LOOK, I just watched the Rebecca trailer and I AM EXCITED

Plenty of people are down on it and as a fan of the book for like...20 years, I DO NOT KNOW WHY

This will be a THREAD on why I am LOOKING FORWARD TO NETFLIX' REBECCA, and why all you party poopers are wrong

To start with: I have been mildly obsessed with the novel since I first read it at age 12

It is one of THE most formative books I've read, and the reason I always, ALWAYS approach setting as if I'm writing a character

When I was in highschool, I started a book club which had a couple kids in it and that is still going strong to this day, with over 100 members now

Our first read? Rebecca

The biggest criticism of the trailer I'm seeing is that it doesn't feel Gothic enough, presumably because those critiquing it really loved the Hitchcock adaptation

But the thing is, the book is so much more than just a Gothic novel

The book is, at its core, a breathtaking, claustrophobic exploration of classism and how it feels to move from one class to another without a support system

It uses a Gothic setting to explore that experience, but that aspect of the book is just...set dressing

The Gothic characteristics of the story aren't evoked through dark corridors and skeletons and wives shut up in the attic the way they would be in a traditional Gothic novel

The tension and foreboding comes, instead, from our nameless heroine's constant sense that something is wrong, that she's not welcome, and that this elegant, incredibly beautiful, constrained and proscribed world is working at every turn to keep her out

Manderley is *not a creepy Gothic manor*. Manderley is a dream house. It's gorgeous, well-maintained, and surrounded by lush gardens, fully staffed and ready for a mistress to run it in the manner to which everyone is accustomed

The disconnect has nothing to do with Manderley a frightening place innately, and *everything* to do with it being a completely alien environment for our heroine

She is completely unsuited to the lifestyle and expectations that this house represents

And Rebecca herself--as a character, as a ghost, as Mrs Danvers' continuing raison d'etre--is not just a formidable woman

She's the epitome of old money

Beautiful, elegant, socially adept, and with a thousand dark and hidden secrets

She's the entire lifestyle and set of expectations that Max de Winter wants to escape from, and that our heroine is totally unfit for

Max is drawn to the heroine because she represents freedom, and a complete change of course

She brings NONE of that societal baggage with her

And the house itself (along w Mrs Danvers) continues to represent Rebecca and the shackles of old money, even after she's gone

Which is why the ending happens the way it does

There will be no freedom for Max and the heroine until they're able to step out from Manderley's shadow

Manderley and Rebecca are essentially the same: two beautiful, beautiful things that get their claws into you and, so long as they exist, will never let you go

Unless they see you as an outsider, and reject you from the very start

Which is why our little nobody heroine is the only way to freedom for Max de Winter--if he'd done the socially acceptable thing, and married a fit mistress for Manderley, he'd never have been free of his ghosts. Not the house, not Rebecca, not Danvers

So the main plot IS very Gothic--a plucky, socially-disadvantaged heroine rescuing a brooding hero from his haunted environs

But Rebecca is different because the thing haunting Max de Winter isn't *actually* Rebecca

It's money, and class, and the stifling life required by those

Which means the trials our heroine faces aren't skeletons or hidden passages or mad wives

They're trying to plan the perfect party when you have no idea how to do it and people are actively rooting for you to fail

They're attempting to live up to the legacy of a woman who's been all but canonized in death, despite being a pretty terrible person in life

They're being dropped into a lifestyle that you have *no idea how to live* but are expected to take up effortlessly

I have so many more thoughts on this, but I think I need to write them out in a longer form with more specific examples, so maybe I'll do a blog post to coincide with/celebrate the Netflix adaptation coming out

All this to say, though, that I really liked the look of the trailer

From what I saw it seems they understood all this--that the heroine, by virtue of being an outsider, is the only salvation Max can hope for, and that the true ominous ghost is class expectation, not a dead wife

(Also, I saw some complaints that it's too sun-soaked and bright to be a Rebecca adaptation, which is ridiculous as the book starts in MONTE CARLO, which represents both freedom and a fleeting sense of normalcy to Maxim and the heroine, of COURSE that bit should be brighter!!!)

(As for Manderley itself, half the book is descriptions of its incredible gardens and the Cornish coast and the quiet, sunny rooms full of Atmosphere and Rigid Expectation, have you all even READ IT OR DO YOU JUST WANT ANOTHER BLACK AND WHITE FILM?????)