VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS

HUMANITARINIŲ MOKSLŲ FAKULTETAS UŽSIENIO KALBŲ, LITERATŪROS IR VERTIMO STUDIJŲ KATEDRA

Jianli Qin

GOTIKOS ESTETIKA DAPHNE DU MAURIER ROMANE „“ IR

ŠIO ROMANO 1940 M. BEI 1997 M. EKRANIZACIJOSE

Bakalauro baigiamasis darbas

Anglų filologijos studijų programa, valstybinis kodas 612Q30004 Anglų filologijos studijų kryptis

Vadovė doc. dr. Audronė Raškauskienė ______(parašas) (data)

Apginta doc. dr. Rūta Eidukevičienė ______(parašas) (data

Kaunas, 2020 GOTHIC AESTHETICS IN DAPHNE DU MAURIER’S NOVEL REBECCA (1938)

AND ITS 1940 AND 1997 FILM ADAPTATIONS

By Jianli Qin

Department of Foreign Language, Literary and Translation Studies Vytautas Magnus University Bachelor of Arts Thesis Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Audrone Raskauskiene 20 May 2020 TABLE OF CONTENT

SANTRAUKA

SUMMARY

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. GOTHIC CONVENTIONS IN LITERATURE AND FILM 2

3. GOTHIC AESTHETICS 4

3.1. The Sublime 4

3.2. The Beautiful 7

4. GOTHIC AESTHETICS: THE SUBLIME IN DAPHNE DU MAURIER'S NOVEL REBECCA (1938) AND ITS 1940 AND 1979 FILM ADAPTATIONS 12

4.1 Maxim De Winter and Housekeeper Denvers as the Embodiment of Power 12

4.2 as the Object of the Sublime 18

4.3 The Sublime in the Landscape 20

5. GOTHIC AESTHETICS: THE BEAUTIFUL IN DAPHNE DU MAURIER’S NOVEL REBECCA (1938) AND ITS 1940 AND 1997 FILM ADAPTATIONS 23

5.1. Women as the Embodiment of the Beautiful 23

5.2. The Beautiful in the Landscape 25

6. CONCLUSION 27

LIST OF REFERENCES 28 SANTRAUKA

Šiame Bakalauro darbe analizuojama gotikinė estetika, t. y. pakylėto ir gražaus vaizdavimas Daphne Du Maurier romane „Rebeka“ (1938) ir jo dviejose filmo adaptacijose: „Rebeka“, režisuotas Alfredo Hitchcocko (1940 m.), ir „Rebeka“, režisuota Jimo O‘Brieno (1997 m.). Siekiant išanalizuoti du grožio tipus (pakylėtą grožį (the Sublime) ir švelnųjį grožį (the Beautiful)) romane ir jo filmų adaptacijose, pagrindinis dėmesys skiriamas gotikiniam piktadariui kaip galios įkūnijimui, dvarui kaip pakylėtojo grožio (the Sublime) objektui ir galiausiai pakylėtojo grožio aprašymams kraštovaizdyje. Kadangi grožis (the Beautiful) skiriasi nuo pakylėtojo grožio (the Sublime) prigimties, jis atsispindi skirtinguose objektuose: moters grožyje, elegantiškose manierose ir taikiame peizaže. Šis bakalauro darbas remiasi vienu reikšmingiausių aštuonioliktojo amžiaus estetikos traktatų, Edmundo Burke'o filosofijos tyrimu apie pakylėtų ir gražių idėjų kilmę (1757) (A Philosophy Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful). Anot Burke'o, pakylėtojo grožio objektai yra didžiuliai ir yra pagrįsti skausmu bei bamės jausmu. Gražūs objektai turėtų būti maži ir subtilūs, pagrįsti malonumu. Grožis (the Beautiful) susieja subtilumą, mažumą, glotnumą, grakštumą, eleganciją ir savitumą - jausmą, proto ir dorybės savybes. Darbe taip pat pateikiamos kitų aštuonioliktojo amžiaus mąstytojų, tokių kaip Immanuelis Kantas, Williamas Hogartas ir Ketneris, idėjos. Šis bakalauro darbas turi šešis skyrius. Pirmasis skyrius yra įvadas, antrasis skyrius yra teorinė dalis, skirta diskusijoms apie gotikos tradicijas literat ū roje ir kine. Trečiame skyriuje aptariamos gotikinės estetikos sąvokos, tokios kaip pakylėtojas grožis (the Sublime) ir švelnusis grožis (the Beautiful). Ketvirtasis skyrius yra analitinė dalis, kurioje pagrindinis dėmesys skiriamas pakylėtojo grožio vaizdavimui romane ir jo dviem filmų adaptacijoms: 1940 m. adaptacijai ir 1997 m. adaptacijai. Penktoje dalyje aptariamas švelnusis grožis romane ir abejose romano adaptacijose.

Šeštoji dalis yra šio bakalauro darbo išvada. Tyrimo pabaiga yra literatūros sąrašas. SUMMARY

This Bachelor’s thesis analyses Gothic Aesthetics, i.e. the representation of the Sublime and the Beautiful in Daphne Du Maurier's novel Rebecca and its two film adaptations: Rebecca, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1940) and Rebecca directed by Jim O’Brien (1997). In order to analyze the Sublime in the novel and its film adaptations, the focus is directed to Gothic villain as the embodiment of power, the mansion as the object of the sublime, and finally, the descriptions of the Sublime in landscape. As Beautiful is of a distinct nature from the Sublime,it is reflected in different objects: woman’s beauty, elegant manners, and a peaceful scenery. This Bachelor thesis draws on one of the most significant eighteenth century treatises on aesthetics, A Philosophy Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) by Edmund Burke. According to Burke, the Sublime objects are vast and be founded on pain and terror. The beautiful objects are should be small and delicate, founded on pleasure. The Beautiful relates the such as delicacy, fitness, smallness, smoothness, gracefulness, elegance and speciousness, feeling, the qualities of mind and virtue etc. The ideas of other eighteenth century thinkers such as Immanuel Kant’s, William Hogarth’s, and Ketner’s are also presented in the paper. This BA thesis has Six sections. Section One is the Introduction, Section Two is the theoretical partdedicated to the discussion Gothic conventions in literature and film. Section Three discusses the concepts of Gothic Aesthetics such as the Sublime and the Beautiful. Section Four is the analytical part focusing on the representation of the Sublime in the novel and its two film adaptations: the adaptation of 1940 and the adaptation of 1997. Section Five discusses the Beautiful in the novel and the two films. Section Six is the Conclusion of this bachelor thesis. The research paper ends in the List of References. 1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this Bachelor thesis is to analyze Gothic Aesthetics in Daphne Du Maurier's novel Rebecca and its two films adaptations: Rebecca (1940), director Alfred Hitchcock and Rebecca (1997), director Jim O’Brien. Daphne du Maurier is one of the most successful and prolific authors of the 20th century, with a writing career that spanned more than 40 years. She wrote in a variety of genres and styles; however, she is most known for her Gothic stories that combine elements of horror and darkness with strong emotion. Several of these stories, including Rebecca (1938) and “The Birds (1952)”, were later adapted into movies” (Yates). Du Maurier᾿s first novel, The Loving Spirit (1931), was followed by many successful, usually romantic tales set on the wild coast of Cornwall, where she came to live. She also wrote historical fiction, several plays, and Vanishing Cornwall (1967), a travel guide. Her novel Rebecca was made into a motion picture in 1940. Du Maurier was made a Dame Commander in the Order of the British Empire in 1969. She published an autobiography, Growing Pains, in 1977; the collection The Rendezvous and Other Stories in 1980; and a literary reminiscence, The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories, in 1981 (Encyclopaedia Britannica). The novel Rebecca tells the story of the narrator whose name is not mentioned throughout the entire novel. The novel opens with her famously saying, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” (Du Maurier 1). Much of the story is then told in flashback. The heroine, a shy, awkward young woman is in Monte-Carlo, working for an elderly socialite, when she meets Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter. He is a wealthy widower whose wife, Rebecca, drowned in a sailboat accident. After a whirlwind courtship, the young woman and Maxim marry and later settle at Manderley, Maxim’s huge and beautiful mansion in Cornwall. Because Rebecca is a loose woman, always with men, her husband Maxim warned many times, but she is still the same, her husband finally unbearable, in a rainy night killed Rebecca, and her body dumped on the ship, creating the illusion of an accident. The shipwreck appeared, the fact was gradually exposed, but finally came to the conclusion that Rebecca suffered from cancer, and she committed suicide because she could not bear the pain, twists and turns, mysterious and horrible ending. The narrator begins to feel progressively inferior to Rebecca, despite receiving compliments from various people. To the second Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca personifies glamour and gaiety, and she does not think that she can compete with this dead paragon to win Maxim’s love. (Campbell and Mander). The narrator seems to have been living in the shadow of Rebecca, the former mistress of the manor house, and gradually untangling her way of life and the mysterious death. The novel and its two film adaptations are analyzed drawing on one of the most significant eighteenth century treatises on aesthetics, A Philosophy Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the

