Daphne du Maurier

Dealing with themes of forgiveness, revenge, responsibility, and self-interest, Cianfrance's film is unabashedly, relentlessly and almost defiantly sentimental. It wears its sentimentalism like a badge of honor and makes it work by telling its story in a forthright and serious manner, eliciting powerful performances from actors, and using apposite visuals to convey the sadness of the narrative. The Light Between Oceans is not a great film but it is engaging, moving and beautiful.

L'elaborato tenta di indagare la multiformità dello schermo sonoro di Alfred Hitchcock prendendo in esame specifico due film come "Blackmail" (1929), prima pellicolla all talkie d'Europa, e "The Birds" (1963), avanguardistico lavoro audiovisivo.
Partendo dal concetto hitchcockiano di «sceneggiatura dei suoni», l'obiettivo del lavoro è di cogliere, attraverso l'analisi degli oggetti filmico-musicali, gli aspetti estetici e poietici che rendono Hitchcock un consapevole scrittore sonoro e manipolatore musicale delle emozioni.
A gradi di maggiore approfondimento, i criteri analitici impiegati nel testo provano a delinare categorie formali ed interpretative circa l'organizzazione assoluta degli oggetti sonori e musicali, così come vengono accolti dalla figura dell'audio-spettatore, nella loro forma contrastiva suono-silenzio.

The critical consensus that Rebecca is a faithful adaptation stems from ignorance of the du Maurier novel and a simplistic interpretation of Hitchcock’s complex, nuanced remarks about the film’s production. He radically departed from the mediocre source to explore those themes of unstable identity, male anxiety and sexual repression, which also permeate The 39 Steps, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo and Marnie.  Rebecca, the character, is a synecdoche of Rebecca, the film.  She offered to play the part of a devoted wife to deceive Max’s family and friends; the film pretended to be a faithful adaptation to deceive Selznick, du Maurier, the critics, perhaps even Hitchcock himself.  While the newly arrived director can be identified with the nameless displaced feminine protagonist, Manderley and Monte Carlo symbolise the artificiality of Hollywood.  Mrs Van Hopper’s retort that “most girls would give their eyes for a chance to see Monte”, trumped by Max’s “Wouldn’t that rather defeat the purpose?”,  invites reflection on how many directors have given their eyes to work in Hollywood, only to have their personal purposes defeated.  In Hitchcock’s case, the motifs of artificiality and reality, blindness and sight, and defeated purpose resonate throughout his films.

Kensington Gardens has influenced many artistic and literary ideas, with a strong emphasis on childhood imagination, fantasy and magic. The natural beauty of the Gardens has inspired the artists and writers, who have moulded British mythology by maintaining and re-inventing local myths and legends. They include the poets Thomas Tickell, Matthew Arnold and Robert Browning, The Pre-Raphaelite painters, illustrators Beatrix Potter and Arthur Rackham, authors Kenneth Grahame, A A Milne and perhaps most famously, J M Barrie. The area is rich in local folklore; throughout the ages successive generations of artists and writers have imbued the Gardens with a variety of fantastic and mystical attributes. These mythologies have been continually built upon and reinterpreted for new audiences in a diverse range of creative forms. Kensington Gardens contains a number of alleged sacred sites, some ancient and others more modern. The question is not if all of these myths are derived from truth; it is about identifying them and understanding how and why they came to be. Barrie has been associated with the area since he published The Little White Bird in 1902, marking the first brief appearance of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn't grow up. Those chapters were later reworked as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906) illustrated by Arthur Rackham, who depicted actual locations within the Gardens. Fairies, mythical creatures, birds that hatch and become human babies populate Barrie's tales. But these fairies were not the first to be found in Kensington and another wild boy, one who couldn't grow up, lived

Este trabajo pretende investigar en la configuración del personaje de Rebeca de Winter en la película Rebeca de Alfred Hitchcock (1940). En el film, la difunta Rebeca queda configurada a través de la descripción que terceros hacen de ella a la narradora, la nueva señora de Winter, que, frente a la omnipresencia de la fallecida, no tiene siquiera nombre de pila.

Tras conocer a Maxim de Winter en Montecarlo, mientras trabaja de acompañante de una rica viuda norteamericana, la dama de compañía se convierte en la nueva señora de Manderley, la mansión familiar que los de Winter tienen en Cornualles, habitada por la presencia fantasmagórica de la primera esposa de Maxim, quien murió hace apenas un año, y por la de su ama de llaves, la señora Danvers.

El peso de ese eco del pasado se vuelve cada vez más y más pesado para la nueva señora de Winter quien acaba recibiendo distintas informaciones de Rebeca. Primero, cree que es la mujer perfecta: tremendamente hermosa, culta, divertida, de buen linaje, inteligente y amadísima por Maxim. Y siente que su figura la oprime, en tanto que inalcanzable. Posteriormente, descubre que Rebeca era una mujer fría, promiscua, cruel y muy viva, aún en su muerte, pues su poder es aún mayor del que ella le atribuía.

