When the narrator is in Monte Carlo, the hotel is described and in my opinion, it seems like a very posh place.
‘At the Hotel Côte d’Azur, she staked the claim upon a certain sofa in the lounge, midway between the reception hall and the passage to the restaurant and she would have her coffee her after luncheon and dinner......’ This shows me that the Hotel Côte d’Azur is a very nice, posh place to be and this is important because it brings out the true personality of Mrs Van Hopper and her needs.
When she is still working for Mrs Van Hopper, she describes Mrs Van Hopper’s favourite pastime to be claiming visitors of distinction as her friends and I believe that to be because of the time the book was written in.
Also, Rebecca was set in the 1930’s which was when it was written and first published. The importance of this is the way the characters are described to us as the reader, the way they are dressed, they way they are treated as individuals and how they pass the time.
For example page 74 line 20 states ‘Someone advanced from the sea of faces, someone tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek bones and great hollow eyes gave her a skulls face, parchment white, set on a skeletons frame.’. When you read this, you immediately believe that she is from many years ago. This is because of time frame it was set in and because of how they were back then.
In this book, it is really easy to see the places inside your head through the characters eyes. The detail runs right through the book and gives you every little detail that you need. The setting that Daphne Du Maurier describes, really draw you into the story and really make you feel like you are there in Manderley. She also describes every little thing is such detail.
‘No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn.’ In the beginning, we get a real feel for the way Manderley was set out by many quotes. This description occurs on page 1 line 4 to page 4 (end of chapter1) and without this description the book would be a lot of words on paper. In this section, you can see how important Manderley was to the Narrator and how upset she is when she goes back in her dreams even though she is not sure what it looks like now.
As Rebecca is mainly set in one place, it is important to know your way around it in your head otherwise you will get very confused. Daphne Du Maurier builds up the importance to the house, which becomes almost a character in its own right. The mansion's rooms provide clues to Rebecca's character. There seems to be an invisible scar around the house attached to the death of Maxim De Winters first late wife Rebecca. It doesn’t help that Mrs Danvers is making the ambiance of the house stiff because of the fact that she liked Rebecca so much.
‘Why should she resent me?’ ‘I thought you knew, I though Maxim would have told you. She simply adored Rebecca.’
In my opinion, the setting in Rebecca has a very important part to play because without the setting in a book, the characters can’t really come alive.