1 Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) by Edmund Burke and the works by other scholars: M.H. Abrams (1957), Immanuel Kant (1892), William Hogarth, (1753), Ketner (1984) and others. This BA thesis has six sections. Section One is the Introduction, Section Two is the theoretical partdedicated to the discussion Gothic conventions in literature and film. Section Three discusses the concepts of Gothic Aesthetics such as the Sublime and the Beautiful. Section Four is the analytical part focusing on the representation of the Sublime in the novel and its two film adaptations: the adaptation of 1940 and the adaptation of 1997. Section Five discusses the Beautiful in the novel and the two films. Section Six is the Conclusion of this bachelor thesis. The research paper ends in the List of References.

2. GOTHIC CONVENTIONS IN LITERATURE AND FILM

The present chapter of the thesis discusses Gothic conventions in literature and film. Ideas from the works of Fred Botting, David Punter and Edmund Burke serve as the theoretical background. English Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1765) which was enormously popular and quickly imitated by other novelists. Gothic soon became a recognizable genre (Encyclopedia Britannica). Contemporary readers found the novel electrifying original and thrillingly suspenseful, with its remote setting, its use of the supernatural, and its medieval trappings. The Castle of Otranto was frequently imitated, so that the main elements of it soon become stereotypes (Encyclopedia Britannica). According to Snodgrass, the elements of the gothic as the following:

The repertoire of Gothic elements includes haunted castles, ruins, abbeys, towers, crypts and graveyards, nightly and wild landscapes, secrets, supernatural apparitions, hallucinations and dreams. All these elements are used to evoke a sinister atmosphere which is full of suspense. (Snodgrass 156)

It follows that the elements of gothic are full of mystery and unknown scary things. The frightening atmosphere is mainly based on setting; supernatural elements and the villain add to the menacing effect of the Gothic novels. In the center of Gothic novels, there is typically a secret which concerns the identity of a certain figure or is connected to the villain (Snodgrass 84). The atmosphere of gloom, mystery and suspense is a very important element of Gothic setting. Botting states that “Gothic atmospheres—gloomy and mysterious —have repeatedly signalled the disturbing return of pasts” (Botting 1). Characteristically, there is a love story between the Gothic heroine and the hero who becomes the antagonist of the villain. In the end, all secrets are uncovered and the evil is disarmed. In short, the Gothic novel can be reduced to this pattern (Snodgrass 84). Fred Botting considers that the main features of Gothic fiction are heterotopias, as the ruined castles and abbeys, the dark labyrinths, the wild landscapes, the supernatural events, etc.

2 Gothic setting usually based on the place with darkness and unknow, gloomy and terror. Botting states the early gothic fiction as following:

In the eighteenth century they were wild and mountainous locations. Later the moderncity combined the natural and architectural components of Gothic grandeur andwildness, its dark, labyrinthine streets suggesting the violence and menace of Gothic castle and forest.The major locus of Gothic plots, the castle, was gloomily predominant in early Gothic fiction.(Botting 4)

Botting describes the wild locations and castle forest are the important elements in the gothic fiction. The Gothic castle is a labyrinthine and claustrophobic place which evokes feelings of “fear, awe, entrapment and helplessness” (Raškauskienė 50). Characteristic of the Gothic castle are mazy, over- and undergrounded corridors, creaking doors, shuttered windows, trapdoors, darkened rooms, vaults, and dungeons. Punter states that the common theme for the both of castle and wild location is labyrinth (Punter 23). The architecture of a Gothic castle evokes a sublime and a scary atmosphere as the fort-like edifice is always a sign of the villain’s power but also decaying and mysterious (Raškauskienė 50-59). Supernatural elements also feature prominently in gothic literature. Robert Harris describes the supernatural as the following:

Dramatic, amazing events occur, such as ghosts or giants walking, or inanimate objects (such as a suit of armor or painting) coming to life. In some works, the events are ultimately given a natural explanation, while in others the events are truly supernatural. (Harris)

The supernatural is a essential defining element in the Gothic. Supernatural can build suspense and create a special effects for the reader. Another important element of Gothic literature is woman in distress (Harris). As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, the female characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing (Harris). As Harris states, “a lonely, pensive, and oppressed heroine is often the central figure of the novel, so her sufferings are even more pronounced and the focus of attention. The women suffer all the more because they are often abandoned, left alone (either on purpose or by accident), and have no protector at times” (Harris). One or more male characters such as the king, lord of the manor, father, or guardian have the power to demand that one or more of the female characters do something intolerable. As Harris states that “The woman may be commanded to marry someone she does not love (it may even be the powerful male himself), or commit a crime”(Harris). In modern Gothic novels and films, there is frequently the threat of physical violation (Harris). In conclusion, the most common Gothic conventions in literature and film are the following: setting, atmosphere of mystery and suspense, elements of supernatural or otherwise

3 inexplicable events like ghosts and giants, women in distress and women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male.

