An Analysis Of Rebecca By Daphne Du Maurier

Dreams are often viewed as peaceful escapes, but sometimes dreams make a person’s worst fears come true. In an excerpt from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, the narrator describes a dream where she visits an abandoned home overpowered by nature. The author uses menacing diction, mysterious details, and haunting imagery to create a nostalgic mood. In the beginning of the passage, du Maurier creates a threatening mood through her description of the gate. The narrator reveals on line four “there was a padlock and a chain upon the gate.” There must be a padlock to keep others out and so the property is private. A padlock and chain gives a threatening mood because if you see a gate with a lock on it your gonna stay out because the land is closed off to you. On lines six and seven she enhances the threatening mood by stating “...peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited.” A gate with a
The overall mood for the house was optimistic because the narrator was very hopeful to make it through the gate and all the way to the house. In lines fifty-five and fifty-six she explains when coming up to the house “There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been” The house was described as secretive and silent because there was no one in it or around it. The house was hidden behind woods and a locked gate which kept people out. As she describes the house it seems very important to her and in lines fifty-eight through sixty she says “Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, not the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand…” this house means a lot to her and she compares it to a jewel in the hollow of a hand to show the importance. In lines sixty-one and sixty-two she says “the house was sepulcher, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins.” She describes the house as very small and it's like a graveyard to