DOCSLIB.ORG

By Daphne Du Maurier Jill Hocken, the Peninsula in Great Numbers, Rest - Hockens’ Daughter Less, Uneasy, Circling the Sky

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
By Daphne Du Maurier Jill Hocken, the Peninsula in Great Numbers, Rest - Hockens’ Daughter Less, Uneasy, Circling the Sky Readers’ Theater Characters Scene 1 (Main characters in Narrator 1: Fall is turning to winter boldface) on England’s western coast. World Narrators 1, 2, 3, 4 War II is about to begin; there is Nat Hocken, a restlessness in the air. Nat Hocken thoughtful man sits on a ledge at the cliff’s edge, Mr. Trigg, a farmer; watching Hocken’s neighbor the birds. Mrs. Hocken Narrator 2: They come to the By Daphne du Maurier Jill Hocken, the peninsula in great numbers, rest - Hockens’ daughter less, uneasy, circling the sky. Adapted by Bryon Cahill Mrs. Trigg Narrator 3: Flocks of jackdaws, Jim, stableman starlings, and larks scatter from Radio Announcers 1, 2 trees to ledges. Narrator 4: As the slow sea meets the shore, the birds race and run on the beach. This photo is frTohme Birds,a film adaptation of the du Maurier story directed by Alfred HitchAcsock. you might be able to inferREfArDo?ms adaptation of the original, Hitchcock changed the story quite a bit, putting the spotlight on the mother, rather than the father. Universal/The Kobal Collection READ 7 Nat Hocken: (to himself) Per - and behind the cottage. Nat puts stumbles into their room, the Narr 1: At last, the beating of haps a message comes to the his mouth to the scratch. The candle’s flame goes out. Imme - the wings about him lessens. birds in autumn, like a warning: bird has drawn blood. diately, he can feel the beating Nat waits and listens; there is no Winter is coming. Many of them Narr 1: Shocked and confused, of wings about him in the dark - sound but the fretful crying of perish. They’re like people who Nat shuts the window and ness. his children from the hall fear death before their time, dri - returns to bed. Before long, he Nat: It’s all right. I’m here. beyond. ving themselves to work or folly. hears a forceful tapping at the Narr 2 : Swiftly, Nat pushes the Narr 2: Robins, finches, and Narr 1: Nat stands up and window. This time, his wife children through the door into sparrows litter the floor. They heads back to his cottage as the wakes too. the hall and shuts it behind have his blood on their beaks. noisy birds soar above. On his Mrs. Hocken: See to the window, them. Alone in the bedroom Sickened, Nat shuts the window way, he comes upon Mr. Trigg, a Nat. It’s rattling. with the birds, he seizes a blan - and heads back to his room. farmer, who is out on his tractor. Nat: I’ve already seen to it. ket and whips it through the Mrs. Hocken: Something must Mr. Trigg: There are more birds There’s some bird there, trying to air, using it as a weapon. have cut Johnny—there was than usual today, and some of get in. Narr 3: Again and again, they blood at the corner of his eye. them are daring! One gull came Mrs. Hocken: Send it away. I return the assault, jabbing his Jill said it was the birds. What n so close to my head this after - can’t sleep with that noise. o hands and his head. The little does she mean? i t c noon, I thought he’d knock my Narr 2: Nat opens the window a e stabbing beaks are as sharp as Nat: There were birds in there, l l cap off. I’ve a notion it’ll be a second time. Half a dozen birds o pointed forks. nearly 50 of them, all dead now. C l hard winter. That’s why the birds attack him, flying straight into a Mrs. Hocken: What is it, Nat? Let’s try to get some sleep. b o are restless. his face. K What’s happening? e h Nat: You may be right. Narr 3: Nat shouts, striking out T Narr 4: He covers his head with / l Narr 2: Nat continues home at the birds with his arms, scat - a the blanket and then, in the Scene 3 s r e across the fields and down the tering them. They fly out over the v greater darkness, beats at the Narr 3: In the morning, Nat has i n lane to his cottage. He watches roof and disappear, just as U birds with his bare hands. breakfast ready for his family the birds flocking over the west - the first bird did. Quickly, when they wake up. ern hills, in the last glow of the he shuts the window and Jill Hocken: Did you drive away evening sun. latches it. the birds, Dad? Nat: Did you see that? Nat: Yes. They’re all gone now. They tried to peck my eyes Jill: They tried to peck at us. Scene 2 out! They went for Johnny’s eyes. Narr 3: Just after 2 in the morn - Mrs. Hocken: It’s all right, Nat: Fright made them do that. ing, Nat wakes to a tapping at now. They were probably more scared the Narr 4: Suddenly, a fright - of you than you were of them. window. He goes to open it. As ened cry is heard from Jill: I doubt it. he does, a bird brushes his across the hall, where Narr 4: Having finished her hand, their two children sleep. breakfast, Jill puts on her jacket. jabbing at his knuckles and Mrs. Hocken: It’s Jill. Nat and his wife share a glance grazing the skin. Narr 1: Nat lights a candle across the table. A silent mes - Nat: What the— as cries of terror, this time sage passes between them. Narr 4: With a flutter of wings, from both children, echo Nat: I’ll walk her to the bus. the bird is gone, over the roof through the hall. As Nat Narr 1: Jill runs out the door 8 READ READ 9 ahead of her father. Mrs. Trigg: Are you sure they Nat: (to his wife) Keep all the were real birds, with proper windows and doors shut. I’ll feathers and all? go to the farm and find out if Nat: Mrs. Trigg, there are 50 the Triggs heard anything dead birds lying in the chil - last night. dren’s bedroom. They attacked Narr 2: Nat runs after Jill, who me. is busy chasing leaves. Her They tried to go for young face, whipped by the cold wind, Johnny’s eyes. hurries home. is rosy under her pixie hood. Mrs. Trigg: Well, I suppose Scene 4 Jill: Is it going to snow, Dad? the weather brought them. Mrs. Hocken: See anyone? Nat: No. This is a black winter, Foreign birds maybe, from that Nat: Mrs. Trigg and Jim. I don’t Scene 5 not a white one. Arctic Circle. think they believed me. Anyway, Narr 4: Nat enters his house Narr 3: Nat is searching the Nat: No. They were birds you nothing’s wrong up there. and meets his wife in the bushes for birds when Jill sees see about here every day. Narr 1: Nat grabs a large kitchen. her friends up ahead and runs Mrs. Trigg: Funny thing, no garbage bag and goes to the Mrs. Hocken: Nat, it’s on the to talk to them. explaining it, really. Well, I must bedroom to collect the dead radio. They’re reading a special Jill: My dad says it won’t snow. be getting on. birds. He takes the bag to the bulletin. It’s going to be a black winter. Narr 3: She turns and heads beach and opens it. The wind is Nat: What’s on the radio? Narr 4: The bus comes and back to her kitchen, leaving Nat colder than he can ever remem - Mrs. Hocken: About the birds. takes the children away. Nat dissatisfied. Walking back ber its being. He scatters the It’s not only here. It’s every - continues toward the Triggs’ across the farmyard, he hap - bird bodies over the sand. where—in London and all over farmhouse. pens upon Jim, the stableman. Nat: (to himself) The tide will the country. Nat: Anyone home? Nat: Had any trouble with take them when it turns. Nat: Turn it up. Narr 1: Mrs. Trigg appears at birds? Narr 2: Nat looks out to the sea. Radio Announcer 1: We urge the door. She is beaming. Jim: Birds? What birds? The wind cuts him to the bone. everyone everywhere to board up Mrs. Trigg: Why, hullo, Mr. Nat: We got them at our place The waves rise stiffly, curl, and their windows and take reason - Hocken. Can you tell me where last night—scores of them in break again. He tries to draw a able precautions for the safety this cold is coming from? I’ve the children’s bedroom. They breath and is once again sliced of themselves and their chil - never seen such a change. The were quite savage. by the frozen air. dren. radio says it has something to Jim: Oh? I never heard of birds Narr 3: Then he sees them. Nat: Let’s hope they hear that do with the Arctic Circle. acting savage. Birds are tame Staring at the waves, Nat real - on the farm. Down at the beach, Nat: We didn’t turn on the radio creatures. izes that he is not looking at there are thousands of them, this morning. Fact is, we had Nat: These birds weren’t tame. whitecaps. The line over the tens of thousands! They were so some trouble in the night. Jim: No? Cold, maybe.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Dont Look Now : Selected Stories of Daphne Du Maurier Pdf Free
    DONT LOOK NOW : SELECTED STORIES OF DAPHNE DU MAURIER PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Daphne du Maurier | 346 pages | 28 Oct 2008 | The New York Review of Books, Inc | 9781590172889 | English | New York, United States Dont Look Now : Selected Stories of Daphne Du Maurier PDF Book And any amount of Donald Sutherland nudity is, as you might well guess, a distressing amount. The Rev. Loved each and every part of this book. Because of some of her novels she is considered one of the more literary horror writers that the non-horror readers Who wants that stigma? As writers such as H. It's always fun to read Daphne du Maurier books. Holy cow, that was terrifying. Mar 03, Brooke rated it really liked it Shelves: short-story-collections , , horror. The wife is, of course, deeply affected by this, while her husband is worried for her own well-being. A comforting balm. The ending both of the book and film is genuinely terrifying. Daphne du Maurier wrote some of the most compelling and creepy novels of the twentieth century. Return to Book Page. The narrator later is informed that at night Anna went up Monte Verita by herself and joined a secluded community where, it is rumored, no one ages, they have telepathy, and worship and derive their powers from the moon. Jamaica Inn is one of the most suspenseful and haunting stories you can hope to read. Monte Verita was really long and just average as a story goes. The story follows a character who meets his double and is forced to switch lives with him.