3. GOTHIC AESTHETICS

According to Abrams, the definition of Gothic was first used in the Renaissance to distinguish the art style of the middle ages (from the 5th to the 15th century), with terror, supernatural, death, decadence, witchcraft, ancient castles, abyss, thorns, night, curse, vampire and other iconic elements (Abrams 128). Gothic aesthetics is primarily related to the eighteenth century discourse of the sublime and beautiful in the works of Edmund Burke, William Hogarth, Emmanuel Kant and others.

3.1. The Sublime

The sublime in literature refers to use of language and description that excites thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience (Kelly 327). Though often associated with grandeur, the sublime may also refer to the grotesque or other extraordinary experiences that "take[s] us beyond ourselves” (Kelly 327). The literary concept of the sublime became important in the eighteenth century. It is associated with the A Philosophy Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), a treatise by British philosopher Edmund Burke which differentiated the sublime from the beautiful for its capacity to evoke intense emotions and inspire awe through experiences of nature’s vastness (Jeffords). In his Enquiry, Burke discusses the sublime relation to astonishment, pain and danger, power, terror, passion, obscurity, vastness, infinity, and light of darkness. In his Philosophical Enquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, Edmund Burke mentions astonishment as one of causes of the Sublime in its highest degree:

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment: and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that, far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force. Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration, reverence, and respect. (Burke 130) In his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), According to Burke, the source of the Sublime is pain and danger:

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the

4 strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure. (Burke 36) Burke discusses power as another source of sublime: “I know of nothing of sublime, which is not some modification of power” (Burke 39). Burke describes the relationship of power and terror is “power derives all its sublimity from the terror with which it is generally accompanied’’ (Burke 35). He also discusses the power as the following:

wheresoever we find strength, and in what light soever we look upon power, we shall all along observe the sublime the concomitant of terror, and contempt the attendant on a strength that is subservient and innoxious. (Burke 37) Thus, power is undoubtedly a capital source of sublime, this will point out evidently from whence it energy is derived. In Enquiry, Burke describes terror is the ruling principle of the sublimes: “whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too” (Burke 30). Burke states the power of terror is “no passion so effectually robs the mind of all its power of acting and reasoning as fear” (Burke 30). Thus, in fact, “terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime” (Burke 32). Burke also makes a distinction in classes of passions:

All ideas that produce passions in our bodies can be headed under either passions that concern self-preservation, or passions that concern society. The passions which concern self-preservation are based upon the ideas of pain, danger, fear, death, sickness, shortly on emotions of horror. These passions are the most strong and powerful passions we can have. (Burke 36)

Stefan Morawski points out that Burke’s concept of the Sublime was largely accepted in the second half of the eighteenth century even by such celebrities as Home, Reynolds, Johnson, Beattie and Blair. In Morawski’s opinion, Burke’s Enquiry is the best example of the British aesthetic thought in the period between neo-classicism and romanticism (Morawski in Raskauskiene 411-412). Another layer of Burke’s description of the sublime is the vague uncertainty that can create fear of obscurity: To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Everyone will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger, and how much the notions of ghosts and goblins, of which none can form clear ideas, affect minds which give credit to the popular tales concerning such sorts of beings. (Burke 50)

5 To make anything very terrible, "obscurity seems in general to be necessary"; when something is clearly visible, it full extent known, "a great deal of apprehension vanishes" and it is, in its clearness, not very " affecting to the imagination" (Burke 99-101). Darkness is the most essential element in obscurity in Burke’s Enquiry (Burke 31):

Those despotic governments which are founded on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark. Even in the barbarous temples of the Americans at this day, they keep their idol in a dark part of the hut, which is consecrated to his worship. (Burke 31)

Thus, to make something horrible and terrible, the necessary element is “obscurity”. All is dark, uncertain, and confused are terrible and sublime to the last degree. Burke described the sensation attributed to the sublime as a “negative pain” which he called delight, and which is distinct from positive pleasure. Delight is taken to result from the removal of pain (by confronting the sublime object) and is more intense than positive pleasure:

Of feeling little more can be said than that the idea of bodily pain, in all the modes and degrees of labor, pain, anguish, torment, is productive of the sublime; and nothing else in this sense can produce it…that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation; that it is, therefore, one of the most affecting we have; that its strongest emotion is an emotion of distress; and that no pleasure from a positive cause belongs to it. Numberless examples, besides those mentioned, might be brought in support of these truths, and many perhaps useful consequences drawn from them. (Burke 50)

Burke calls death “the king of terrors,” and pain is its “emissary” (Burke 40). The emotional pain of terror is aroused by natural upheavals, cosmic vastness, infinity itself – anything that signifies human powerlessness and imminent annihilation. If that realization goes no further, we are only scared. If our attention manages to leave our own peril and become directed to the powerful forces at hand, we may be rewarded with the thrill and awe of the sublime. Burke also recognizes an element in fear that is akin to curiosity. Burke notes that the same time that we flee fearsome objects, we are attracted to the: “Terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close” (Burke 46). Our fascination with death is intense, but death remains forever unknowable since it arrives with the final extermination of consciousness. Hence there is also a magnetism built into the founding emotion of the sublime. According to Burke, Light is considered as is important in creating the terror. Burke draws a contrast between darkness and light as the following:

6 But such a light as that of the sun, immediately exerted on the eye, as it overpowers the sense, is a very great idea. Light of an inferior strength to this, if it moves with great celerity, has the same power; for lightning is certainly productive of grandeur, which it owes chiefly to the extreme velocity of its motion. A quick transition from light to darkness, or from darkness to light, has yet a greater effect. But darkness is more productive of sublime ideas than light. (Burke 45) Burke describes “the excessive light, by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all objects, so as in its effect exactly to resemble darkness” (Burke 46). Thus, the extreme light could be the effect of darkness. The relationship between obscurity and darkness is closely linked. To elaborate on terrifying qualities of the obscure, Burke links these to cultural fantasies of "ghost and goblins" which "greatly affect minds " because "none can come from clear ideas" of them. Burke describes "How greatly night adds to our dread", illustrating the terrible and the sublime setting that "Darkness" creates through its imagery of mankind becoming ghostlike after being cast into eternal dark (Burke 99). And the same effect applies in building. Burke describes that “all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the sublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy” (Burke 46). Burke thinks that has two reasons of the darkness “the first is, that darkness itself on other occasions is known by experience to have a greater effect on the passions than light. The second is, that to make an object very striking, we should make it as different as possible from the objects with which we have been immediately conversant” (Burke 46). In Burke’s Enquiry, color also considered as productive of the sublime. Burke describes that “Among colors, such as are soft or cheerful (except perhaps a strong red, which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images” (Burke 47). Burke considers “night more sublime and solemn than day”(Burke 47). According to Burke, dark color is the cause of the sublime. In conclusion, Edmund Burke analyses the Sublime into a number of categories in his Enquiry: passion, astonishment, vastness, terror, feeling of pain, light, obscurity, infinity, also reference to color. Immanuel Kant defines sublime as that is beyond all comparison (that is absolutely) great, either mathematically in terms of limitless magnitude, or dynamically in terms of limitless power.

