What could be a motif for the character Rebecca in the novel "Rebecca"?
What an interesting question! Of course, Rebecca in this excellent novel is a rather fascinating character, because she never once appears in the flesh, rather living on in the imagination of the unreliable narrator that tells us this story and also in the memories of other characters, such as Mrs. Danvers. When I first saw this question, my immediate response was to link the house of Manderley with Rebecca, and having thought about it, I want to stick to this initial response. The house of Manderley is somewhere where the narrator never feels comfortable. It is marked by Rebecca's indelible presence and routines, and she is always made to feel lacking or wanting when she compares herself to the way Rebecca was and how she managed Manderley. In addition, if we look at the way Manderley is introducted when the narrator first arrives there, there is a distinct sense of...
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fear and doom in the way it is described. Note how even the drive, as described in Chapter Seven, gives this sense:
The drive twisted and turned as a serpent, scarce wider in places than a path, and above our heads was a great collonade of trees, whose branches nodded and intermingled with one another, making an archway for us, like the roof of a church. Even the midday sun would not penetrate the interlacing of those green leaves, they were too thickly entwined, one with another, and only little flickering patches of warm light would come in intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold. It was very silent, very still.
The drive is compared to being a serpent with its obvious allusion to evil, temptation and deceit. The trees keep the drive from light and warmth, plunging it into a kind of darkness, which could be metaphorical of the darkness that the narrator endures for most of the novel. The character of Rebecca seems so bound up in the character of Manderley itself, that it is only natural to think of Manderley as being a kind of motif for Rebecca herself. I always think of "The Fall of the House of Usher" and the way that the deaths of Roderick and Madeline result in the "death" of the house itself, and the same could be said with Manderley's end. When the phantom of Rebecca is finally killled off, Manderley dies with her.
What is a recurring motif in the first chapter of Rebecca?
In chapter one of "Rebecca," a strong motif that comes through is that of wild, untamed nature that is overpowering and taking over the once domesticated and trimmed property of Manderly. The author spends a great deal of time describing how the bushes, trees, flowers, and shrubs have all gone wild, growing into the paths, obscuring the road, and taking on giant, frightening proportions. It all makes nature herself seem like a foreboding and powerful beast that, if not kept in check and tamed, will encroach and drown anyone in its path. This wildness can serve as a symbol of the narrator's own fears and feelings of inadequacy in the face of powers that she can't control; from the moment she set foot at Manderly, she felt a force that was beyond her grasp. It was powerful and strong, and threatened to overwhelm anyone who let it in, just like nature did. That motif runs throughout almost all of the descriptions of the dream that the narrator has.
Other motifs, not as strong, are the dream-like quality of her vision; she floats, passes through walls, feels unreal, etc. That eeriness of the feeling of being stuck in a dream comes through pretty strongly. Also, the motif of the house, Manderly, being a living thing that is watching her with malevolence. She feels it is not empty, but that someone or something is there, enlivening it, watching her. All together, it is unsettling, as it is meant to be. This is a mystery novel that is meant to make the reader question and feel a bit unsettled, and the motifs in the first chapter serve that purpose well. I hope that helped; good luck!