    [Show full text]
  • Daphne Du Maurier Chapter 1 Last Night I Dreamed I Went to Manderley
    Rebecca: Daphne du Maurier Chapter 1 Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley* again. It seemed to me that I was passing through the iron gates that led to the driveway. The drive was just a narrow track now, its stony surface covered with grass and weeds. Sometimes, when I thought I had lost it, it would appear again, beneath a fallen tree or beyond a muddy 5 pool formed by the winter rains. The trees had thrown out new low branches which stretched across my way. I came to the house suddenly, and stood there with my heart beating fast and tears filling my eyes. There was Manderley, our Manderley, secret and silent as it had 10 always been, the grey stone shining in the moonlight of my dream. Time could not spoil the beauty of those walls, nor of the place itself, as it lay like a jewel in the hollow of a hand. The grass sloped down towards the sea, which was a sheet of silver lying calm under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. 15 I turned again to the house, and I saw that the garden had run wild, just as the woods had done. Weeds were everywhere. But moonlight can play strange tricks with the imagination, even with a dreamer’s imagination. As I stood there, I could swear that the house was not an empty shell, but lived and breathed as it had 20 lived before. Light came from the windows, the curtains blew softly in the night air, and there, in the library, the door stood half open as we had left it, with my handkerchief on the table beside the bowl of autumn flowers.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Club Discussion Guide
    Book Club Discussion Guide Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ______________________________________________________________ About the Author Daphne du Maurier, who was born in 1907, was the second daughter of the famous actor and theatre manager-producer, Sir Gerald du Maurier, and granddaughter of George du Maurier, the much-loved Punch artist who also created the character of Svengali in the novel Trilby. After being educated at home with her sisters, and then in Paris, she began writing short stories and articles in 1928, and in 1931 her first novel, The Loving Spirit, was published. Two others followed. Her reputation was established with her frank biography of her father, Gerald: A Portrait, and her Cornish novel, Jamaica Inn. When Rebecca came out in 1938 she suddenly found herself to her great surprise, one of the most popular authors of the day. The book went into thirty-nine English impressions in the next twenty years and has been translated into more than twenty languages. There were fourteen other novels, nearly all bestsellers. These include Frenchman's Creek (1941), Hungry Hill (1943), My Cousin Rachel (1951), Mary Anne (1954), The Scapegoat (1957), The Glass-Blowers (1963), The Flight of the Falcon (1965) and The House on the Strand (1969). Besides her novels she published a number of volumes of short stories, Come Wind, Come Weather (1941), Kiss Me Again, Stranger (1952), The Breaking Point (1959), Not After Midnight (1971), Don't Look Now and Other Stories (1971), The Rendezvous and Other Stories (1980) and two plays— The Years Between (1945) and September Tide (1948). She also wrote an account of her relations in the last century, The du Mauriers, and a biography of Branwell Brontë, as well as Vanishing Cornwall, an eloquent elegy on the past of a country she loved so much.
    [Show full text]
  • Romance with Daphne Du Maurier: Revisiting the Ruins of Englishness in Rebecca 5
    Romance with Daphne du Maurier: Revisiting the Ruins of Englishness in Rebecca 5 Feminist Studies in English Literature Vol.19, No. 3 (2011) Romance with Daphne du Maurier: Revisiting the Ruins of Englishness in Rebecca* Youngjoo Kim (Sogang University) I. Romance with Daphne du Maurier Daphne du Maurier, a prolific British woman writer of the twentieth century, has long enjoyed national and international fame, particularly for her bestselling Rebecca.1 This novel, first published in 1938 and the most famous of du Maurier’s works, was soon adapted for stage and film and has fascinated readers and viewers alike. It * This work was supported by the Sogang University Research Grant of 2010. 1 Du Maurier’s novels have been translated into many languages and her stories have been adapted into renowned films including Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and The Birds (1963) and Nicolas Roeg’sDon’t Look Now (1973). Many of her works were continuously dramatized for television, radio, and stage, all of which have enhanced her fame to a global reputation. She still remains one of Britain’s most popular novelists. The recent BBC reading campaigns, the Big Read in 2003 and Women’s Watershed Fiction in 2004, proveRebecca’s continuing popularity (Hansen 336-37). 6 Youngjoo Kim went through twenty-eight printings in four years in Britain alone. It has never been out of print since its first publication (Beauman 49). The novel was dramatized by du Maurier for stage in 1939, and the stage version ran for 380 performances in London’s West End after a first performance in Manchester in 1940 and went successfully on provincial tours throughout the duration of the Second World War (D’Monte 142).
    [Show full text]
  • Daphne, Jeanne and Angela
    Copyright © Michael Williams All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The right of Michael Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9570481-1-9 Published by Polperro Heritage Press, Clifton-upon-Teme, Worcestershire WR6 6EN United Kingdom www.polperropress.co.uk The three du Maurier sisters on Hampstead Heath, 1918, from a painting by Frederick Whiting. Left to right: Daphne, Jeanne and Angela. INTRODUCTION The three du Maurier sisters: Daphne, Angela and Jeanne. They all looked completely feminine but they should perhaps have been brothers. Someone, who knew them well, reckoned ‘They would have made energetic boys.’ My late stepson Richard had three daughters and looking at them I sometimes think of the du Maurier sisters. Various talents and natural rivalries. Kindred spirits, yet individuality. Richard’s fourth child, a son, doing well in the film business as I write. Gerald du Maurier longed for a son and Daphne was his favourite and middle daughter. Angela was the oldest, born in 1904, but Daphne was the most famous: two writers. Jeanne was the youngest, a painter. Dame Daphne may not have been Cornish but she was one of the greatest writers to have come out of Cornwall: that rare character, a bestseller who defied classification.
    [Show full text]
  • Daphne Du Maurier 1907 - 1989 If You Were Asked to Think of an Author Who Has Written Books with Storylines Based in Cornwall Then Daphne Du Maurier Is the Name Most
    BEST OF CORNWALL 2020 Daphne du Maurier 1907 - 1989 If you were asked to think of an author who has written books with storylines based in Cornwall then Daphne du Maurier is the name most Daphne Du Maurier likely to spring to mind. The du Maurier family had holidayed in Cornwall throughout Daphne’s childhood and in 1926 her parents Sir Gerald and Lady Muriel du Maurier bought Ferryside, a house on the Bodinnick side of the river Fowey on the south coast of Cornwall. Daphne seized every opportunity to spend time at Browning had a stellar army career which at the end Ferryside and it was here in 1931 that she wrote The of it saw him Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Arthur Loving Spirit, her first novel. This book, whilst not leading Montague ‘Boy’ Browning, GCVO, KBE, CB, DSO. Early to literary fame, led to her marrying the then Major in 1948 he became Comptroller and Treasurer to HRH Tommy ‘Boy’ Browning who was so taken by the book Princess Elizabeth and after she became Queen in 1952 he that in 1932 he sailed his motor boat to Fowey where he became treasurer in the Office of the Duke of Edinburgh. met du Maurier, wooed her and married her three months He retired in 1959 having suffered a nervous breakdown a later in Lanteglos Church. couple of years earlier and died at Menabilly in 1965. Du Maurier’s study © Jamaica Inn 24 BEST OF CORNWALL 2020 In 1936 Daphne du Maurier joined her husband in Inn where du Maurier stayed for a few more nights and Alexandria where he had been posted and where by all learned of the inn’s smuggling history which proved the accounts she spent an unhappy 4 years.
