier