the past

In Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, the past is not a neutral sequence of events but an active, corrosive force that the characters struggle to escape, forget, or confront. It is the central antagonist of the novel, embodied in the memory of Rebecca de Winter, whose influence pervades Manderley and poisons the present. The narrative is structured around the tension between the desire to bury the past and its relentless return, a dynamic that drives the plot from the opening dream to the final conflagration.

The Past as a Burden and a Prison

The novel opens with the second Mrs de Winter's famous dream, in which she returns to Manderley only to find it a ruined, overgrown shell. This dream establishes the past as an inescapable geography: "We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us." The past is not a distant memory but a living presence that "would stir again," bringing with it "that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic." For Maxim de Winter, the past is a personal hell. He tells the narrator, "All memories are bitter, and I prefer to ignore them. Something happened a year ago that altered my whole life, and I want to forget every phase in my existence up to that time." He describes his memories as a scent that can be "too strong for the bottle, and too strong for me," a force that, like a "furtive peeping Tom," tries to draw the cork. The past is a devil that "rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end."

The Attempt to Blot Out the Past

Maxim's strategy for dealing with the past is to suppress it entirely. He tells the narrator, "You have blotted out the past for me, you know, far more effectively than all the bright lights of Monte Carlo." He believes that by marrying a young, innocent woman, he can begin a new life, free from the shadow of Rebecca. The narrator, too, initially tries to erase the past, most dramatically when she burns the flyleaf of the book of poems inscribed "Max from Rebecca." She cuts the page out, tears it into fragments, and sets fire to them, watching the letter "R" twist and crumple in the flame. She feels a "clean new feeling," as if she has started a new year. This act of destruction is a futile attempt to destroy the memory of Rebecca herself. The narrator also tries to avoid the past by not asking questions, by not visiting the west wing, and by trying to be a different kind of wife. Yet, the past is embedded in the very fabric of Manderley: in the morning-room, where Rebecca's handwriting still labels the pigeon-holes; in the library, where the old dog waits for a mistress who will never return; and in the west wing, where Mrs Danvers keeps Rebecca's room as a shrine.

The Past's Triumphant Return

The past cannot be contained. It returns with the discovery of Rebecca's boat, Je Reviens ("I come back"), a name that is a direct threat. The boat's discovery forces Maxim to confess the truth: he killed Rebecca. The past, which he had tried to bury, literally rises from the sea. The narrator realizes that "Rebecca had won. Her shadow between us all the time. Her damned shadow keeping us from one another." The past is not merely a memory; it is a weapon that Rebecca herself wielded. Maxim understands that her final, cruel joke was to provoke him into killing her, knowing that the truth would eventually destroy him. The past, in the form of Jack Favell and Mrs Danvers, then threatens to destroy Maxim through blackmail and exposure. The novel's climax, the inquest, is a public reckoning with the past, where the truth about Rebecca's death and her terminal illness is finally revealed.

The Past as a Destroyer

The novel's final image is the destruction of Manderley itself. As Maxim and the narrator drive home, they see the sky "shot with crimson, like a splash of blood" and realize that Manderley is burning. The past, which they had hoped to leave behind, has consumed the present. The house, which was the physical embodiment of Maxim's family history and his love for Rebecca, is reduced to ashes. The novel ends not with a new beginning but with a final, apocalyptic return of the past, suggesting that some memories are too powerful to be escaped and that the attempt to bury them can only lead to destruction. The past, in Rebecca, is a force of nature, as relentless and destructive as the sea that claimed Rebecca herself.