3.2. The Beautiful

In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Burke considers beautiful to be very different from sublime (Burke 74). In his Enquiry, Burke discusses the beautiful is relation to love, beautiful in feeling, the qualities of mind and virtue, smallness

7 and smoothness, grace, elegance and speciousness. Burke describes love is the one of the elements that cause beautiful:

By Beauty, as distinguished from the Sublime, I mean that quality or those qualities in bodies by which they cause love, or some passion analogous to it. I likewise distinguish love, (by which I mean that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contemplating anything beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be,) from desire or lust; which is an energy of the mind, that hurries us on to the possession of certain objects. (Burke 74) As Burke describes which shows the “beauty, and the passion caused by beauty, which call it love” (Burke 74). Sometimes, the desire may operate along with the passion. In the eighteenth century, Burke and Immanuel Kant sought to differentiate the concept of beauty from that of the sublime. While long-standing theories held that beauty was the result of proportion, utility, or perfection, Burke believed that both beauty and the sublime were perceived emotionally (Jeffords and Jeffords). Unlike the sublime, known to prompt feelings of awe or terror, beauty is comprehensible to the mind, evokes familiar experiences, and thus promotes pleasurable feelings (Jeffords and Jeffords). In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant describes how a viewer projects beauty onto natural objects and how such experiences of beauty create universal feelings of satisfaction or delight. He also states that beautiful objects need no underlying concept or purpose. Kant’s theories justified the creation and admiration of beautiful art objects, which helped pave the way for romanticism, a late-eighteenth-century movement in art, literature, and music that emphasized emotion in reaction to the scientific rationalism that dominated the day (Jeffords and Jeffords). Another source of the beautiful is the beautiful in feeling. Burke provides a detailed explanation by emphasizing the importance of effective use of feeling as a source of the beautiful: The foregoing description of beauty, so far as it is taken in by the eye, may he greatly illustrated by describing the nature of objects, which produce a similar effect through the touch. This I call the beautiful in feeling. It corresponds wonderfully with what causes the same species of pleasure to the sight. There is a chain in all our sensations; they are all but different sorts of feelings calculated to be affected by various sorts of objects, but all to be affected after the same manner. (Burke 37)

Thus, feeling can make someone feels pleasure, especially “when All bodies that are pleasant to the touch［…］It corresponds wonderfully with what causes the same species of pleasure to the sight” (Burke 99). Burke also believed that the touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends color, which can hardly he made perceptible to the touch: the touch, again, has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent and multiplicity of its objects (Burke 99).

8 Another very essential element in beautiful are the qualities of mind and virtue. In Euquiry, Burke points out how far the ideas of beauty may be applied to the qualities of the mind. Burke states: Nor is this remark in general less applicable to the qualities of the mind. Those virtues which cause admiration, and are of the sublime kind, produce terror rather than love; such as fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Those which engage our hearts, which impress us with a sense of loveliness, are the softer virtues; easiness of temper, compassion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly those latter are of less immediate and momentous concern to society, and of less dignity. But it is for that reason that they are so amiable. (Burke 91) Thus, from Burke’s quote point out that those virtues which cause admiration are of the sublime and that be terror rather than love. However, those virtues which grab our attention and make deep impression are beautiful qualities. Virtue is another important role in beauty. Burke describes that “we may easily see how far the application of beauty to virtue may be made with propriety” (Burke 91). John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1968) demonstrates the relation between virtue and beauty “If thou best he; but O how fallen! how changed/ From him, who in the happy realms of light/ Clothed with transcendent brightness didst outshine” (Milton in Raskauskiene 84-86). From graceful obedience to the ugliness of disobedience Satan and his fallen angels have been transformed by their sins. In Paradise Lost the beauty of a person directly reflects his or her morality while their ugliness depicts how they fall deeper and deeper into profane self-obsession. Thus, the integrity of virtue is a very important factor in beauty. In the eighteenth century, Shaftesbury maintains that virtue and beauty are "one and the same": what is BEAUTIFUL is Harmonious and Proportionable; what is Harmonious and Proportionable, is TRUE, and what is at once both Beautiful and True, is, of consequence, Agreeable and GOOD” (Shaftesbury 182). Burke opposes the idea claiming that beauty makes an immediate impact on the emotions and that the satisfaction it gives is vital and intense and is not to be identified with mere approbation: It is not by the force of long attention and enquiry that we find any object to be beautiful; beauty demands no assistance from our reasoning: even the will is unconcerned; the appearance of beauty as effectually causes some degree of love in us, as the application of ice or fire produces the ideas of heat or cold. (Burke 92) The full effect of beauty in proportion and fitness should be works in arts. However, as Burke describes that “beauty and proportion, are not the same; not that they should either of them be disregarded” (Burke 89). Another similar theory of fitness is in William Hogarth’s The Analysis of Beauty, Hogarth implements six principles that independently affect beauty. Although he concurs that those

9 principles have an effect, he is not determinate on their specific influence. The main criterion and major constituent of beauty by Hogarth describes is Fitness, which is not in itself a source of beauty, but can be described as a material cause of it. Hogarth describes the fitness as the following: Fitness of the parts to the design for which every individual thing is formed, either by art or nature, is first to be considered, as it is of the greatest consequence to the beauty of the whole. ［…］It is well known, on the other hand, that forms of great elegance often disgust the eye by being improperly applied. Thus, twisted columns are undoubtedly ornamental; but as they convey an idea of weakness, they always displease, when they are improperly made use of as supports to any thing that is bulky, or appears heavy. The bulks and proportions of objects are governed by fitness and propriety. (Hogarth) Though the account of fitness on the total beauty of an object is only moderate, it is a necessary cause. Fitness does not necessarily imply purpose. However, improperly implied forms cannot be the source of beauty. It is in this that the necessity of fitness must be seen: if not accounted for, a form cannot readily be assumed beautiful. Burke points out the Smallness and smoothness are other characteristics of the beautiful. Burke describes the small objects in beautiful as the following: In most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets［…］ in the English language, the diminishing ling was added to the names of persons and things that were the objects of love. Some we retain still, as darling (or little dear), and a few others. But to this day, in ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love. (Burke 93) Thus, in ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love, it might sound lovely or cute. Burke describes the distinction of the sublime and beautiful is as the follows:

The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects, and terrible; the latter on small ones, and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us; in one case we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance. In short, the ideas of the sublime and the beautiful stand on foundations so different, that it is hard, I had almost said impossible, to think of reconciling them in the same subject, without considerably lessening the effect of the one or the other upon the passions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful objects are comparatively small. (Burke 93) Therefore, the essential difference of the sublime and beautiful is sublime can get rise of pressure when in front of it. But the beautiful objects are often arouse someone’s compassion when to face it. Burke highlights smoothness is a quality so essential to beauty. Burke provides an example to explain beautiful is smooth: smooth slopes of earth in gardens; smooth streams in the landscape; smooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, smooth skins; and in several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished surfaces. A very considerable

