Maxim de Winter
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What is Maxim’s attitude toward the two Mrs. de Winters?
“Stop biting your nails!”
“Now eat it up like a good girl.”
“Which would you prefer? New York or Manderley? I repeat what I said. Either you go to
America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me. I’m asking you
to marry me you little fool?”
Insisting his wife wear a raincoat: “You can't be too careful with children.”
What does this tell us about Maxim?
Maxim embodies an important Hitchcockian archetype: the masculinist drive to dominate,
control, and (if necessary) punish women; the corresponding dread of powerful women,
and especially of women who assert their sexual freedom, for what, above all, the male
(in his position of dominant vulnerability, or vulnerable dominance) cannot tolerate is the
sense that another male might be “better” than he was.
Maxim de Winter
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Laurence Olivier began acting in Shakespeare,
soon earning a reputation as a master.
Maxim: I wonder if I did a very selfish thing in
marrying you.
Mrs. de Winter: What do you mean?
Maxim : I'm not much of a companion to you, am I?
You don't get much fun, do you? You ought to have
married a boy, someone of your own age.
Mrs. de Winter: Maxim, why do you say this? Of
course we're companions.
Maxim : Are we? I don't know. I'm very difficult to live
with.
Mrs. de Winter: No, you're not difficult, you're easy,
very easy. Our marriage is a success, isn't it? A great
success? We're happy, aren't we? Terribly happy?
(He walks away.) If you don't think we are happy, it
would be much better if you didn't pretend. I'll go
away. Why don't you answer me?
Maxim : How can I answer you when I don't know the
answer myself? If you say we're happy, let's leave it
at that. (He shuts off the light.) Happiness is
something I know nothing about.
What does this tell us about Maxim – and about his
wife?
They are locked in patriarchal, father-daughter,
paternalistic relationship with both unconsciously
attempting to heal childhood wounds (Imago
Relationship Theory) and instead wounding each
other all over again just as they were wounded by
their primary caregivers as children.
The Second Mrs. de Winter
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“I wish I were a woman of 36, dressed in black satin with a string of pearls!”
“I don't belong in your sort of world…. I'm not the sort of woman men marry.”
Maxim: “Of course, if you don't love me, that's a different theorem. A fine blow to my
conceit, that's all.”
“Oh, I do love you. I love you most dreadfully. I've been crying all morning because I
thought I'd never see you again.”
Maxim: (He touches her hand.) “Bless you for that. I'll remind you of this one day. You
won't believe me. It's a pity you have to grow up.”
Who is the second Mrs. de Winter?
She is a child. She cries, hides, cowers, has no figure, no particular talents, no
education, dresses like a school girl, and has no name.
Mrs. Danvers
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How does Mrs. Danvers behave in
Rebecca’s bedroom?
Why the hairbrush and the nightgown and
not other objects in the room?
“Did you ever see anything so delicate?
Look, you can see my hand through it!”
Why did she say: “You tried to take her
place. You let him marry you. I've seen his
face - his eyes. They're the same as those
first weeks after she died. I used to listen
to him, walking up and down, up and
down, all night long, night after night,
thinking of her, suffering torture because
he lost her!”?
“Why don't you go? Why don't you leave
Manderley? He doesn't need you... he's
got his memories. He doesn't love you, he
wants to be alone again with her. You've
nothing to stay for. You've nothing to live
for really, have you?”
Was Mrs. Danvers in love with Rebecca?
If you replace Mrs. Danvers’ references to
Maxim with herself, her love for Rebecca
becomes plain.
Revenge and Criminal Conduct
• Why did Mrs. Danvers encourage the second
Mrs. de Winter to commit suicide?
• Why did Mrs. Danvers burn down
Manderley?
• To punish Maxim for Rebecca’s death.
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Rebecca de Winter
What was Rebecca really like?
Edythe Van Hopper: “I knew his wife too. Before she married him,
she was the beautiful Rebecca Hindreth, you know. Poor thing. I
suppose he just can't get over his wife's death. They say he simply
adored her.”
Beatrice Lacy (Maxim’s sister): “[Mrs. Danvers] simply adored
Rebecca.”
