A Hauntological Reading of Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca"

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.2

Keywords:

Rebecca, du Maurier, haunting, specter, phantom, hauntology

Abstract

This essay focuses on the way the main characters in Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca (1938) cope with the haunting influence of the past and attempts to read their struggle through the theoretical approach developed by Jacques Derrida in his Specters of Marx (1993). This approach, termed 'hauntology' by Derrida himself, revolves around the notion of the 'specter' haunting the present and emphasizes the need to find new ways of responding to it, especially because of the existing ontological failure to do so. The essay complements this reading with the earlier comparable theory of the 'phantom' and 'transgenerational haunting' developed by psychoanalysts Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok. A 'hauntological' reading of Rebecca through these tools yields results that are significantly different from traditional approaches. Suggesting that the main characters in Rebecca are complete failures in dealing with the specter in a Derridean sense, the essay argues that the novel expects from the discerning reader a more insightful approach and a better potential to understand the specter. It is suggested further that a proper acknowledgement of the specter in Rebecca reaches beyond this particular novel, having subtle but significant implications concerning not only literary analysis but also social and cultural prejudices.

Author Biography

Nil Korkut-Nayki, Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Nil Korkut-Nayki, PhD, is Associate Professor of English Literature in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests are 20th century British fiction, modernism, postmodernism, literary parody, and literary and narrative theory. She is the author of Kinds of Parody from the Medieval to the Postmodern (Peter Lang, 2009). She has also authored research articles in her interest areas published in national and international books and journals.

References

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Published

2021-06-01

How to Cite

Korkut-Nayki, N. (2021). A Hauntological Reading of Daphne du Maurier’s "Rebecca". English Studies at NBU, 7(1), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.2

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