10 part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality; indeed the most considerable. (Burke 93) Thus, beautiful is smooth. However, when the object gives it broken and rugged surface, it pleases no longer. “For, indeed, any ruggedness, any sudden, projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea” (Burke 93). In Enquiry, Burke provides another very important element or feature of the cause of beautiful are grace, elegance and speciousness. Burke describes gracefulness as follows: Gracefulness is an idea not very different from beauty; it consists in much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to posture and motion. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to incumber each other, not to appear divided by sharp and sudden angles. In this case, this roundness, this delicacy of attitude and motion, it is that all the magic of grace consists. (Burke 98) his is shows that gracefulness is an essential element that similar to beauty. Elegance and speciousness are also the important factors in beauty. Burke ranks “those delicate and regular works of art, that imitate no determinate object in nature, as elegant buildings, and pieces of furniture” (Burke 98). Burke gives the definition of elegant comment that:

When anybody is composed of parts smooth and polished, without pressing upon each other, without showing any ruggedness or confusion, and at the same time affecting some regular shape, I call it elegant. It is closely allied to the beautiful, differing from it only in this regularity; which, however, as it makes a very material difference in the affection produced, may very well constitute another species. (Burke 98) Thus, it can be seen that all the parts of an object are smooth, without any squeeze can be regarded as elegant. And when something it is full as remote from the idea of mere beauty, it called fine or specious. After an initial similarity to Burke in 1763, Kant later argued against Burke's Philosophical Inquiry, highlighting the difference between the sublime and the beautiful in his Critique of Judgment (1790) by applying the sublime aesthetic to nature only. Kant describes the sublime as the following: The beautiful in nature is a question of the form of the object, and this consists in limitation, whereas the sublime is to be found in an object even devoid of form, so far as it immediately involves, or else by its presence provokes, a representation of limitlessness, yet with a superadded thought of its totality. (Kant 90) In the eighteenth century, Burke and Immanuel Kant sought to differentiate the concept of beauty from that of the sublime. While long-standing theories held that beauty was the result of proportion, utility, or perfection, Burke believed that both beauty and the sublime were perceived

11 emotionally. Unlike the sublime, known to prompt feelings of awe or terror, beauty is comprehensible to the mind, evokes familiar experiences, and thus promotes pleasurable feelings. In his Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant describes how a viewer projects beauty onto natural objects and how such experiences of beauty create universal feelings of satisfaction or delight. He also states that “beautiful objects need no underlying concept or purpose” (Kant 56). Kant’s theories justified the creation and admiration of beautiful art objects, which helped pave the way for romanticism, a late-eighteenth-century movement in art, literature, and music that emphasized emotion in reaction to the scientific rationalism that dominated the day (Jeffords). In conclusion, according to Burke, the Beautiful is that which is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the Sublime is that which has the power to compel and destroy us. The formal cause of beauty is the passion of love; the material cause concerns aspects of certain objects such as delicacy, fitness, smallness, smoothness, gracefulness, elegance and speciousness, feeling, the qualities of mind and virtue etc. What is most peculiar and original to Burke's view of beauty is that it cannot be understood by the traditional bases of beauty: proportion, fitness, or perfection.

4. GOTHIC AESTHETICS: THE SUBLIME IN DAPHNE DU MAURIER'S NOVEL REBECCA (1938) AND ITS 1940 AND 1979 FILM ADAPTATIONS

The present chapter of Bachelor thesis focuses on the analysis of the sublime in Daphne Du Maurier's Gothic novel Rebecca (1938) and its film adaptations of 1940 and 1997. It is important to mention that the eighteenth century aesthetics may be traced in the novel Rebecca by the modern writer Daphne Du Maurier. Ideas from Burke are used as the primary source for the analysis of the sublime. Section Four is an attempt to analyze the characters of Maxim De Winter and Housekeeper Denvers as the Embodiment of Power (4.1), Manderley as the Object of the Sublime (4.2), and the representation of the Sublime in Landscape (4.3).

4.1 Maxim De Winter and Housekeeper Denvers as the Embodiment of Power

In Enquiry, Burke discusses power as one of the constituents of the sublime, which leads to fear and pain: “pain is always inflicted by a power in some way superior. […] power derives all its sublimity from terror with which it is generally accompanied” (Burke 35). Burke also associates the Sublime with masculinity and this may be strongly related to power.

12 Botting describles that “Gothic villains there emerges the awful spectre of complete social disintegrationin which virtue cedes to vice, reason to desire, law to tyranny”(Burke 5).And gothic villains illegitimate power and violence is not only put on display butthreatens to consume the world of civilised and domestic values(Burke 4). In Rebecca, Mrs. Danvers who is the sinister head housekeeper at Manderley, is one the scariest characters. She is fiercely devoted to Rebecca, Maxim De Winter’s late wife, and remains devoted to her even after death. She despises the heroine for taking her mistress's place. In Rebecca, she's first describe as "tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black […] [with] prominent cheek-bones and great, hollow eyes [that] gave her a skull's face, parchment- white, set on a skeleton's frame" (Du Maurier 66). Though, the sublime is related to masulinity (Burke 167). Burke describles masculine qualities to the sublime, Mrs. Danvers has male quailities because of her appearance present like a man and shows that power is a strong expression of masculinity. The new Mrs. de Winter never mentions her without describing "her white skull's face" (Du Maurier 67) or her "dead skull's face" Du Maurier 90) or "skull's face" (Du Maurier 91). In the 1940 film adaptation by Alfred Hichcock, the first time Mrs. Danvers appeares is when she greets the new Mrs De Winter after she first comes to Manderley:

Fig 1. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (30:31) Fig 2. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (39:16)

The scenes presented in Fig1 and Fig 2 show how the heroine comes to Manderley manor for the first time and meets Mrs. Danvers. The first contact with Mrs. Denvers is very unpleasant for the heroine: “when she took my hand her was limp and heavy, deathly cold, and it lay in mine like a lifeless thing” (Du Maurier 67). In O’Brien’s film adaptation of 1997 (Fig 2), the presentation of Mrs Danvers is as detailed as the novel: she looks even creepier, with white skin, high cheekbones and cold hands. In either case, Danvers uses her influential position at Manderley to intimidate and manipulate the narrator, who, in spite of her superior rank, is scared of Mrs. Danvers:

I know she bade me welcome to Manderley…spoken in a voice as cold and lifeless as her hand had been.…stammering some sort of thanks in return, and dropping both my gloves in my confusion. she stooped to pick them up, and as she handed them to me I

13 saw a little smile of scorn upon her lips, and i guessed at once she considered me ill- bred. Something, in the expression of her face, gave me a feeling of unrest, and even when she had stepped back, and taken her place amongst the rest. I could see that black figure standing out alone, individual and apart, and for all her silence i knew her eye to be upon me. (Du Maurier 67)

And yet Danvers is a sympathetic and even pathetic character, in addition to being a frightening one. The scene in Fig 3 shows the new Mrs. de Winter entering Rebecca's room for the first time. She is found here by Danvers who, holding her by the shoulders, shows her Rebecca's belongings, pajamas, dresses, even Rebecca’s bed as if Rebecca had never left. Danvers whispers in the heroine’s ear and tells her what a beautiful, intelligent woman Rebecca was, how slim she was, how capable she is of running the estate, and how she has everything the heroine couldn't match. An atmosphere of terror and darkness haunts the new wife.