Crawley: “I suppose she was the most beautiful creature I ever saw.”
She could sail a boat, ride a horse, throw a party, and wear the latest
fashion.
Maxim: “I was carried away by her - enchanted by her, as everyone
was. And when I was married, I was told that I was the luckiest man
in the world. She was so lovely - so accomplished - so amusing.
'She's got the three things that really matter in a wife,' everyone said:
'breeding, brains, and beauty.' And I believed them - completely. But I
never had a moment's happiness with her. She was incapable of
love, or tenderness, or decency.”
Maxim: "I'll make a bargain with you," she said. "You'd look rather
foolish trying to divorce me now after four days of marriage. So I'll
play the part of a devoted wife, mistress of your precious Manderley.
I'll make it the most famous showplace in England if you like. Then,
people will visit us and envy us, and say we're the luckiest, happiest,
couple in the country. What a grand show it will be! What a triumph!“
Rebecca was an incestuous bisexual, having affairs with both her
cousin Favell, her housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and attempted to
seduce her husband’s best friend Crawley. Maxim: “She even started
on Frank, poor faithful Frank.”
Growing Up
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Rebecca is a film about growing up – of moving on from the past.
Favell never grows up – moving easily from his affair with his married cousin, to blackmailing
his former brother-in-law.
Mrs. Danvers never grows out of her love for Rebecca. It ultimately consumes her.
Maxim is never able to grow up enough to have an adult relationship, hence his choice of the
second Mrs. de Winter.
The second Mrs. de Winter can only “grow up” by finding Mr. Right, who of course is her
father, therefore dooming the relationship to failure as her childhood failed.
Maxim: “I can't forget what it's done to you. I've been thinking of nothing else since it
happened. It's gone forever, that funny young, lost look I loved won't ever come back. I killed
that when I told you about Rebecca. It's gone. In a few hours, you've grown so much older.”
The second Mrs. de Winter: “No, it's not too late. You're not to say that. I love you more
than anything in the world. Oh, please Maxim, kiss me please.”
Maxim de Winter: “No, it's no use. It's too late.”
In terms of auterism, what is Hitchcock’s message: Is it that even plain, ordinary young
women can lead exciting and important lives – but only if they find their dream man, their
knight in shining armor, to stand beside them and love them? Do you think audiences had
this interpretation? Did young women want to model themselves on the second Mrs. de
Winter? The first?
Hetero-Patriarchy
• Skepticism about male-female relationships under patriarchy is
central to understanding Hitchcock as auteur.
• If this is the case, then which of the two Mrs. de Winters is the true
heroin of the film?
Murder
• Censorship (supported by the
traditional Hollywood preference
for happy endings) proved an
obstacle that was in some ways
insuperable. It is crucial to the
narrative that Maxim killed his first
wife—but the Production Code
insisted that no one ever get away
with murder.
• This creates a serious problem for
the viewer in the pivotal scene in
which Maxim relates (and
Hitchcock memorably dramatizes
with his camera) the story of how
Rebecca died: either we accept
that the death was accidental, or
we hypothesize that Maxim is lying
(for which the film supplies no
support).
• Why is Maxim not convicted of
murder? Is justice served by formal
legal structures?
Conclusion:
Rebecca as Classic
Female Pornography/
Pedophilia
• Rebecca is one of many texts which explores the classic theme: seduction of
the father by the daughter and the corresponding destruction of the mother.
• The older, detached, Maxim plays the classic “Daddy.”
• Who is the mother?
• The mother has three faces: the appalling Mrs. Van Hopper, the vengeful
Mrs. Danvers and, of course, the absent Rebecca.
• The infantile second Mrs. de Winter is of course the child.
• Is it a happy ending?
• With the mother(s) gone, the child-bride has finally assumed her mother's
place as the sexual partner of her father.
• Should this film be banned as obscene?
Sources:
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“Devil in a Black Dress,” The Guardian, June 28, 2006.
Dirks, Tim, “Rebecca (1940),” filmsite.org, undated.
“Mad about the Girl,” The Guardian, June 28, 2006.
Wood, Robin, “The Two Mrs. de Winters,” The Criterion Collection, undated.