Rebecca
...vil stepsisters, trying to destroy the main character. Both stories also have a ballroom scene in the middle that ends unexpectedly. Rebecca has a twist though, that changes the story dramatically. An investigation begins to find the cause of death of Maxim's former wife, Rebecca. At the beginning of the investigation Maxim admits to his wife that he murdered Rebecca and made it look like she drowned on accident. After that point the story becomes increasingly suspenseful as evidence leads closer and closer to the truth. The insecurity of the narrator drives the suspense and helps the reader relate to her. The narrator was a poor girl who worked as an assistant to Mrs. Van Hopper, a very dominating woman. "At first the narrator appears to have no identity at all, only serving Mrs. Van Hopper." (Kelly 54). In most social situations she was not even allowed to speak. She also seems to be unbelievably stupid at times. All of the sudden she was thrust into the position of mistress of Manderley. People would talk about every little thing she does and she is all over the newspapers. She is constantly being compared to Rebecca and this makes her feel very uncomfortable. People would say things to her like "You're so different from Rebecca", and this would make her feel even more inferior to the great Rebecca. She would also do stupid things like taking the advise of Mrs. Danvers when she knows that Mrs. Danvers hates her (Davenport, 162). Many people would feel insecure in her position though, and that helps the reader relate to her and sympathize for her. The narrator does not believe that Maxim loves her. She thinks that he still loves Rebecca. This keeps the reader trying to figure out if Maxim really loves her or not. The insecurity of the narrator also shows how she evolves throughout the story. The narrator is a dynamic character that changes many times throughout the story. The biggest change comes when she finds out that Maxim never loved Rebecca. This gives her more confidence and she starts to take control of the things around her. She says, "I had not thought it would be so easy to be severe. I wondered why it had seemed so hard for me before" (Dumaurier 289). She also starts to stick up for herself because she loses all fear of Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca. She also feels that she has finally grown up. Maxim also notices this when he says, "It's gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. I killed that too, when I killed Rebecca. In 24 hours you look so much older" (Dumarier 289). She realizes that she would have been much happier if would have had this confidence all along. She even wonders how many people live their whole lives behind the fear and shyness that she lived, never knowing how much better life is when you are confident and express yourself. Foreshadowing also adds to the suspense near the end of the novel. Throughout the story there are clues that hint toward the truth. The way that Maxim got so upset whenever Rebecca was mentioned gave the reader the feeling that something terrible must have happened. When the narrator first meets Mrs. Danvers, she gets the chills when she shakes Mrs. Danvers' cold and heavy hand. This foreshadows the evil intentions of Mrs. Danvers. Another major foreshadowing is the way Ben, the mentally handicapped man talked about Rebecca. He said that she was mean and that she was going to have him put in the asylum. The reader later discovers that Rebecca was mean like Ben had said, and not the great person everyone believed her to be. The final foreshadowing is at the end of story when Maxim and the narrator are on their way back to Manderley and Maxim becomes very uncomfortable. He wants to get back to Manderley as soon as possible because he feels that something terrible is going to happen. He was right because when they get back, they find Manderley burning down. Symbolism is also used to foreshadow some of the important events in the story. Rebecca's boat that was also the one she sank in was called Je Revienss, which means, "I come back". The name is symbolic in that the boat was raised from the bottom of the bay and physically did come back. It was also symbolic in that Rebecca came back to haunt the present. Another symbol that reoccurred throughout the story was the big slanting R. Whenever the narrator saw an R that Rebecca had written, she immediately thought of how incredible Rebecca must have been and how she herself was so inferior. Many of the characters in the story are deceptive, which adds to the mystery and suspense. The deception starts right from the beginning when the narrator is told that Rebecca had drowned accidentally. That makes it even more shocking when the truth is finally revealed. The narrator was not the only one deceived though; Maxim was able to deceive everyone about the death of Rebecca. N...