Rebecca Group

Question:

bwilfong
bwilfong
Student
High School - 12th Grade

What is a symbol in "Rebecca"?

Rate question:

Posted by bwilfong on Sunday August 24, 2008 at 5:13 PM and tagged with characters, rebecca, symbolism.

Answers:


  1. gbeatty Teacher
    College - Freshman

    eNotes Editor

    There are numerous symbols in "Rebecca," but one of the more striking ones is the costume that Mrs. de Winter wears to the costume ball. She wears it to show her position in the house, and as a kind of homage to Caroline de Winter, who wore it in the portrait. However, when she wears it to the party, she finds that Rebecca wore it. The costume therefore becomes a symbol of the gap between appearance and reality, of how little she knows the world she's in, and of how powerfully influences the present.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/rebecca/summary

    Rate answer:

    Posted by gbeatty on Sunday August 24, 2008 at 5:57 PM


  2. bmadnick Teacher
    High School - 11th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    Rebecca is symbolic of evil. The face she portrays to the world is very different from her real self. She shows her evil side only to her husband, flaunting her affairs and misdeeds to his face. Manderley, the house that Rebecca created, is also representative of evil, and in the end, this evil is burned to the ground. Happy Valley still stands, however, representing that good wins out over evil. Happy Valley is considered a paradise that Max and his second wife lose when Manderley is set on fire. The characters who remain loyal to Rebecca are also forces of evil who try to destroy Max's marriage to the protagonist. With the loss of paradise comes the narrator's loss of innocence, which symbolizes ignorance and even danger for the narrator. Du Maurier feels knowledge and experience are necessary for her survival. The narrator goes from innocence and ignorance to knowledge and experience, and this is how she endures her ordeal at Manderley and wins out over Rebecca's "ghost".

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/rebecca

    Rate answer:

    Posted by bmadnick on Sunday August 24, 2008 at 6:05 PM

  3. books333
    books333 Student
    High School - 9th Grade

    A symbol  in this selection is the house it symbolizes Rebecca because of all the Evil that has happened there but yet it’s beautiful like Rebecca was ,Beautiful but evil.

     

    Rate answer:

    Posted by books333 on Sunday March 29, 2009 at 4:39 PM