Jealousy is an attitude or disposition in which one is apprehensive of losing a position or affection, and becoming resentful or bitter in rivalry. In Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier explores the issue of jealousy through numerous characters and their relationships Three of the main characters who are affected by jealousy are Maxim de Winter, The narrator (The Second Mrs. de Winter), and Mrs. Danvers. Through these characters, Daphne du Maurier creates a study of jealousy and its destructive power in Rebecca. Jealousy has two consequences in Rebecca, it is a destructive force that threatens to destroy both Maxim and the narrator as well as it also blinds characters to the true natures of others.
Maxim de Winter, as husband to Rebecca and owner
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Mrs Danvers soon becomes the villain as she talks down at the narrator and plays on her insecurities of Maxim loving Rebecca and not the narrator, soon wanting the narrator to leave Manderley or kill herself- ‘Why don't you go? We none of us want you. He doesn't want you, he never did. He can't forget her. He wants to be alone in the house again, with her. It's you that ought to be lying there in the church crypt, not her. It's you who ought to be dead, not Mrs. de Winter.”
Concluding that Daphne du Maurier explores the issue of jealousy through Maxim de Winter of Rebecca’s many lovers, The narrator (The Second Mrs. de Winter) living up to this dominate women figure from Maxims past- Rebecca, and Mrs. Danvers jealous of Maxim and the narrators new love. Daphne du Maurier shows jealousy and its destructive power through the ghost of Rebecca, which soon threatens Maxim and the narrator and blinds the narrator throughout the novel of Mrs Danvers’s manipulative personality to get rid of anyone who threatens Rebecca’s reputation at