How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. (5.1)
These lines from Mrs. de Winter, as she embarks on her memory of meeting and marrying Maxim, suggests the intensity of her love for him. What does she mean about love being "a fever, and a burden"? Have you ever felt this way?
Quote #2
"I'm sorry. I rather thought you loved me. A fine blow to my conceit." (6.69)
Notice that Maxim doesn't say anything about him loving her!
Quote #3
"I do love you […]. I love you dreadfully. You've made me very unhappy and I've been crying all night because I thought I should never see you again." (6.70)
This exchange between Maxim and the soon-to-be Mrs. de Winter is happening after he asks her to marry him, but before she accepts. It highlights the fact that he never admits to loving her, though she does so openly. Not cool, Maxim.
Quote #4
The spell of the Happy Valley was upon me. This at last was the core of Manderley, the Manderley I would know and learn to love. (10.34)
Manderley is very much a love object in Rebecca. Much of this love is due to the beauty of nature there. But this beauty didn't just crop up on its own. Rebecca had much to do with cultivating it and making it extra special.
Quote #5
"You're not happy. Mr de Winter doesn't love you. There's not much for you to live for, is there? Why don't you jump now and have done with it? Then you won't be unhappy any more." (18.142)
Mrs. Danvers uses Mrs. de Winter's love for Maxim to make her hate herself enough to want to die. She very nearly succeeds. Why? Is it because Mrs. de Winter doesn't really like herself all that much, and she needs Maxim's love to validate her existence? What do you think?
Quote #6
At any rate I have lost my diffidence, my timidity, my shyness with strangers. I am very different from that self who drove to Manderley for the first time, hopeful and eager, handicapped by a rather desperate gaucherie and filled with an intense desire to please. (2.16)
We think this line says something about love, and possibly suggests that Mrs. de Winter has changed. Before, she needed the approval of others for fulfillment, now she has a degree of self-love and can relate to people without needing to please them. Or, maybe having Maxim's love is what fulfills her. What do you think?
Quote #7
"Will you look into my eyes and tell me that you love me now?" (19.224)
This is what Maxim asks Mrs. de Winter after he confesses to murdering Rebecca. Mrs. de Winter's reply? A resounding "yes!" Now that's what we call unconditional love.
Quote #8
"I love you so much […]. So much." This is what I have wanted him to say every day and every night, I thought, and now he is saying it at last. This is what I imagined in Monte Carlo, in Italy, here in Manderley. He is saying it now. (20.3)
We wanted him to say it, too, but talk about bad timing. He finally tells our narrator he loves her right after he admits to having shot Rebecca because he thought she was pregnant with another man's child! It kind of takes the romance out of it. But apparently not for our Mrs. de Winter.
Quote #9
"You don't love me […], that's why you did not feel anything. I know. I understand. It's come too late for you, hasn't it?" (20.6)
Mrs. de Winter is a little stunned by finally hearing the three little words she's wanted so badly. So she doesn't immediately gush back her own love. Maxim's response seems pretty manipulative, and not necessarily very loving. Or does it just seem insecure and desperate? A little of both?
Quote #10
"You thought I loved Rebecca? You thought I killed her, loving her? I hated her, I tell you. Our marriage was a farce from the very first. She was vicious, damnable, rotten through and through. We never loved each other, never had one moment of happiness together. Rebecca was incapable of love, of tenderness, of decency." (20.30)
Notice how clever this is. Say, for argument's sake, Maxim really does love Rebecca, and he kills her because he's jealous of her affairs. It wouldn't really do to tell this to Mrs. de Winter. It's much better if he says he killed Rebecca because he hated her and because she tormented him. As always, it's hard to tell if Maxim is being manipulative, sincere, or both.
Quote #11
"I thought about Manderley too much […] I put Manderley first, before anything else. And it does not prosper, that sort of love. They don't preach about it in the churches. Christ said nothing about stones, and bricks, and walls, the love that a man can bear for his plot of earth, his soil, his little kingdom."(20.44)
This is a confusing line. It seems like Maxim is suggesting that while the Christian faith preaches that you should love your spouse, and not kill people, it doesn't tell you how to live when you are too in love with your house. Well, he's 0 for 2, so a third miss can't hurt much, right?