    [Show full text]
  • Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} the Loving Spirit by Daphne Du Maurier Review of the Loving Spirit - Ann Willmore
    Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier Review of The Loving Spirit - Ann Willmore. She was inspired to write the book after discovering the wreck of a schooner called the Jane Slade in Pont Creek and then reading the letters and boatyard records of the Slade family, who were shipbuilders in the nearby village of Polruan. She visited the Slade family graves at the local church of Lanteglos and talked to Harry Adams, who was a member of the Slade family. Gradually she built up a picture of the family and their life and history, until the story of The Loving Spirit began to form in her mind. The Slade family became the Coombe family, with Janet Coombe as the central character. Polruan became Plyn and Lanteglos church became Lanoc church. The Loving Spirit is a family saga spanning four generations of the Coombe family, ship builders and mariners, who live in and around the Cornish village of Plyn. The key characters are Janet Coombe, her son Joseph, his son Christopher and Christopher�s daughter Jennifer. The story begins shortly before Janet is due to marry her cousin Thomas, a ship builder in Plyn. She is torn by her future, on the one hand there is a wildness in her, a love of the sea and a desire for freedom, and on the other hand there is an understanding that the secure role of wife and mother is what is expected of her. Despite her doubts she marries Thomas, in Lanoc church, and they settle down to married life and have six children.
    [Show full text]
  • Daphne Du Maurier
    AUTHOR DATA SHEET Macmillan Guided Readers Daphne du Maurier The author and her work uncles edited a magazine and it was he who published her first story when she was a teenager. He also found a literary agent for her. The literary agent helped Daphne to sell her work to publishers. Daphne went to school in London and then in Paris. Her parents were very rich and they allowed her to do what she wanted. She travelled to Europe with friends and she enjoyed sailing small boats on the rivers, and around the coast of southern England. She sold her first novel, The Loving Spirit, to a famous publisher when she was in her early twenties. It was published in 1931. Cornwall Daphne went on writing for the rest of her life and she wrote many books. Most of her stories are mysteries or historical novels. She also wrote biographies – books about the lives of famous people. She wrote several books about the county of Cornwall. She loved this county in the © Corbis/Betmann southwest of England and she lived there for a aphne du Maurier was born in London on large part of her life. Quite early in her life, she D13th May 1907. Her father, Sir Gerald du saw a house called Menabilly in southern Maurier, was a well-known actor and theatre Cornwall and fell in love with it. She wanted to manager. Her mother, Muriel had acted too. Her live there very much. Seventeen years later, she grandfather, George du Maurier, had been a famous was able to rent Menabilly, and the happiest days novelist.
    [Show full text]
  • Oregon State University L'auteur Ou L'artiste: Hitchcock and The
    Oregon State University L’Auteur ou l’Artiste: Hitchcock and the Presence of Portraits Clara J. Fulkerson Studies in Film: Hitchcock (FILM 452) Professor Jon Lewis Presented May 18, 2018 Abstract This research paper, “L’auteur ou l’artiste?”, examines the films of Alfred Hitchcock ​ ​ and their importance amongst the canon of cinema. In an analysis of his three film periods (British, Early Hollywood, and Late Hollywood), the aim of this research is to uncover the significance of the consistent inclusion of portraits throughout his films. Recognized as an auteur amongst cinephiles, Hitchcock has been deemed the “Master of Suspense”. Through ​ specifically observing the looming and significant portraits in the films “The Lodger” (1927), “Rebecca” (1940), and “Vertigo” (1958), it becomes apparent that the unnerving presence of art, particularly portraits, is one of the main factors of Hitchcock’s mastery. The interviews between Hitchcock and François Truffaut will be applied to this claim, as well as Tania Modleski’s “The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and ​ Feminist Theory“, Aaron Rich’s “The Dark Galleries: A Museum Guide to Painted Portraits in ​ Film Noir, Gothic Melodramas, and Ghost Stories of the 1940s and 1950s”, and various other scholarly articles cited within the paper. While Hitchcock’s creative implement of portraits help define him as an auteur, it also contributes to the established precedence for any future ​ ​ horror or suspense films, as well as demonstrates a filmmaker’s ability to omit a unique and creative rhetoric. - Clara Fulkerson L’auteur ou l'artiste? Introduction Filmmaking may depict itself as inherently escapist, providing a portal into a universe made up of moving pictures where all the heroes are beautiful.
