The ending of Rebecca

Spoiler alert: friends who haven’t read Rebecca and don’t want to know spoilers are advised not to read this blog post at the moment, but to bookmark it and come back when you’ve read the book. 
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..
……..……..……..……..……..……..

1/ From what I’ve seen, 99% of blog posts, essays, and articles about Rebecca mention the opening line. But Rebecca also has a very well-written and evocative closing line: 

“And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.” 

In fact, the final chapter is wonderful, and Daphne du Maurier chooses a very fine way to reveal that Manderley is burning: 

“The hills rose in front of us, and dipped, and rose again. It was quite dark. The stars had gone.
"What time did you say it was?" I asked.
"Twenty past two," he said.
"It's funny," I said. "It looks almost as though the dawn was breaking over there, beyond those hills. It can't be though, it's too early."
"It's the wrong direction," he said, "you're looking west."
"I know," I said. "It's funny, isn't it?"
He did not answer and I went on watching the sky. It seemed to get lighter even as I stared. Like the first red streak of sunrise. Little by little it spread across the sky.
"It's in winter you see the northern lights, isn't it?" I said. "Not in summer?"
"That's not the northern lights," he said. "That's Manderley."
I glanced at him and saw his face. I saw his eyes.
"Maxim," I said. "Maxim, what is it?"
He drove faster, much faster. We topped the hill before us and saw Lanyon lying in a hollow at our feet. There to the left of us was the silver streak of the river, widening to the estuary at Kerrith six miles away. The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea.” (Ch.27) 

Such striking imagery. 

2/ If anyone worries about the dogs’ safety in the destruction at the end of Rebecca (you silly pie), I think Jasper is safe. Before the London trip, the narrator asks Frank to take the sad Jasper back to office with him. 

3/ People say the fire is lifted from Jane Eyre, which completes and reinforces the connection between Rebecca and Charlotte Bronte’s novel. The connection may or may not be discussed later, but the fire makes perfect sense in the context of Rebecca.  
If you look at it from Mrs Danvers’s point of view, Maxim de Winter kills “her lady” in cold blood and gets away with it. It’s safe to assume that the long distance call she receives before clearing out is from Jack Favell, who tells her about the meeting with Dr Baker. 
From the inquest to the investigation, it is clear that people’s bias has been helping Maxim: the investigators initially think it’s an accident, then after new evidence from the boatman, conclude it’s suicide, without suspecting Maxim; everyone seemingly wants to cover it up and move on (perhaps to avoid big scandal); Maxim’s supported by the loyalty of his new wife and Frank Crawley; Ben, the mentally disabled man, the only person who may know something, refuses to testify and denies having seen Jack Favell; Sergeant Julyan is easily content with Dr Baker’s testimony and wants to close the case, even if he seems to have some suspicion. 
Even though Dr Baker’s words reveal that Rebecca’s death is of her own choice and the provocation is her deliberate way to get Maxim to give her an easy painless death, he’s still the one who chooses to kill her. He therefore has to be punished. Mrs Danvers doesn’t kill him, the same way she wouldn’t kill the narrator, so it makes perfect sense that she destroys the thing he loves the most—Manderley. 
If it’s true as he says that he agrees to the deal with Rebecca in order to protect Manderley, and later kills her for Manderley, Manderley has to be destroyed. It is Rebecca’s revenge, through Mrs Danvers. 
From another perspective, in destroying Manderley, Mrs Danvers also destroys the memory of Rebecca. She has chosen to preserve it, now she chooses to destroy it all. 

4/ In a way, I don’t know how damaged Maxim is at the end of the story, because on a personal level, I can’t connect to it. For various reasons, I have always lived in rented apartments, I don’t have connection to a house.  
However, I understand great loss, and exile. I understand what it means to be unable to return. 
The Maxim at the end of the story (who, confusingly, is at the beginning of the book) is not the same as the Maxim throughout the book. 
  
5/ The narrator wants readers to believe that her love triumphs and Rebecca is destroyed, that in the end she’s happy with Maxim. 
But there is no happy ending. 
From beginning to end, the narrator lets us see that she is naïve and inexperienced (Maxim is her first love), she absolutely adores him, and loves him “in a sick, hurt, desperate way, like a child or a dog”. Hearing Maxim’s confession, instead of feeling shocked or appalled, as a sane, reasonable person would, she rejoices. 

“I did not say anything. I held his hands against my heart. I did not care about his shame. None of the things that he had told me mattered to me at all. I clung to one thing only, and repeated it to myself, over and over again. Maxim did not love Rebecca. He had never loved her, never, never. They had never known one moment's happiness together. Maxim was talking and I listened to him, but his words meant nothing to me. I did not really care.” (Ch.20) 

Later, when she’s alone: 

“… the rest of me sat there on the carpet, unmoved and detached, thinking and caring for one thing only, repeating a phrase over and over again, "He did not love Rebecca, he did not love Rebecca." Now, at the ringing of the telephone, these two selves merged and became one again. I was the self that I had always been, I was not changed. But something new had come upon me that had not been before. My heart, for all its anxiety and doubt, was light and free. I knew then that I was no longer afraid of Rebecca.” (Ch.21) 

How sick is that? How stupid and pathetic.  
Readers often note that after the confession, Maxim says “I love you” to the narrator for the 1st time, and also kisses her in a way he never kissed her before. Readers, or at least Sally Beauman, say that there is hint that afterwards their marriage is, for the 1st time, consummate. 
Where’s the hint? I’m not so sure. In the scene of the morning before the London trip, our narrator still refers to the single beds. 
(My perverse mind can’t help wondering if Maxim had sex with Rebecca. Their old bedroom has 1 bed). 
To go back to the end of the story, which is the beginning of the book, the narrator and her husband are now in exile, staying in hotels, eating indifferent food, reading news and following the same routine, living in ennui. Stifling monotony or quiet bliss, you decide. But I find it interesting that now the narrator does the same thing as when she’s with Mrs Van Hopper—again, she’s a paid companion, just not paid by money, but by love. 

6/ If it wasn’t clear in the previous post, I hate the biographical and feminist reading of Rebecca. 
Why do people use elements in Daphne du Maurier’s life to interpret her novel? Why do people talk like du Maurier is in her character? I’ve seen critics do it with Jane Austen, with Charlotte Bronte, with Emily Bronte, with Virginia Woolf, with Elena Ferrante…, a lot more than with male writers (the only male writer I can think of is F. Scott Fitzgerald). 
With the feminist reading, I think I’ve said enough about feminist literary criticism on this blog.