Age is an extremely significant factor in Rebecca. It can affect the way relationships are written, especially relationships with age differences. The age difference can affect the way characters interact with each other. Age can be explored in many ways, like showing the growth and development of certain characters as the novel progresses. This essay will explore the idea that the age difference between the narrator and Maxim alter the interactions between them and can cause both characters to mature or regress throughout the novel.
It is important to take note of the narrator’s appearance and the comparisons between her and other famous female figures. At the start of Rebecca, the narrator describes herself as a “little scrubby schoolboy …show more content…
Peterson explains that the narrator is “shy and inexperienced” . There have been many references in Rebecca to the narrator’s inexperience and immaturity, one of them being when the narrator claims Maxim only married her because she was “dull and quiet and inexperienced” . Her immaturity and lack of experience may be influenced by Maxim. Wisker compares Maxim to Bluebeard and claims that like Bluebeard “Max needs to hide his horrid secrets from his new wife much as he wishes her to remain childlike” . Rebecca is compared to Blackbeard’s folk tale; whose wife goes down to the forbidden chamber and “finds the corpses of her husband’s previous wives” out of curiosity. It seems that the narrator matures upon learning what happened to Rebecca. Maxim tells her that “it’s gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older…” . At the end of the novel, Maxim is woken by the narrator and “stared at me at first like a puzzled child, and then he held out his arms” . The behaviour shown here is very different from the behaviour shown at the beginning of their relationship. There is a change in power here, and Pyhönen states that “the protagonist takes full control” in their interactions, which is fascinating due to the submissive and immature behaviour the narrator once
It is important to take note of the narrator’s appearance and the comparisons between her and other famous female figures. At the start of Rebecca, the narrator describes herself as a “little scrubby schoolboy …show more content…
Peterson explains that the narrator is “shy and inexperienced” . There have been many references in Rebecca to the narrator’s inexperience and immaturity, one of them being when the narrator claims Maxim only married her because she was “dull and quiet and inexperienced” . Her immaturity and lack of experience may be influenced by Maxim. Wisker compares Maxim to Bluebeard and claims that like Bluebeard “Max needs to hide his horrid secrets from his new wife much as he wishes her to remain childlike” . Rebecca is compared to Blackbeard’s folk tale; whose wife goes down to the forbidden chamber and “finds the corpses of her husband’s previous wives” out of curiosity. It seems that the narrator matures upon learning what happened to Rebecca. Maxim tells her that “it’s gone, in twenty-four hours. You are so much older…” . At the end of the novel, Maxim is woken by the narrator and “stared at me at first like a puzzled child, and then he held out his arms” . The behaviour shown here is very different from the behaviour shown at the beginning of their relationship. There is a change in power here, and Pyhönen states that “the protagonist takes full control” in their interactions, which is fascinating due to the submissive and immature behaviour the narrator once