Así, Rebecca de Winter queda configurada a través de un halo de divinidad. Los dos temas que la definen son la omnipotencia y la ambigüedad. Omnipotencia porque logra el poder máximo que la civilización occidental atribuye a un ser: la regresión del mundo de los muertos y la participación desde el mundo de los muertos en el de los vivos. Y ambigüedad porque, a propósito de esto, sobrevuela siempre en torno a su figura la amenaza, no en vano su balandro se llama “Yo regreso”, y la idea de que las vidas de los demás son un juego para ella es clave. Así, se la define como una diosa, con todo lo que eso significa: a veces benéfica, a veces temible y, en consecuencia, se la ama, se la odia y, sobre todo, se la teme.

Sobre estos temas centraremos el análisis de la figura de Rebeca de Winter, estudiados gracias al análisis textual, siguiendo la 'Teoría del Texto' de Jesús González Requena.

The paper compares two short stories dealing with a similar topic of horror, The Apple Tree by Daphne Du Maurier as well as The Apple Tree by Elizabeth Bowen. They are examined for their distinguishing elements both in terms of psychological phenomena as well as supernatural occurences. The paper sheds some light in gothic novel elements used in modernist literature while connecting them with modernist methods of storytelling.

Novelists’ constructions and discussions of morality during the Romantic period reflected the social and political upheavals of their time. This period was deeply marked by the French Revolution, which gathered both support and opposition across Europe. Some were in favour of reformation, while others fought to uphold traditional values in face of the growing violence of the events in France and their deviance from the original promise of equality. As it has been argued by Mark Philp, ‘the language of reform had become indistinguishable from that of insurrection and revolution’.  In addition to the controversy of revolutionary ideals, other debates started to gain prominence, such as religion, the role of women in society, and the importance of education. This essay aims to explore the ways in which novelists, specifically Jane Austen and the Marquis de Sade, construct morality in light of these debates in the novels Northanger Abbey and Justine.

In the main part of this term paper, I argue that the country house and its adjacent gardens and landscape have three main functions in relation to the plot of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca: First, the depiction of Manderley adds to the analysis of the two main female characters, Rebecca and the second Mrs de Winter. Second, descriptions of Manderley and the gardens are intended to create a gloomy atmosphere that is typical for Gothic novels and they foreshadow the novel's plot line – including the murder secretly conducted by Maxim de Winter and the fire that eventually destroys Manderley. Third, the estate is the immediate cause of Rebecca's death. The second part of this paper is concerned with the various meanings that can be read into the destruction of Manderley at the end of the novel.

Stairway to heaven. La metafora dello sguardo dall'alto1 1. Per cominciare… una biblioteca! Nel film Il cielo sopra Berlino, del 1987, di Wim Wenders, c'è una scena che rimane particolarmente impressa nel cuore e nella mente di chi ama leggere, e studiare. Sappiamo che il film parla degli angeli, quelli che, appunto, abitano il cielo sopra Berlino. Per chi avesse il dubbio: niente a che vedere con cose superstiziose o new age. Qui siamo nell'ambito della poesia. La storia narrata nel film si svolge nell'epoca in cui la città tedesca è ancora ferita dalla presenza del muro, che sta lì, ingombrante cicatrice di un terribile passato. Il tema di questo paper è lo sguardo dall'alto, inteso come metafora e come indicazione, in qualche modo, per stare, meglio, al mondo. Il riferimento al film di Wenders è quindi immediato, ma ancora più interessante è la scena della biblioteca. Gli angeli di Wenders guardano, appunto, la città, dall'alto. La sorvegliano amorevolmente, e vedono tutto, dentro e fuori cuore e mente delle persone. Ma perché la scena della biblioteca è così importante? Perché fa capire la cosa più importante, una chiave di lettura senza la quale il senso profondo del film sfugge. Gli angeli di Wenders non hanno niente a che fare con fantasie superstiziose o new age. Il cielo, quel cielo che gli angeli di Wenders abitano, è per prima cosa, e forse più di ogni altra cosa, uno spazio interiore. È un dentro le persone, non si trova fuori di loro. Ed è uno spazio infinito: pieno di pace o dolore, non si sa, perché non è sempre uguale. Ma il solo modo per entrare in questo spazio, visitarlo, sostare in esso e abitarlo, è rivolgere l'attenzione alle cose che contano e che spesso, proprio come la presenza degli angeli di Wenders, non si vedono. Quale posto migliore di una biblioteca per fare silenzio e rivolgere lo sguardo all'interno, nell'interiorità? Non c'è via più indicata di un libro per iniziare questo particolarissimo viaggio. Oppure un'opera d'arte: magari un quadro. Nel nostro caso, ne abbiamo addirittura due.

