How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"You see," [Beatrice] said, […] "you are so very different from Rebecca." (9.169)
Beatrice, we have reason to believe, means this judgment as a compliment. However, Mrs. de Winter is obsessed with the idea that Rebecca was superior to her, so she assumes the worst. In her mind, everyone is judging her and it's not going well.
Quote #2
I wondered why I minded that, and why the thought of the servants talking about it in the kitchen should cause me such distress. It must be that I had a small mean mind, a conventional, petty hatred of gossip. (18.3)
Mrs. de Winter is extremely preoccupied with the judgments that workers and servants might be making about her. Maybe this is because she considers them more truthful, or better judges of character than wealthier people.
Quote #3
"The woman buried in the crypt is not Rebecca," he said. "It's the body of some unknown woman, unclaimed, belonging nowhere. There never was an accident. Rebecca was not drowned at all. I killed her. I shot Rebecca in the cottage in the cove." (19.224)
Yowza. The theme of justice and judgment is getting more serious now. Maxim is waiting to learn how Mrs. de Winter judges him for the act, while readers are struggling to understand their own judgments of Maxim up to this point.
Quote #4
"I nearly killed her then," he said. "It would have been so easy. One false step, one slip. You remember the precipice. I frightened you, didn't I? You thought I was mad. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I am." (20.38)
Maxim judges Rebecca extremely harshly for whatever it is she confesses to having done. He judges her so harshly that he wants to kill her starting on the fifth day of their marriage. No surprise that he finally gives in to his urge.
Quote #5
"She turned round and faced me, smiling, one hand in her pocket, the other holding her cigarette. When I killed her she was smiling still. I fired at her heart. The bullet passed right through. She did not fall at once. She stood there, looking at me, that slow smile on her face, her eyes wide open..." (20.80)
What judgments is Rebecca making about Maxim as she's dying?
Quote #6
"Those holes weren't there when the boat left my yard. I was proud of my work and so was Mrs. de Winter. It's my opinion, sir, that the boat never capsized at all. She was deliberately scuttled." (22.95)
Tabb the boatman's judgment nearly gives Mrs. de Winter a heart attack. Somehow, though, the coroner finds it easier to visualize Rebecca sinking her own boat with herself inside it than to visualize Maxim killing her and sinking the boat with her in it. Why?
Quote #7
"The pain was slight as yet, but the growth was deep-rooted […] and in three or four months' time she would have been under morphia. An operation would have been no earthly use at all. I told her that. The thing had got too firm a hold. There is nothing anyone can do in a case like that, except give morphia, and wait." (26.106)
Dr. Baker's shocking revelation that Rebecca was terminally ill has the ironic effect of confirming the coroner's ruling that her death is a suicide.
Quote #8
"The X-rays showed a certain malformation of the uterus, I remember, which meant she could never have had a child; but that was quite apart, it had nothing to do with the disease." (26.108)
This is a bizarre twist, since Maxim and Favell both seemed to believe Rebecca was pregnant. This new information also provides subtle grist for the story that she killed herself. If women are valued for their ability to produce an heir, a woman with a malformed uterus couldn't consider herself of much value, could she?
Quote #9
A face stared back at me that was not my own. It was very pale, very lovely, framed in a cloud of dark hair. […] The face in the glass stared back at me and laughed. And I saw then that she was sitting on a chair before the dressing-table in her bedroom, and Maxim was brushing her hair. […] [Her hair] twisted like a snake, and he took hold of it with both hands and smiled at Rebecca and put it round his neck. (27.101)
After Maxim is cleared, Mrs. de Winter dreams of Rebecca seeking judgment: on Mrs. de Winter by taking back Maxim, and on Maxim by possibly choking him with her hair, the way a boa constrictor might choke an animal. Creepy.
Quote #10
There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea. (27.123)
The final lines are controversial. Many readers feel that Maxim losing Manderley isn't a big enough punishment for killing Rebecca. What do you think? How might early descriptions of Maxim after Manderley contribute to your argument?