Topic > Narrative structure and narrative manipulation in 'rebecca'

A narrative is a spoken or written account of events and structure is the order in which the author organizes events; While these definitions may seem simple, much of the interest in a narrative can come from distorting or manipulating key information. The narrative of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca is in the first person, and the structure is a flashback after introducing the story into the present, as if she is remembering what happened to her in Manderley. As readers, we trust that his version of the story is exactly what happened because there is nothing to suggest otherwise. However, the narrator's memory is subjective; for example, in his eyes, Rebecca is the villain and Maxim is the victim, even after admitting to the murder of his ex-wife. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Rebecca can be defined as a Bildungsroman: this means that over the course of the novel the narrator matures. At the beginning of her story she remembers what it was like when she was Mrs van Hopper's companion: «I remember well that plate of ham and tongue. It was dry, unappetising, cut into wedges from the outside, but I didn't have the courage to refuse it.' and says "how young and inexperienced I must have looked." However, by the end of the novel, she has matured and become more confident: "I have lost my distrust, my shyness, my timidity with strangers. I am very different from the one who went to Manderley for the first time, full of hope and impatientness, hampered by a rather desperate clumsiness and filled with an intense desire to please.'Writing in the first person means that we do not learn the narrator's name. The absence of a name means that it does not give the narrator his own identity above all at the beginning of the story when she is Mrs van Hopper's partner. She marries Maxim, her name becomes Mrs de Winter but she doesn't feel comfortable with this name because she doesn't like the idea of ​​following Rebecca competition between the narrator and Rebecca, for the right to bear the name. The advantage of writing in the first person is that we know what the narrator thinks and feels; it also allows for the The narrator's point of view emerges more clearly, as it is expressed directly and represents his personality and opinions more easily. A good example of this is when he recalls his time with Mrs. van Hopper and the embarrassment he feels: "I would feel like a scapegoat having to endure his master's suffering when I watched people laugh behind his back." This is an advantage for the novel because it gives a sense of intimacy, allowing the reader to empathize with the narrator. However, a disadvantage of first-person narrative is that all the information we get is distorted because it is only from his point of view. All the information we know about Rebecca comes from how the narrator imagines her or from second-hand information (what she hears from other people), and what others think of Rebecca is also filtered by their opinions and motivations. For example, in chapter 11 he asks Frank "Was Rebecca very beautiful?" to which he replies "yes, I suppose she was the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life" and in chapter 13, when the narrator meets Ben, he says of Rebecca, "she was tall and dark." It gave you the feeling of a snake. I saw it here with my own eyes. He came at night." Therefore, we get an unfair portrayal of Rebecca because she cannot speak for herself, and the image of her that we construct in our minds is purely created from other people's bits of information. This allows the.