Conflict Between Mrs Danvers And Rebecca

Moreover, the narrator manifests signs of transgression as she comes to identify with Rebecca and comes to terms with her adult sexuality. For most of the narrative, the narrator displays a plain shy, innocent, docile character. However, Blackford points at the erotic nature of the narrator’s post as a female companion to Mrs. Van Hopper (234). The same post is suggested again by the narrator with Maxim “I’ll be your friend and your companion, a sort of boy” (du Maurier 269). Horner and Zlosnik emphasize this prospect through declaring that the narrator’s identity is more complex than it might appear and more importantly that in writing her tale she hints at the “most mysterious secret of all: the nature of female identity” (Daphne du

In fact, the feminine triangle formed between the narrator, Mrs. Danvers, and Rebecca fuels the queer sexuality subtext of the novel. In spite of the fact that no actual physical relation takes place between any of them, but Horner and Zlosnik refer to the sexually suggestive scene where the narrator explores Rebecca’s bedroom (Daphne du Maurier 121). The narrator feels the clothes and accessories as Mrs. Danvers creating a highly sensual atmosphere with her encouraging whispers. The narrator combines intimation and fear in her description of Mrs. Danvers’ voice “her voice ingratiating and sweet as honey, horrible, false” , and she comments elsewhere “ and her voice was low and intimate, a voice I hated and feared” (du Maurier 170-71). Mrs. Danvers is a siren call for the narrator rendering her both tempted and afraid. Furthermore, the authors describe Mrs. Danvers as a character that acts to blur the lines between life/death, darkness/light, heterosexuality / homosexuality, femininity/ masculinity which gives rise to the intense position that this character occupies (Daphne du Maurier 122). Indeed, Mrs. Danvers is part of an all-female

Despite the fact that Maxim is an essential part of this triangle, he is objectified and acts as a mediator between Rebecca and the narrator (Wallace 50). Moreover, the tension between Rebecca and the narrator comes into play in different faces. Adoration, rivalry, sympathy, a slippage into a latent desire, and a longing to identify with Rebecca can be perceived as well as the relation between the women morphs throughout the narrative. However, the relation between them from a queer perspective can be summarized with the terms of the narrator’s desire for Rebecca or to identify with and be Rebecca. The ‘or’ here is necessitated by Judith Butler who proclaims that the two desires are exclusive terms (Rigby 481). When one of these desires exists in a person, it automatically erases the other desire. However, Butler claims that they can co-exist because in their “mutually exclusive relation” the desires “serve a heterosexual agenda” (Rigby 481). In addition, Rigby’s analysis stipulates that “Justine cannot want both to be Caroline and have Caroline” (481). Nevertheless, Frankenstein’s Justine raises the proposition that the desires coexist in the text (Rigby 481). This is quite applicable in the argument at hand. Rebecca’s narrator struggles with these desires, the desire to be Rebecca and the desire to have Rebecca. It also happens that one