Fig 3. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (01:29:29)

Danvers is at her most diabolical nature at the summer costume party, during which she humiliates the narrator by convincing her to wear the same white dress that Rebecca wore years ago:

Fig 4. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (01:13:59)

14 In the scene in Fig 5, the guests are mistakenly take for the heroine as Rebeccas when the heroine goes to the ball in a dress copied from the picture in the gallery:

Fig 5. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (01:16:28)

Maxim angrily rebukes her. At this time she crying and helpless, only to find that it is Mrs. Danvers tease her “It was Mrs. Danvers. I shall never forget the expression on her face [...] her face, loathsome, triumphant. The face of an exulting devil. She stood there, smiling at me” (Du Maurier 214). The most dramatic event happens when Mrs. Danvers’ psychological attack against the new Mrs. De Winter reaches climax.The scene is laid out that Mrs. Danvers and the heroine are standing at an open window, Mrs. Danvers persuades the new Mrs. De Winter better to leave the manor Manderley, she opens the window and tell her that Maxim does not need her, does not love her and quietly encourages the heroine to jump: She still mistress here, even if she os dead. She is the real Mrs De Winter, not you. It's you that's the shadow and the ghost. It's you that's forgotten and not wanted…Why don't you leave Manderley to her…He doesn't want you,he never did. He can't forget her. It's you that ought to be lying there in the church crypt,not her. It's you who ought to be dead, not Mrs de Winter.…She pushed me towards the open window. I could see the terrace below me grey and indistinct in the white wall of fog.“Look at here” she said. "Why don't you jump?" …“Why don't you try it ?” (Du Maurier 245-246)

In film adaptations, this scene is portrayed as follows:

Fig 6. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (01:23:52)

15 Though the new Mrs De Winter is not physically hurt during her time at Manderley, she suffers from psychological and emotional error because Mrs.Danvers is able to control her, using her ignorance to frighten, intimidate, or manipulate her. When she stands at the edge of the window, dark and fearful, she almost does, but something holds her back at the last moment. Another powerful figure embodying power is Maxim de Winter, who is wealthy, charismatic, middle-aged owner of Manderley, a huge estate with a castle-like mansion. The film begins with the marriage of a rich aristocrat to a naive, inexperienced, young woman. From the very beginning, the hastiness and the coldness of the gentleman’s marriage proposal raise the question of whether it is a marriage for love : ‘Either you go to America with Mrs Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.’ ‘Do you mean you want a secretary or something?’ ‘No, I’m asking you to marry me, you little fool.’ (Du Maurier 57)

Fig 7. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (25:26)

This scene shows that as he first proposed to her, she is puzzled by his words as they are in the different social class. As Maxim de Winter’s grandmother asserts regarding his new bride, Rebecca: “She’s got the three things that matter in a wife…breeding, brains, and beauty” (Du Maurier 256). Maxim’s surprising second marriage to a girl with a middle class background and leaves the second Mrs. de Winter insecure in her relationship with her new husband and all of those within his social sphere, knowing that she does not measure up to his social status in the way that his first wife had.

16 Fig 8. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (41:17)

There is another detail about Rebecca as the film 1997 shows: the expression in Rebecca’s eyes. It is a memory when Max and Mrs de Winter laying on the bed, he tells her the truth of murder. Maxim kills Rebecca in a blind rage after she pushed him over the edge with her lie that she was carrying the child of one of her lovers and would force him to raise it as his own. Maxim’s status within the British aristocracy inflates the importance of the inquiry into his first wife’s death, as in a highly stratified class society everyone is focused on the activities and scandals of the upper class. Maxim killed Rebecca in a blind rage after she pushed him over the edge with her lie that she was carrying the child of one of her lovers and would force him to raise it as his own.

Fig 9. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (01:40:34)

In this scene, Maxim stands right in the middle of the captain and the law enforcement, obviously to see the social status of the nobility. He can get deferential treatment of Celebrities and Aristocrats by media and law enforcement. Law enforcement and the media treat the de Winters with an amplified level of deference due to his status in society. As Burke states that “power is always inflicted by a power in some way superior”(Burke 35). There is a lower class threat is displayed

17 through a confused old homeless man named Ben, who offers to do odd jobs at Manderley and other neighboring estates. He answers as the following:

Ben shock his head. “I never seen him ”“Don't be a blood fool” said Favell roughly. “You know you've seen me .You've seen me go to the cottage on the beach, Mrs de Winter's cottage. You've seen me there, haven't you?” “No. i never seen no one” said Ben. Favell swung round on him. “It's a put-up job. Someone has got at this idiot and bribed him too”［…］I've never seen anyone. (Du Maurier 336-337) when law enforcement calls him as a witness to discover if he saw anything suspicious the night of her disappearance, he can not tell them anything intelligible for fear of retribution. Maybe the power of class await him if he lost his social and economic security. Mrs Danvers and Maxim de Winter are different types of Gothic villain with a different expression of power. The new Mrs de Winter suffers from psychological and emotional terror under Mrs. Danvers. Maxim is the embodiment of the upper class power. Using the heroine’s ignorance, they both control her, frighten, intimidate or manipulate the new wife.

4.2 Manderley as the Object of the Sublime

According to Harris, gothic setting ‘‘The action takes place in and around an old castle or an old mansion, or the ruins of an old castle or mansion” (Harris). As Botting states,

The major locus of Gothic plots, the castle, was gloomily predominant in early Gothic fiction. Decaying, bleak and full of hidden passageways, the castle was linked to other medieval edifices—abbeys, churches and graveyards especially— that, in their generally ruinous states, harked back to a feudal past associated with barbarity, superstition and fear. (Botting 2-3)

Therefore, the mansion of Manderley in Rebecca may be interpreted as the the object of the sublime. In Rebecca, the story takes place in Manderley, a stone cold mansion segregated in its own world. Basically, the gothic elements revolve around the house itself—Manderley—and its frightening housekeeper. When the narrator first hear about the mansion, she is so eager to visit the Manderley as she remembers:

I paid twopence for the painting – half my weekly pocket money – and then asked the wrinkled shop woman what it was meant to be. She looked astonished at my ignorance."That's Manderley," she said, and I remember coming out of the shop feeling rebuffed, yet hardly wiser than before. (Du Maurier 21-22)

At the beginning of the novel, the first sentence of Rebecca, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” (Du Maurier 1). It is a poetic evocation of place, with an irresistible melancholy

18 hung about it. Nothing overtly supernatural happens at Manderley, but it is still pretty creepy. The ghost of Rebecca seems to be created by the characters, who are faced every day with the objects she used and the atmosphere she cultivated.