    [Show full text]
  • She Came from a Line of Distinguished Eccentrics. Her Great-Great- Home, Where Her Son Christian (Kits) Lives Today with His Family
    he was a staunch royalist—her husband, Major Frederick Arthur Montague Brown- ing, otherwise “Tommy,” was comptroller and treasurer to the royal family for many years, and she once wept at the queen’s speech—but she found weekends at Bal- moral boring and being presented at court silly. She worried about finances, but re- fused to promote her books with signings, television appearances or press confer- ences. She deplored the increased tourism in Cornwall while being partly responsible for it. SShe never settled on one writing style, turning out Gothics (Rebecca has been called the first major Gothic romance of the 20th century), biographies, historical and popular romances, tales of horror, plays, short stories, science fiction, family his- tories and a mystery that remains a mystery: Readers of My Cousin Rachel who can’t decide whether Rachel was a poi- soner or not, take heart; the author couldn’t either. “That’s what’s so wonderful, isn’t it?” asks guide Lynn Goold, who has interpreted Daphne du Maurier’s life and work and led guided walks around the Cornish port of Fowey for 20 years. “It’s wonderful to be able to read a variety of her work, and there’s always a twist in the tale.” She wrote a memoir without mentioning her life after her marriage. Egypt, where she lived while Tommy was stationed there, inspired her not at all; she couldn’t wait to return to Cornwall, her physical and spiritual home. Meanwhile, she started to write Rebecca. Today, tourists from all over the world come to Fowey (pro- By Jean Paschke nounced Foy), on the Cornish Riviera, to explore the world of Dame Daphne du Maurier.
    [Show full text]
  • A Short Account of Daphne Du Maurier's Life and Works 1907-1989
    A short account of Daphne du Maurier’s life and works 1907-1989 Daphne as a young woman at about the time she wrote The Loving Spirit Daphne du Maurier was born on 13th May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regents Park, London. Her father Gerald du Maurier, though largely forgotten now, was in his day a famous actor-manager, who was treated as something of a matinee idol by his adoring audiences. Daphne’s mother Muriel Beaumont was an actress, and she and Gerald had met and married while both were acting in the play The Admirable Crichton, written by J. M. Barrie, himself a hugely successful writer and playwright and a close friend to several members of the du Maurier family. Daphne was the middle one of three sisters, her older sister Angela also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was to become an artist. The three girls grew up in the very beautiful Cannon Hall in Hampstead and enjoyed an idyllic life full of visits to the theatre, to restaurants and on holidays, while home life was a round of parties and huge luncheon gatherings at weekends with the theatrical celebrities of that era constantly within their sphere. This life suited the outgoing and confident Angela, and young Jeanne could rely on her Mother to be on hand should she become overwhelmed by all this society. But Daphne was a more solitary girl and found all the constant entertaining too much. She was very much her Father’s favourite daughter, and she spent her childhood behaving as her Father would want but privately dreaming of other things.
    [Show full text]
  • The Heroine As Caged Bird in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca
    La Revue LISA / LISA e­journal. ­ ISSN 1762­6153 ­ Volume IV – n°4 / 2006 118 L’héroïne, oiseau en cage dans Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë et Rebecca d’Alfred Hitchcock PPPaaauuulll MMMaaarrrccchhhbbbaaannnkkksss (North Carolina , Etats­Unis) Abstract Dans le quatrième chapitre de son ouvrage intitulé Brontë Transformations (1996), Patsy Stoneman révèle l’importance des reprises et transformations dont a fait l’objet Jane Eyre (1847) de Charlotte Brontë dans diverses pièces de théâtre, romans et films depuis sa publication initiale. L’un des avatars les plus intéressants mentionné par P. Stoneman est Rebecca d’Alfred Hitchcock (1940) d’après le roman à succès éponyme de Daphné Du Maurier paru en 1938. Parmi les nombreux éléments communs au roman de Brontë et au film d’Hitchcock figurent l’héroïne orpheline consciente de son physique ordinaire, un personnage masculin maussade doté d’une épouse “présente­absente” et une intendante dont le tempérament influence l’atmosphère du manoir dans lequel l’héroïne réside temporairement. Un autre point commun, plus difficile à déceler car profondément intégré à chaque œuvre, est le portrait de l’héroïne en oiseau prisonnier. Ce(tte) subtile trope/métaphore mérite d’être remarqué(e) car non seulement l’image constitue un lien entre les deux œuvres mais elle permet aussi, dans ses diverses manifestations, de les différencier. Tandis que dans Jane Eyre, l’image de l’oiseau apparaît chaque fois que Jane s’échappe d’un lieu qui l’emprisonne, celle de la cage s’avère être l’élément dominant dans le film d’Hitchcock, imposant finalement des limites infranchissables à la liberté de l’héroïne.
    [Show full text]