BEFORE READING
 

ACTIVITY ONE: ABOUT THE AUTHOR

1. When and where was Daphne du Maurier born? In London 1907

2. How many of her titles were turned into films directed by Hitchcock? Which ones ?
Jamaica Inn (1939) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock 
Rebecca (1940) Alfred Hitchcock's Academy Award winning adaptation
The Birds (1963) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock 

ACTIVITY TWO: ABOUT THE NOVEL

1. Rebecca is a Gothic romance.  When was the Gothic novel born? Which of its characteristics are present in Rebecca ?
It was born in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. During the 1960s the so-called gothic novels became enormously popular in England and the United States. In these novels there are  young women, either governesses or new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts. 
Rebecca  contains most of the trappings of the typical Gothic romance: a mysterious, haunted mansion, violence, murder, a sinister villain, sexual passion, a spectacular fire, a brooding landscape and a version of the mad woman in the attic. 

2. Manderley is based on a real mansion.What's its name? How is it related to Daphne du Maurier? 
Menabilly. It's  Daphne du Maurier's home  in Cornwall . 

3. The second Mrs. de Winter is not given a name in Daphne du Maurier's novel. Is she assigned a name in the film?
No, she isn't.
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AFTER  READING

1. What makes Rebecca special?
The way Daphne du Maurier presents her,  obliquely, insidiously, always offstage, and always at the centre of the action. 

2. According to Nilanjana S Roy, no-one ever read  and emerged from the book wanting to be her? Who does N. S. Roy refer to? The narrator

3. What is Rebecca's Tale  about?
Rebecca's Tale revisits the story of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca from the point of view of the one person denied a voice: Rebecca herself, the wilful, arrogant, promiscuous and mysterious first Mrs de Winter.

4.  Can you find any similarities between Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel?
In both novels there is a woman who manipulates her husband and is finally murdered. 
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5. Read some of the entries in the Guestbook and write one yourself. You can either answer any of the entries or write a comment on any aspect of the novel or the writer. 
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4. Read the critical reviews on Rebecca and write your own. 
Different possible answers