Rebecca in the XXI. Century
The first time I heard about Rebecca was a few years ago when I went to see the musical adaptation in the theatre in Hungary. I really liked it and since then I wanted to read the book to compare it with the musical. But as I was reading, instead of comparing the two sources, I started to wonder how the story would fit in the 21st century. Rebecca is about a woman who marries Mr.de Winter, a rich gentleman, and moves to a big mansion in England, called Manderley. While she tries to find herself and fit into her new role, she also has to face the first Mrs.de Winter’s memory and be continuously compared to her. At the end of the story, she finds out that the “perfect” Rebecca, the first Mrs.de Winter, is only perfect superficially. The fact that Rebecca, to the outside world was so perfect and nice while in real life she was a manipulating woman, made me think of social media and it’s use/misuse these days. Many people have a different personality on social media than in real life. In my adaptation, I want to bring Rebecca into the 21st century and introduce the first Mrs.de Winter only through her Instagram account to show how in our society, people develop a second, sometimes misleading, personality on social media. I hope with my adaptation I can rise awareness of one of modern society’s most significant problem, which is the split personalities between “real me” and “Instagram me.”
Annotated Bibliography
- “The cornwall of Daphne du Maurier”
- “The deceptively strategic narrator of Rebecca” *
- “I Am Not My Internet Personality, and You Probably Aren’t Yours, Either”
- “THE LONG ARC OF SELF-ESTEEM: IT TYPICALLY BUILDS OVER THE LIFESPAN AND PEAKS AROUND 60”
- Personal Interview with Veronika Nádasi
- “Rebecca: how a lesbian-inflected movie got made” *