Transgressive femininity in Alfred Hitchcock’s… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Trans­gres­sive fem­i­nin­i­ty in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca

18 Oct 2020

Words by Malcolm Ring

Two women in 1940s fashion; one with curled hair, the other in a fur coat.
Two women in 1940s fashion; one with curled hair, the other in a fur coat.
The 1940 adap­ta­tion of Daphne du Maurier’s nov­el sees the title char­ac­ter refuse to be tamed by marriage.

Alfred Hitch­cock was obsessed with the state of wom­an­hood. His pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with beau­ti­ful, blonde lead­ing ladies became a trade­mark, yet these cast­ing choic­es ran deep­er than good looks. His fil­mog­ra­phy reads as a man des­per­ate­ly try­ing to unlock the mys­tery of women.

Hitch­cock was def­i­nite­ly not a fem­i­nist, but to write off his work as misog­y­nis­tic would be an over­sim­pli­fi­ca­tion; his female char­ac­ters were just as com­pli­cat­ed as his male ones. Their dark­er psy­ches were often evi­dent despite their per­fect facades. This is undoubt­ed­ly true in 1940’s Rebec­ca, where we are giv­en three exam­ples of women who trans­gress the tra­di­tion­al ide­olo­gies sur­round­ing femininity.

The film’s unnamed hero­ine (Joan Fontaine) meets the world­ly and aris­to­crat­ic Max­im de Win­ter (Lau­rence Olivi­er) while work­ing as a paid com­pan­ion in Monte Car­lo. The pow­er imbal­ance between the two is clear from the out­set. Despite her con­ven­tion­al attrac­tive­ness and respectabil­i­ty, Fontaine plays her with con­stant ner­vous ener­gy, reveal­ing her inse­cu­ri­ty. Her low­er-class sta­tus, in con­trast to the blue-blood­ed Max­im, push­es her into a sub­mis­sive role, some­thing he takes full advan­tage of dur­ing their whirl­wind romance. Our heroine’s alleged fail­ings as a woman only become more evi­dent once the pair are mar­ried and she assumes the title of the new Mrs de Winter.

Upon arriv­ing at the daunt­ing Man­der­ley estate, the sec­ond Mrs de Win­ter is haunt­ed by the ghost of the first, the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter, Rebec­ca. Although she has been dead a year, her pres­ence is every­where. Maxim’s new bride is over­shad­owed by her pre­de­ces­sor, whether through com­par­isons made by Maxim’s friends and fam­i­ly or by the styl­ish R’ mono­gram preva­lent through­out the house. Rebec­ca remains excep­tion­al at all she set her mind to, while the sec­ond Mrs de Win­ter is rebuked by Max­im for mere­ly try­ing a new style of dress.

It is Mrs Dan­vers, the sto­ic and intim­i­dat­ing house­keep­er played by Judith Ander­son, who keeps Rebec­ca alive. Her sub­tle under­min­ing of the pro­tag­o­nist stems from her fer­vent loy­al­ty to Rebec­ca with whom she was infat­u­at­ed. How­ev­er, Mrs Dan­vers is more of a threat through her fail­ure to adhere to the het­ero­nor­ma­tive stan­dards of wom­an­hood typ­i­cal of the peri­od. She is plain, nev­er once accom­mo­dat­ing to any­one, and her affec­tion for Rebec­ca has always appeared queer-coded.

Mrs Dan­vers’ wor­ship of Rebec­ca is fanat­i­cal. This is revealed when she shows the sec­ond Mrs de Win­ter her for­mer mis­tress’ bed­room, shut off in Manderley’s west wing. The room has an almost eccle­si­as­ti­cal stature, tow­er­ing win­dows and gild­ed mir­rors which shine light onto Rebecca’s per­fect­ly pre­served van­i­ty, where Mrs Dan­vers has not allowed a speck of dust to settle.

The house­keep­er gen­tly han­dles Rebecca’s pos­ses­sions with a love and devo­tion reserved only for het­ero­nor­ma­tive romance at the time, point­ing out the sheer­ness of her night­wear and open­ing her cab­i­nets of under­gar­ments with rev­er­ence. Yet the explic­it queer­ness was unac­cept­able for Hol­ly­wood at the time and there­fore por­trayed as dis­turb­ing and frightening.

There is an unsettling familiarity in how easily Maxim gets away with his crimes, especially considering his powerful upper-class status.

Rebec­ca her­self was an allur­ing and attrac­tive woman, yet, she is con­demned for using her fem­i­nine wiles to live beyond her wife­ly role. She has three hall­marks of a good wife – breed­ing, brains and beau­ty,” as told to Max­im – in spades. How­ev­er, Max­im despis­es his spouse for refus­ing to be the per­fect house­wife he desired. Like Mr Rochester before him, Max­im is guard­ed and stern, with mon­strous wives lurk­ing in the back­ground, mock­ing him. The west wing of Man­der­ley, much like Rochester’s attic in Jane Eyre’, is locked, shut­ter­ing Maxim’s frag­ile ego. When Rebec­ca taunts Max­im by flaunt­ing her sex­u­al his­to­ry and refus­ing to be tamed, she is pun­ished for her fail­ures” as a woman by his fatal strike.

While the Hays Code and pro­duc­er David O Selznick pre­vent­ed depic­tion of Max­im inten­tion­al­ly killing Rebec­ca – as he does in the nov­el – Max­im is still is cul­pa­ble and admits that he want­ed to mur­der his wife. There is an unset­tling famil­iar­i­ty in how eas­i­ly Max­im gets away with his crimes, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing his pow­er­ful upper-class status.

The new Mrs de Winter’s trans­for­ma­tion into an ide­alised woman is realised when Max­im con­fess­es his role in Rebecca’s death. Rather than fear­ing or reject­ing him, she is instead relieved that Max­im tru­ly desires her over his first wife. As she becomes increas­ing­ly com­plic­it, her loss of inno­cence is reflect­ed in her matur­ing dress sense. Her first out­fit post-con­fes­sion is a black, shoul­der-padded dress which Max­im him­self notes marks the death of her youth, stat­ing, I killed that when I told you about Rebec­ca.” Yet she embraces the change as it means she can final­ly be the accept­able wife for Maxim.

The film con­cludes with Mrs Dan­vers, dis­traught over the truth of Rebecca’s death, set­ting fire to Man­der­ley. This vio­lent act is an attempt to destroy the new couple’s domes­tic­i­ty. Nonethe­less, it is Mrs Dan­vers who suc­cumbs, and the clos­ing shot is Rebecca’s mono­grammed pil­low set ablaze. For fail­ing to appease the men in their lives, they are destroyed. Mean­while, the sec­ond Mrs de Win­ter is reward­ed for her com­plic­i­ty and for this rea­son, she is allowed to live and thrive.

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