Examine the role of Mrs Danvers
Examine the role of Mrs Danvers in the novel, from her first appearance to her disappearance
Mrs Danvers is a key character in the novel Rebecca for a lot of reasons. It is always good to have a ‘baddie’ in a story and Mrs Danvers fills this role. She keeps the plot moving forward and is always in the main parts of the book, there to under mind the narrator. From the very first appearance of Mrs Danvers we get a sense of her Personality.
Her role in the novel is to belittle the narrator, to make her feel small and uneasy. Throughout the book we see her malicious personality, and her sense of mystery. She makes the narrator doubtful of her marriage and prevents her happiness. Mrs Danvers seems to bring tension to her scenes especially towards the narrator with a slight unsettling feeling.
Mrs Danvers is there to keep the spirit of Rebecca alive and is frequently comparing the narrator to Rebecca. She uses Rebecca to agitate and get under the narrator’s skin. If Mrs Danvers was not in the novel we would be missing key information on Rebecca. She provides memories and Rebecca’s personality, without this we wouldn’t get the real feeling of Rebecca’s true self.
Mrs Danvers shows a slight obsession over Rebecca, and never accepts the narrator as the new Mrs De Winter. She often tells of the contrast between Rebecca and the narrator, always exaggerating how Rebecca was so much better.
The first appearance of Mrs Danvers is when the narrator first arrives at Manderley. She gives a cold welcoming to the new Mrs De Winter, and we can tell that Mrs Danvers is going to be a very interesting and harsh character. We get this from descriptions like:
‘Someone advanced from a sea of faces, someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face, parchment- white, set on a skeleton’s frame’
We instantly see how nervous Mrs Danvers makes the narrator feel. In this passage she drops her gloves carelessly and the
Mrs Danvers is a key character in the novel Rebecca for a lot of reasons. It is always good to have a ‘baddie’ in a story and Mrs Danvers fills this role. She keeps the plot moving forward and is always in the main parts of the book, there to under mind the narrator. From the very first appearance of Mrs Danvers we get a sense of her Personality.
Her role in the novel is to belittle the narrator, to make her feel small and uneasy. Throughout the book we see her malicious personality, and her sense of mystery. She makes the narrator doubtful of her marriage and prevents her happiness. Mrs Danvers seems to bring tension to her scenes especially towards the narrator with a slight unsettling feeling.
Mrs Danvers is there to keep the spirit of Rebecca alive and is frequently comparing the narrator to Rebecca. She uses Rebecca to agitate and get under the narrator’s skin. If Mrs Danvers was not in the novel we would be missing key information on Rebecca. She provides memories and Rebecca’s personality, without this we wouldn’t get the real feeling of Rebecca’s true self.
Mrs Danvers shows a slight obsession over Rebecca, and never accepts the narrator as the new Mrs De Winter. She often tells of the contrast between Rebecca and the narrator, always exaggerating how Rebecca was so much better.
The first appearance of Mrs Danvers is when the narrator first arrives at Manderley. She gives a cold welcoming to the new Mrs De Winter, and we can tell that Mrs Danvers is going to be a very interesting and harsh character. We get this from descriptions like:
‘Someone advanced from a sea of faces, someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face, parchment- white, set on a skeleton’s frame’
We instantly see how nervous Mrs Danvers makes the narrator feel. In this passage she drops her gloves carelessly and the