Daphne du Maurier's Cinderella : a feminist reading of rebecca

Abstract EN

Feminist writers often protest the passive representation of female characters in Eurocentric fairy tales.

Their main objections are triggered by the stereotypical image of the damsel-in-distress prevalent in these patriarchal folktales.

The stories of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, among many others, all feature helpless young females, waiting for a male hero to save them from the difficult situations they find themselves in.

Twentieth-century feminist fiction marked a drastic shift in perspective in the rewriting of these tales.

The passive female heroines are given fundamental roles as adventurous women, who have the ability to save themselves and even the men they love.

The present study focuses on Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca as a new version of the Cinderella story.

It explores the protagonist’s Bildungsroman journey into development and sheds light on the disintegration of the traditional rescue motif that was common in classic male-authored texts.