Our Shared Shelf discussion

Has anyone read the essay by John Sutherland by the same name. Tbh, this really changed the way I read this novel, and it definitely marks the point where I started questioning the conventional reading.

Basically, he asks the question
[spoilers] what kind of man shoots a pregnant woman, anyway? Especially his own wife? Sutherland rereads the passage when Rebecca promises him a child, not as a woman taunting him with a bastard love-child, but as a woman begging for her life. She's desperate because he's waving a gun in her face so she presents him with her cancerous swollen stomach; in a wild attempt to get him to calm down, she presents him with the scenario she wanted before she realised she was dying. Because, even if the murder-as-willed-suicide theory is true - and let's be honest, it's practically she asked for it, isn't it? - this opens up a raft of other questions that never get asked in court. Did Maxim just wander down to the cottage with a gun? Who is the woman he identified as Rebecca? [/spoilers]

Because, on another reading, I started to question Maxim's version of events a lot more. Imo, he never proves himself not suspect; even the very opening chapters show a man weakly manipulating his wife in a miserable, lonely life.

To me Maxim is obviously the bad guy of the story, and he is the only one that gets to tell it... Plus we hear his version through the lense of the narrator who basically thinks her husband is perfect and doesn't even see how badly he is treating her since day one.

I don't know if Rebecca wanted to be killed or not. What I know is that that theory doesn't fit the portrait Maxim does of her. And yes, him going to the cottage with a gun is really weird. Also him going back to Monaco after killing her is also pretty weird. I mean, if killing her was something he didn't intend to do, something she basically forced him to do, and if he feels so bad about it why does he go back to their honeymoon location ? Where he says he discovered the monster he married ? Doesn't make any sense.

I really believe we don't get a real portrait of Rebecca in the book. Maxim says only what helps him look good in the situation (and he also is a very mysoginistic man). Mrs. Danvers describes her as a kind a fantasy to what a perfectly free woman would be. Her cousin sees only what he wants to see... And the narrator also choses to see her as a vilain, as someone that was "asking for it".

Yes! That’s part of the gothic genius of this work. His version of events is self serving. Her willingness to believe him is näive. We’ll never know Rebecca’s side because she can’t speak for herself. That atmosphere where nearly every detail of the story is cause for doubt and ambivalence is part of why I love this book so much.