Fig 10. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (04:02)

In this scene, The narrator dreams that she is on a foggy road back to Manderley Manor. The dreamer is the second Mrs de Winter, and Manderley has been to her both a heaven and a hell (Perry). First of all, she has a feeling of getting entrapped, as soon as she passes the gate to her husband’s estate. The detail of the description below contributes to the creation of the strange, of the numinous: The gates had shut to with a crash behind us, the dusty road was out of sight, and I became aware that this was not the drive I had imagined would be the Manderley’s, this was not a broad and spacious thing of gravel, flanked with neat turf at either side, kept smooth with rake and brush.This drive twisted and turned as a serpent, scarce wider in places than a path, and above our heads was a great colonnade of trees, whose branches nodded and intermingled with one another, making an archway for us, like the roof of a church. Even the midday sun would not penetrate the interlacing of those green leaves, they were too thickly entwined, one with another, and only little flickering patches of warm light would come in intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold. It was very silent, very still. On the high road there had been a gay west wind blowing in my face, making the grass on the hedges dance in unison, but here there was no wind. (Du Maurier 71)

The border is drawn between the ordinary, everyday world and the numinous world: “the world of the sublime, terrifying, chaotic” (Aguirre 3). The narrator gets the feeling of being entrapped not only in the physical sense but also, and more importantly. Mrs de Winter finds her new environment of Manderley hostile and she cannot adjust to her new position as a wife to Maxim. Another feeling in the mansion is Rebecca, even being dead, she is still lively and omnipresent character whose presence is felt from start to end.

19 You would not think she [Rebecca] had just gone out for a little while and would back in the evening.’ [...] ‘It’s not only this room,’ she [Mrs Danvers] said. ‘It’s in many rooms in the house. [...] I feel her everywhere. You do too, don’t you?’” (Du Maurier 194)

Rebecca like a shadow all around the mansion. According to Burke, obscurity and terror produce the sublime and “make an object very striking” (Burke 71). In Rebecca, when the narrator first goes into west wing , the forbidden room of Rebecca, she finds things more confusing:

I found myself in the corridor where I had stood that first morning...There was no sound at all. I was aware of the same musty, unused smell that had been there before...My first impression was one of shock because the room was fully furnished, as though in use...In a minute Rebecca herself would come back into the room. If she sat here I should see her reflection in the glass, and she would see me too, standing like this by the door... I realized for the first time since I had come into the room that my legs were trembling. (Du Maurier 164-165, 167)

Fig 11. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (01:07:33)

This quotation and scene refers the narrator first into the Rebecca’s west wing room is the forbidden place in Manderley. According to Burke “Darkeness, Smell and Intermiting are produce the sublime” (Burke 75). The narrator find the musty smell in the room and was suddenly interrupted by Mrs. Danvers. She finds that Rebecca’s room is more beautiful and gorgeous, and it’s amazing that Rebecca’s room has been kept clean, like she hasn’t left. In conclusion, this section analyze the Manderley as the object of the sublime in the Rebecca by providing the descriptive example how the sublime is reflected in the mansion of Manderley. In Rebecca, the new Mrs de Winter is living under the shadow of Rebecca, who is dead but still lively and omnipresent character whose presence is felt from start to end.

4.3 The Sublime in the Landscape

20 According to Burke, “The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature . . . is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror” (Burke 35). Fred Botting discusses that “ Gothic landscape are desolate, alienating and full of menace, and mountains locations"(Botting 2). In Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, the descriptions of landscape are spectaculars and strike with awe, thus, the reflections of the sublime in the landscape may be notice in the novel. In Rebecca, the suggestive of the sublime in the landscape happened on Du Maurier focuses to depict the sublime prcipice that invokes an emotion of fear. When Maxim and the narrator are frist driving Maxim’s car to sketching together, as following:

I realised, too, that car could climb no more. We had reached the summit, and below Us stretched the way that we had come, precipitous and hollow. […] I could see the edge of the road bordered a vertical slope that crumbled into vacancy, a fall of perhaps two thousand feet. We got out of the car and looked beneath us. This sobered me at last. I knew that but half the car's length had lain between us and the fall. The sea, like a crinkled chart, spread to the horizon, and lapped the sharp outline of the coast, while the houses were white shells in a rounded grotto, pricked here and there by a great orange sun.…the wind dropped, and it suddenly grew cold. (Du Maurier 29)

Fig 12. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (17:52) Fig 13. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (10:59)

Craggy, mountainous landscapes [...] stimulate powerful emotions of terror and wonder in the viewer (Botting 3-4). In these two scenes, a look at opened precipice brings the emotion of fear in the heroine’s soul; she desires safety because the car is on a very edge of the abyss. As already mentioned, Manderley is an object of the sublime; even rhododendrons are more dreadful in Manderley: Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead [...] on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery [...] they started me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had never seen before. (Du Maurier 65)

21 She is frighten by what she sees. She thinks it is the strangest flower she had ever seen. She thinks “these were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful i thought, too powerful, they were not plants at all” (Du Maurier 65). She thinks the rhododendron unlike other normal, it is so terrific and full of monstrous like monster. However, it is pity that in both films adaptations there is not present such weird red rhododendron on the wall. The sea also mention as the sublime when the narrator mistakenly enters Rebecca’s west wing room, she looks at the sea, she finds that: A mist salt-laden, borne upwards from the sea. A hurrying cloud hid the sun for a moment as i watched, and the sea changed colour instantly becoming black, and the white crests with them very pitilless suddenly, and cruel, not the gay sparking sea I had looked on first. (Du Maurier 90)

The scene makes her feel nervous and she thinks “if I stood on the terrace and listened, I could hear the murmur of the sea below me, low and sullen” (Du Maurier 119). She cannot be peaceful when she faces the restless sea (as in Figure 14):

Fig 14. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (01:29:04) This scene shows the narrator looking at the near sea through the window of Rebecca’s west wing room. The sea represents the quintessential qualities associated with the sublime – it “encompasses the evocative feelings and expectations of danger, the unknown” (Burke 32). As Burke mentions, “sublime is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (Burke 32). She realizes that why people cannot bear the clamour of the sea cause “it has a mournful harping note sometimes, and the very persistence of it, that eternal roll and thunder and hiss, play a jagged tune upon the nerves” (Du Maurier 119). Botting describes the sublime in the landscape all sorts of imaginative objects and fears situated in or beyond nature could proliferate in a marvellous profusion of the supernatural and the ridiculous, the magical and the nightmarish, the fantastic and the absurd (Botting 3-4).

22 5. GOTHIC AESTHETICS: THE BEAUTIFUL IN DAPHNE DU MAURIER’S NOVEL REBECCA (1938) AND ITS 1940 AND 1997 FILM ADAPTATIONS

Section Five of the present Bachelor thesis focuses on the analysis of the beautiful in Daphne Du Maurier's Gothic novel Rebecca (1938) and the film adaptations Rebecca (1940) and Rebecca (1997). Ideas from Burke are used as the primary source for the analysis of the beautiful in the above mentioned novel and films. Sub-section 5.1 discusses women as the embodiment of the beautiful while sub-section 5.2 discusses the beautiful in the landscape.

