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1.1 Daphne du Maurier and Her Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier, an English author and playwright, was born on 13 May 1907. She came from an artistic family with her grandfather, George du Maurier, being a famous artist and writer, her father Gerald du Maurier and her mother, an actor, her elder sister Angela du Maurier, a writer and her younger sister Jeanne, a painter. Her family background and the environment helped her to establish her literary career and in 1932, her first novel The Loving Spirit, was published and gained popularity. Her other works are Jamaica Inn (1936), Frenchman’s Creek (1941), The King’s General (1946), My Cousin Rachel (1951), The Scapegoat (1957), The House on the Strand (1969), etc. They all contributed to her awards, such as The National Book Award for favorite novel of 1938. In addition to novels, she also devoted to the creation of plays and some of them are immensely popular, including The Years Between (1944) and September Tide (1948). In her later life, she also wrote biographies, including the biography that she wrote for her grandfather George du Maurier. However, it was the novel Rebecca (1938) that helped her to win renown and receive fame and reputation from the world. It was also adapted into a film of the same name by the famous director Alfred Hitchcock.
It has been said that the novel is closely related with her life. Her father had a great influence on her. He yearned for a son and even made Daphne a tomboy. As a consequence, no matter when she was a little child or an adult, she always wished to be a boy. “I would prefer to be a man. If I were, my novels would be more highly thought of.”(Shallcross,1991:12) “During these years I thought it was much more fun to be a boy than a girl. And all my life I have wished that I had been born a boy. I think this attitude has resounded through some of my books.”(Shallcross,1991:12) And therefore, Rebecca is somehow demonstrates her desire to be a man. Rebecca was a woman distinguished from most traditional women at that time. She seemed more like a man in many ways. For instance, she would start a sea voyage on her own regardless of the weather.
The novel also conveys Daphne’s detestation of the corrupted life of the upper class in England. It was written in a time when people were hankering after hedonism and lived a corrupt life. There was deceit and dishonesty in higher places, and interests and benefits were prior to anything else. In the novel, the author vividly depicted Rebecca’s life of depravity and the deformity of her marriage with Maxim to expose the life in upper class and showed her despise.
In the aspect of thoughts, Rebecca was published in 1930s, in which there was a transitional period for women to fight against their traditional identity and it echoed the new social climate. In the novel, Rebecca fight for the equal right of men but fight against the patriarchal society in a unreasonable and extreme way, resulting in a tragedy.
1.2 Literature Review
Rebecca, which can be regarded as the masterpiece of Daphne du Maurier, for a long time, have attracted critics from home and abroad to contribute to study on it. Some studies focus on its female gothic
while some emphasize its feminism and romanticism. What is more, some researchers prefer to analyze the novel from the aspect of writing techniques, the genre, the psychological structure of the character, etc.
In suspense, The Application of Skills of Suspense in Rebecca (周雄and陈苑, 2009) tries to analyze and expound skills of suspense in Rebecca to explain the artistic effects of suspense. In the thesis, suspense is revealed by analyzing the text. Major and small suspense are noticed as well. Major suspense is put forward like Rebecca’s death. There are various studies of characterization. Most of them are just focused on the character analysis of Rebecca. Analysis of the Female Image in Rebecca (曹晓东, 2005) insists that Rebecca is not a wicked woman in a traditional sense but a novel woman who is in contrast to the tradition. In addition, some studies lay emphasis on the comparison between Rebecca and certain character from other novels. Few critics would analyze the narrator. In the thesis, the two leading female characters and their inherent relations are both discussed and the thesis further studies the novel from the perspective of both suspense and inter-structural characterization.