Manderley as a Twist on the Classic Haunted House: An Investigation into the Importance of Houses in Literature Through Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca"

  When tasked with coming up with an important literary house, it is no surprise that Manderley from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is the first thing that came to my mind. First of all, the house in this novel is so incredibly important to the plot and feeling of the book that I believe it was the perfect choice for this project. On another note, Rebecca is literally my favorite book of all time, so I am always excited to have a reason to talk about it. Though I am a huge fan of Rebecca, I have never actually looked into where the idea of Manderley came from and whether or not it was based on a real place. Turns out, it is! In researching for this presentation, I learned that in her childhood, Daphne du Maurier visited many great English estates, such as Milton Hall in Cambridgeshire. These great houses definitely contributed to the author’s idea of Manderley and its grandeur. Later in her life, du Maurier was given the opportunity to refurbish an estate called Menabilly, and she ended up living there for 26 years of her life. This house was sort of like the blueprint for Manderley; its layout and location were very similar to how Manderley is described in Rebecca. This is the house that du Maurier lived in when she wrote Rebecca, and it had a huge influence on making Mnaderley as dominant and powerful as it is in the novel.

Rebecca follows a young, unnamed female narrator as she meets, falls in love with, and marries an older man named Maxim de Winter. Maxim had been married before, to a woman named Rebecca who died not long before he met the narrator. Maxim and his new wife move to his estate, Manderley, where the narrator feels haunted by the memory of Rebecca and how seemingly perfect she was. The house itself is a big factor in making the narrator feel this way. All of the servants in the house still do things the way Rebecca wanted them done, and they are reluctant to change things. The narrator is told not to go into a certain wing of the house, because that is where Rebecca’s room was. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, has even kept this room just as it was when Rebecca was still alive, as almost a shrine to her. Throughout the novel, nearly every aspect of the house seems to be haunted by Rebecca’s memory. The narrator is never able to feel truly at home at Manderley because of this.

Throughout the novel, Manderley itself is inextricable from Rebecca and her memory. This is rather ironic, as the house is actually Maxim’s family estate; Rebecca only married into the family and, by extension, Manderley. Further, as the reader finds out later in the novel, Rebecca was actually a pretty terrible person. She left her husband with a lot of trauma and trust issues. Tragically, because they lived their entire married life together at Manderley, these negative emotions are forever tied with the location for Maxim and, by extension, for his young new wife. There are multiple instances in the novel of specific parts of the house being haunted by the memory of Rebecca. First, as I mentioned in the last paragraph, Rebecca’s old chambers have been kept as a sort of shrine to her. The haunting of this room comes through most when the narrator considers committing suicide by jumping out of the window in Rebecca’s old room. The main reason she is having these thoughts is because of the oppressive nature of Rebecca’s memory, which is particularly potent in her old room. Next, there is the old boat house that is on Manderley’s property, and in which Rebecca conducted an affair with her cousin, Jack. It is also later revealed that this is where Maxim killed Rebecca. Throughout the novel, Maxim does not want to enter this space and does not want his wife to do so either. For him, this space is haunted by Rebecca. Finally, there is a large painting at the top of Manderley’s grand staircase of a woman in a white dress. When Maxim and his new wife are having a costume party, the narrator decides to dress up as the woman in the painting. She stands at the top of the staircase to reveal her costume, which leads to an intensely negative reaction from her husband. It is eventually revealed that this is the exact outfit that Rebecca once wore to a costume party at Manderley, and that she made a similar grand entrance at the top of the stairs. In this scene, this particular location is clearly haunted by the memory of Rebecca, and in a twisted way the narrator sort of is too.

The twist on the classic haunted house trope that Daphne du Maurier masterfully crafts in Rebecca’s Manderley is a perfect example of the importance that a house can take on in a novel. The influences on the idea from the great English estates that the author had encountered in her life add authenticity and depth to Manderley. The estate in Rebecca serves as one of the best examples in literature of the haunted but-not-really-haunted house. Every crevice of Manderley is “haunted” by the memory of Rebecca, and this affects each of the characters deeply and drives the plot of the novel. Rebecca as a novel would not be nearly as haunting or notable as it is if not for the masterful creation of Manderley by Daphne du Maurier.