In Primary school, when my class read Cinderella together, for the subsequent lunchtimes my friends and I would act out the story and tell others how we imaged our own romantic adventures to play out. Each adding in specifics to make ours unique, we liked to thing we were special in our so diverse stories, but really, our fantasies were all the same. All had the captivating Byronic hero, the obstacle, the proposal, the ball, and of course the happily ever after. These are the conventions of romantic literature, expected, familiar, and present in all romance books, including Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.
Throughout her novel Rebecca, Du Maurier both uses and manipulates archetypal romantic conventions to criticize traditional romance novels, …show more content…
The first car ride between the narrator and maxim is a drive along the coast, in which both the narrator and maxim get lost in their own thoughts, the narrator in her daydream and maxim in his memories, paying little attention to each other. The narrator fantasises, an embellished sense of reality ‘This car had the wings of Mercury, higher yet we climbed, and dangerously fast’. Du Maurier uses the metaphor for the drive up the precipice to represent the narrator’s quick social climb. Dangerous and swift, when they reach the summit the narrator is struck by the cliff a few feet away, and realises that they can climb no more. This metaphor suggests that after such swift a social climb, the only way is down. The subversion of the typical courting period between hero and heroine serves as a caution that if one becomes too involved in romantic fiction, they can lose their grip on reality and be blind to the dangers that it …show more content…
Mysterious, handsome, rich, lonely, troubled past, intelligent, chivalrous, sophisticated- the list goes on. As the novel goes on however, the audience begins to realise that Maxim is far from perfect. Du Maurier purposefully manipulates the traditional characteristics of this gothic Byronic Hero, exemplifying negative traits to challenge the notion that this is someone you would want to be with. Maxim’s characterisation is built in this way in some of the key moments in the novel, such as the proposal, ball, and the murder confession. Near the end of the novel, Maxim’s confession that he killed Rebecca in a jealous fit rage of is the last thing one would expect of a Byronic Hero, and consolidates the idea that Maxim is nowhere near the perfect husband or typical hero, ‘I killed her. I shot Rebecca’. The narrator is quick to accept even this however when she is assured that Maxim never loved Rebecca. Du Maurier’s deliberate exemplification of negative qualities of the Byronic Hero and subversion of typical traits challenges the concept that the Byronic hero is a good person to be with.
Throughout her novel Rebecca, Du Maurier both employs and subverts the conventions of the romance genre to draw her audience’s attention to the dangers that believing in romantic fiction can bring, and therefore urge them to criticize this form, and question if it is truly desirable. As detailed by Sally Beauman in the afterword of Rebecca,
Throughout her novel Rebecca, Du Maurier both uses and manipulates archetypal romantic conventions to criticize traditional romance novels, …show more content…
The first car ride between the narrator and maxim is a drive along the coast, in which both the narrator and maxim get lost in their own thoughts, the narrator in her daydream and maxim in his memories, paying little attention to each other. The narrator fantasises, an embellished sense of reality ‘This car had the wings of Mercury, higher yet we climbed, and dangerously fast’. Du Maurier uses the metaphor for the drive up the precipice to represent the narrator’s quick social climb. Dangerous and swift, when they reach the summit the narrator is struck by the cliff a few feet away, and realises that they can climb no more. This metaphor suggests that after such swift a social climb, the only way is down. The subversion of the typical courting period between hero and heroine serves as a caution that if one becomes too involved in romantic fiction, they can lose their grip on reality and be blind to the dangers that it …show more content…
Mysterious, handsome, rich, lonely, troubled past, intelligent, chivalrous, sophisticated- the list goes on. As the novel goes on however, the audience begins to realise that Maxim is far from perfect. Du Maurier purposefully manipulates the traditional characteristics of this gothic Byronic Hero, exemplifying negative traits to challenge the notion that this is someone you would want to be with. Maxim’s characterisation is built in this way in some of the key moments in the novel, such as the proposal, ball, and the murder confession. Near the end of the novel, Maxim’s confession that he killed Rebecca in a jealous fit rage of is the last thing one would expect of a Byronic Hero, and consolidates the idea that Maxim is nowhere near the perfect husband or typical hero, ‘I killed her. I shot Rebecca’. The narrator is quick to accept even this however when she is assured that Maxim never loved Rebecca. Du Maurier’s deliberate exemplification of negative qualities of the Byronic Hero and subversion of typical traits challenges the concept that the Byronic hero is a good person to be with.
Throughout her novel Rebecca, Du Maurier both employs and subverts the conventions of the romance genre to draw her audience’s attention to the dangers that believing in romantic fiction can bring, and therefore urge them to criticize this form, and question if it is truly desirable. As detailed by Sally Beauman in the afterword of Rebecca,