Part Two of the paper covers the significance of the rooms and interiors of Menabilly, discovered by Daphne du Maurier during her secret visits to the estate, and their depiction and symbolic meanings as the rooms of Manderley estate, in the book 'Rebeca'.

Nel presente saggio ci dedicheremo con più attenzione all’analisi della condizione della donna pazza (o ritenuta tale) in alcune opere importanti della letteratura straniera: ci occuperemo in particolar modo di un must della letteratura mondiale ossia Jane Eyre (1847), il celebre romanzo di formazione di Charlotte Brontë che ha fatto sognare tutte le donne, di Rebecca, la prima moglie (1938), romanzo di Daphne Du Maurier e di uno dei testi teatrali più noti nella produzione del norvegese Henrik Ibsen, Casa Rosmer (1886). L’accostamento delle tre opere è significativo per lo studio che qui ci si propone ovvero l’analisi comparativa di tre casi umani, nello specifico di tre donne, presentate dai rispettivi autori quali pazze furiose. Cosa accomuna Bertha Mason, Rebecca de Winter e Beate Rosmer oltre alla pazzia? Sono semplicemente tre povere donne che, a seguito di un passato traumatico, una vita violenta e solitaria hanno visto la loro psiche inabissare nel tormento e nel delirio oppure dietro la loro condizione stereotipata che gli autori ci forniscono si nasconde dell’altro?

Conference Paper:
Evelyn Waugh and Daphne du Maurier’s most beloved creations prominently feature the English country house as a locus of a past that refuses to be forgotten. The beginning of Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Rebecca (1938) presents a bleak image of a dull present, devoid of individuality and colour. The uninspiring present is contrasted throughout with the remarkable recent past. Both novels open with a sleeping protagonist dreaming of their privileged outsider’s perspective of ‘an exquisite man-made landscape’ (Brideshead 25). Yet the dream is in constant danger of tipping over the abyss into the realm of nightmares. Brideshead and Manderley reflect their creators’ ambiguous fascination with the big house. In their autobiographical writings Du Maurier [Myself When Young: The Shaping of a Writer (1977)] and Waugh [A Little Learning: The First Volume of an Autobiography (1964)] reimagine the country house as a synecdoche of England’s cultural international standing. These autobiographies outline the effect that early encounters with the structure of the country house had on them. Waugh’s fascination with the bric-a-brac housed in his aunts’ estate reflects his conservative nostalgia for a diminishing British Empire. His regrets the disappearance of an ordered, stratified and, for him, beautiful society and berates the void that is replacing it. Du Maurier’s recollections of her childhood visits to Milton House lead her to question the nature of time and history-making. It is not the things that the house contains that draws her, but the actual structure of the building. In her gothic appreciation of the big house the walls contain the ghost of yesterday.  For both writers, the English country house not only acts as a vibrant literary trope that gives voice to concerns for their country’s current political and moral climate; it is also a desired abode where these intensely private people can escape their public.

A look at the conscious and subconscious pools of information and experiences and their influence on the development of the plot structure and the unfolding of the story in the 'Rebecca' by Daphne du Maurier. The essay sites the author's notes from the 'Rebecca Notebook' where she shares some of the stages of her writing process. The work also examines the narrating style that includes several voices and the hues of their stories.

Based on the data of modern post-Fregean logic (J. Hintikka, B. Lourié and others), the author considers the plurality of virtual worlds in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s tetralogy The Cemetery of Forgotten Books (2001–2016). Turning to the idea of a “book zero” (J.L. Borges, C. Camps Mundó) and especially to V.N. Toporov’s philosophy of Russian literature (The Thing in the Anthropocentric Perspective, or The Apology of Plyushkin), the author suggests that the tetralogy fails to present a final narrative about the fate of one of the main characters, David Martín, and that his and his girlfriend Cristina Sagnier’s fates can be considered quite similar to those of the characters in Goethe’s Faust, who, as we learn in the end, are saved due to love, creativity and longing for eternal femininity. Further, the article discusses
some possible precedents for Zafón’s tetralogy (The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, Of
Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez) and hypothesizes, based on the ideas of Walter
Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze, about the existence of two large groups of literary works devoted to
the plurality of worlds: in the first group, the characters’ redemption is thought of and portrayed as
purely psychological or virtual, while the devil (and the spiritual ideal of the characters) as non-existent.
Zafón’s novels definitely belong to the second category as asserting the real ontology of the virtual
world. For example, the final refuge of Martín and Cristina resembles Dante’s and Mikhail Bulgakov’s
limbo. Thus, the author of this paper believes that both Corelli (as either the Evil One or his high-ranking
representative) and the place of Martín’s final redemption are real, in full accordance with the post-Fregean logic of virtual worlds and partly even contrary to the writer’s own instructions (given, however, through the haze of virtuality) in the tetralogy’s recently published fourth volume The Labyrinth of Spirits.