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What is the significance of the title, Rebecca?

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The title Rebecca is significant because the character's presence and influence dominate the narrative, despite her death before the story begins. Rebecca's memory and the impact she had on those around her create suspense and tension, particularly through Mrs. Danvers's obsession with her. This influence affects the new marriage of the narrator and Maxim de Winter, overshadowing their lives and highlighting Rebecca's enduring presence at Manderley.

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The titular character in Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca died months before the story’s beginning. The novel carries her name, however, because Rebecca de Winter’s spirit dominates the narrative. Rebecca-the-deceased is not a living character in du Maurier’s story, but her memory and the apparently pernicious influence she wielded on those around her provides the novel’s element of suspense. With numerous tales of Rebecca’s interactions with those around her and one of the novel’s other main characters, Mrs. Danvers, obsessed with her memory, the character is the dominant personality throughout the novel.

Rebecca is about the marriage between a young, lower-income woman who serves as the novel’s narrator and the patriarch, Maximillian de Winter—known informally as Maxim—of the mansion the narrator comes to inhabit. When Maxim brings his new bride home to begin their lives together, the spirit of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, comes to dominate the environment, courtesy in no small part of Mrs. Danvers’s resentment of Rebecca’s replacement in the Manderley estate.

The significance of the title of du Maurier’s novel is the role played in the story by the character of that name, despite that character having died before the story begins.

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