Friday, May 8, 2015

Could I have a Maxim de Winter character sketch from Rebecca?

Maxim De Winter is a well-respected member of the upper
classes. He is initially perceived by the reader and the narrator to be a deeply
tortured man, suffering after the death of his glittering socialite wife,
Rebecca.


Maxim is proud, witty but yet sad. He endears
himself to the narrator by treating her with the respect her employer cannot manage.
Once married, he returns with her to the family home he shared with Rebecca. The
narrator is unsure of how to behave. She is told by Maxim not to emulate Rebecca, yet
she has no other role model on whom to base her new life as a
lady.


Maxim is passionately anxious every time Rebecca is
mentioned, and this is interpreted as grief. It is only after Rebecca’s boat is
discovered that the true nature of his passion is
revealed-



   ‘I hated
her’



We discover that Maxim
had been forced into a cruel bargain with Rebecca. She would continue her affairs with
other men, but would remain as mistress of Manderley to preserve Max’s dignity and
reputation. It is clearly an agreement that Maxim later regrets. We see the power
Rebecca had over him, in forcing him to kill her rather than her die slowly of cancer.
Maxim is ultimately a man wounded by pride who wishes to free himself from the bonds of
his amoral first wife but who is tied to his way of life by history and
tradition.

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