5.1. Women as the Embodiment of the Beautiful According to Burke, “a face must expressive of [...] gentle and amiable qualities” (Burke 107).The beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness, or delicacy (Burke 67). In Rebecca, the protagonist and narrator is a shy and self-conscious young woman. Writing to his sister about the narrator, Maxim introduces her as “very young and very pretty” (Du Maurier 98).

Fig 15. Still from Hitchcock, Rebecca (04:07) Fig 16. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (00:55)

These two scenes show how Maxim meets the narrator the first time. She looks very young and beautiful. When the dog lost on the way “i must get him [...] and began scrambling over the rocks towards Jasper. Great jagged boulders screened the view, and I slipped and stumbled on the wet rocks” (Du Maurier 38). She is a clearly a good-natured when she, despite the slippery road, tries to save the dog. As Burke mention that “those virtues which grab our attention and make deep impression are beautiful qualities, we may easily see how far the application of beauty to virtue may be made with propriety” (Burke 91). There are even more details describing Rebecca. In life, Rebecca is the beautiful, much- loved, accomplished wife of Maxim de Winter, and the mistress of Manderley. Now she is a ghost

23 that haunts around the Manderly mansion. About Rebecca's description from other characters of the novel; they praise her as in the following: She was so tremendously popular, such personality [...] she was so clever[...] we never knew her well personally, you know, the bishop was only inducted here four year ago, but of course she received us when went to the garden party, she was a very lovely creature, so full of life. She seems to have been so good at everything too.[...] she was certainly very gifted. She standing at the foot of the stairs on the night of the ball, shaking hands with everybody, that cloud of the dark hair against that very white skin, and her costume suited her so. Yes, she was very beautiful. (Du Maurier 122-124) As Burke notes, “the beauty of women is considerably owing to their weakness, or delicacy, and is even enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it” (Burke 67).There is no doubt that Rebecca is a beautiful woman with gifted personality. The film adaptation of 1997 shows just the expression in Rebecca’s eyes many times and without her whole face (Fig. 17):

Fig 17. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (10:55)

In people’s eyes, Rebecca is almost a perfect woman. The narrator describes Rebecca as follows:

I could see Maxim standing at the foot of the stairs, laughing, shaking hands, turning to someone who stood by his side, tall and slim, with dark hair, said the bishop’s wife, dark hair against a white face, someone whose quick eyes saw to the comfort of her guests, who gave an order over her shoulder to a servant, someone who was never awkward, never without grace, who when she danced left a stab of perfume in the air like a white azalea. (Du Maurier 125)

Through the description, Rebecca is a perfect and beautiful woman, she is proficient in everything, she is good at social relations, she is a person who knows good character. As Burke notes, the beautiful relates to delicacy and elegance (Burke 67). Rebecca is elegance, beauty and mystery.

24 5.2. The Beautiful in the Landscape Burke states that “the appearance of delicacy, even of fragility, is almost essential to it ” [the beautiful in nature] (Burke 67). In Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier juxtaposes the sublime landscape and the beautiful scenery. Du Maurier describes the flowers in the Manderly mansion: He had special cultivated flowers, grown for the house alone, in the walled garden. A rose was one of the few flowers, he said that looked better picked than growing. A bowl of roses in a drawing-room had a depth of colour and sent they had not possessed in the open [...] he had roses in the house at Manderley for eight months in the year. (Du Maurier 31) According to Maxim’s description, Manderley is like a fairyland on the earth. Burke notes that “beautiful is related to smoothness in tress and flowers, it is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, give us idea of beauty’’(Burke 92). Beauty also relates to color: “ the color of beautiful bodies must not be dusky or muddy, but clean and fair” (Burke 95). Burke also states that “it is the flowery species, so remarkable for its weakness and momentary duration, that gives us the liveliest idea of beauty and elegance” (Burke 97). It is possible to relate Burke’s ideas on the beautiful in landscape with a description of the path in Manderley:

The little pathway down the valley to the bay had clumps of azalea and rhododendron planted to the left of it, and if you wandered down it on a May evening after dinner it was just as though the shrubs had sweated in the air. You could stop down and pick a fallen petal, crush it between your fingers, and you had here, in the hollow of your hand, the essence of a thousand scents, unbearable and sweet. (Du Maurier 31)

Fig 18. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (36:40) Fig 19. Still from O’Brien, Rebecca (51:02)

The scenes in Figure 18 and Figure 19 shows the pathway in Manderley mansion as depicted in the 1997 film adaptation by O’Brien. The portrayal of the pathway may be related to what Burke calls “the beautiful in feeling”: it is “the most pleasant or beautiful to the feeling, as anyone that pleases may experience, so far as it taken in by the eye” (Burke 98). Discussing the nature of the beautiful, Burke states that only small objects maybe “pleasing” and the beautiful is founded on pleasure, smallness, beautiful sounds (Burke 103). In Rebecca, the

25 heroine experiences such feeling: “The afternoon was drowsy, peaceful [...] I could smell the faint, soft magnolia scent as I sat here. Everything was quiet and still” (Du Maurier 101-102). In conclusion, it is possible to state that the presentation of young women in the novel and its film adaptations may be interpreted as the embodiment of the beautiful, as they relate to gracefulness and elegancy in Burkean terms. The Beautiful in the pastoral landscape. The beautiful in landscape is founded on pleasure and a peaceful state of mind.

26 6. CONCLUSION

The aim of this BA thesis is to analyze Gothic aesthetics, the Sublime and the Beautiful in Daphne Du Maurier's novel Rebecca (1938) and its two films adaptation: Rebecca (1940) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Rebecca (1997) directed by Jim O’Brien. The background of the main theoretical part in this Bachelor thesis is based on one of most significant eighteenth century treatises on aesthetics, A Philosophy Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) by Edmund Burke. The first objective of Bachelor thesis focus on the analysis of the sublime in Daphne Du Maurier's Gothic novel Rebecca (1938) and film adaptation Rebecca (1940) and Rebecca (1997). The focus is on Maxim De Winter and Housekeeper as the Embodiment of the Power (4.1), Manderley as the Object of the Sublime (4.2), and the Sublime in the Landscape (4.3). It is possible to state that Mrs Danvers and Maxim de Winter are different types of Gothic villain with a different expression of power. The new Mrs de Winter suffers from psychological and emotional terror under Mrs. Danvers. Maxim de Winter is the embodiment of the upper class power. Mrs. Danvers and Maxim control the narrator and, using her ignorance, frighten, intimidate, or manipulate her. Manderley may be interpret as the object of the sublime, as it is terrifying and mysterious. The landscape around Manderley is desolate, alienating and full of menace: mountains, the sea and precipices is the landscape surrounding Manderley. Another objective of the present paper is to analyze the beautiful. According to Burke, the beautiful is related to beautiful in feeling, the qualities of mind and virtue, smallness and smoothness, grace, elegance and speciousness. The present paper is an attempt to analyze the beautiful in the characters of the young women in novel and its film adaptations: the narrator and Rebecca. In the novel, woman’s beauty is presented by emphasizing the regular features of the countenance, youth, smoothness of skin, and elegant manners. In landscape, the beautiful is reflected in peaceful places and in the feeling the narrator experiences while looking at the peaceful landscape.

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