We can never go back again

The phrase 'We can never go back again' opens Chapter Two of Rebecca, spoken by the unnamed narrator as she reflects from her exile on the impossibility of returning to Manderley. It crystallizes the novel's central theme of traumatic memory, the irreversibility of loss, and the psychological barrier that the past erects against any attempt at recovery. The sentence functions as both a literal statement about the couple's physical exile and a metaphysical verdict on the narrator's inner life: the past is not a place one can revisit without being consumed by it.

Context and First Appearance

The narrator utters the line at the very beginning of Chapter Two, immediately after the dream sequence that opens the novel. She has just described her dream of returning to Manderley, only to find it overgrown and desolate, a 'sepulchre' where 'our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins.' The waking reality that follows is one of permanent exile in a 'bare little hotel bedroom' in an 'alien land.' The sentence 'We can never go back again, that much is certain' thus serves as the bridge between the dream's illusory return and the waking acknowledgment that such a return is impossible. The narrator immediately qualifies the statement by adding, 'The past is still too close to us,' suggesting that the prohibition is not merely physical but psychological: the past is not a distant country but a living presence that would 'stir again' if approached.

Thematic Significance: Trauma and the Impossibility of Return

The phrase encapsulates the novel's exploration of traumatic memory. The narrator explains that 'the things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it had been before.' This passage reveals that the prohibition against return is not merely a matter of geography but of psychological survival. The past is not inert; it is a 'living companion' that can reanimate itself if given the slightest opportunity. The narrator's use of 'we' is significant: she includes Maxim in this verdict, suggesting that their shared trauma has made them both exiles, bound together by the knowledge that Manderley is lost to them forever. The phrase thus functions as a kind of protective incantation, a way of sealing off the past to prevent its return.

Relationship to the Novel's Structure

The sentence 'We can never go back again' echoes the novel's circular structure, which begins with the dream of return and ends with the actual destruction of Manderley by fire. The narrator's dream in Chapter One is a false return, a fantasy that the novel's final pages will violently negate. The phrase thus anticipates the novel's conclusion, where the physical destruction of Manderley makes any literal return impossible. The narrator's insistence on the impossibility of return also contrasts with the novel's many flashbacks, which constitute a kind of narrative return to the past. The novel itself is a return, a telling of the story that the narrator claims cannot be revisited. This tension between the stated impossibility of return and the act of narration itself is one of the novel's central ironies: the narrator can never go back to Manderley, but she can, and does, go back to the story of Manderley.

The Phrase as a Motif

The idea of not being able to go back recurs throughout the novel in various forms. Maxim tells the narrator early in their acquaintance, 'All memories are bitter, and I prefer to ignore them.' The narrator herself reflects on the impossibility of recapturing moments, wishing for 'an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent.' The phrase 'We can never go back again' thus becomes a kind of motto for the novel's characters, who are all, in their different ways, trying to escape the past. The narrator's final realization, after Maxim's confession, is that they must 'begin all over again,' but even this hope is undercut by the novel's ending, which shows Manderley burning. The phrase ultimately stands as a verdict on the entire narrative: the past cannot be undone, and the attempt to return to it is not only futile but dangerous.