The Purpose Of Irony

11 Pages 2718 Words

the estate and that she herself would not have to be concerned about doing so. In other words, Mrs. de Winter was, from the start, forced into carrying things on at Manderly as Rebecca had previously done; who was “very quickly becoming her enigmatic rival.” (Butterly 145).
Mrs. de Winter’s second day at Manderly was hardly any more pleasant than the first. In fact her morning is, in her eyes, leaning towards disastrous. She fully disrupts the routine of the way things are scheduled; she arrives to breakfast late, and in turn stays late to finish breakfast, and disturbs the maids when she goes back to her room afterwards. Next, Frith, the main servant, tells her that the fire in the library is not lit until the late afternoon and that at that hour in the morning the late Mrs. de Winter usually went into the morning-room to write letters, answer her correspondences, and approve the lunch and dinner menus to Mrs. Danvers. After everything that occurred that morning, Mrs. deWinter is feeling completely humiliated. Little things such as these “render Mrs. de Winter’s first attempts to change the policies at Manderly terribly ineffective.” (Beetz 3459). Instead of embracing them and demanding change she crumpled and fell into the routine that Rebecca had kept when she had been lady of the house. This action further presses Mrs. de Winter’s insecurity and her pushover mentality to become quite deeply etched into her character. Though, absolutely no one on the Manderly estate offers to help or encourage Mrs. de Winter to do things the way she wants them to be done. In fact some of them, Mrs. Danvers especially, do not encourage her to do her own thing, instead they discourage it and ridicule her if she tries to do anything differently.
Amongst all of Mrs. de Winter’s burdens, she did indeed have one more. This burden resulting from everything being done the same way and no one encouraging her to change; she is...