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Reading Rebecca Through Its Shifting Genres
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca defies classification into a single genre. THAT is exactly its point.
I have always objected to the classification of Rebecca as a romance.
Yes, it has a love angle. It has desire, intimacy, marriage. But labelling it as a romance mistakes the entire premise of the book.
The novel opens exactly as a romance is expected to open: a young, inexperienced woman has a chance encounter with an older, wealthy, melancholic man. Their sudden marriage feels like a rescue. Until then, the woman has existed as a paid companion, socially marginal, economically dependent, and blatantly ignored. As Mrs de Winter, she is lifted at once in class, security, and emotional standing. Maxim de Winter appears reliable and safe; his sadness lends him a mysterious depth, his status lends him authority. He is, in every conventional sense, desirable.
All that confidence is manufactured by Daphne du Maurier deliberately.
What Rebecca does — slowly, patiently, and brilliantly — is move through genres without a hint of a transition. You don’t notice it until you start feeling the story go from pleasant to uncomfortable, and you find your feelings about the characters reversing.
