Literary Devices & Important Quotations

Chapter I:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" (1).
"The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self..." (1). [metaphor]
"...with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss" (1). [personification]
"the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws" (2). [simile]
"...hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous" (2). [personification]
"As I stood there, hushed and still, I could swear that the house was not an empty shell but lived and breathed as it had lived before" (3). [personification]
"The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins" (3). [metaphor]
"We would not talk of Manderley, I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more" (4). [Important Quotation]

Chapter II:
"the glowing stubs will lie around on the ground like petals (cigarettes)" (5). [simile]
"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind" (6). [fantastic quote]
"When they were gone a new silence would come upon the place, and I - uneasy for no known reason - would realize that the sun no longer wove a pattern on the rustling leaves"(7). [personification]
"It lies like an empty shell amidst the tangle of the deep woods, even as I saw it in my dream" (8). [des.]
"Funny to think that the course of my existence hung like a thread upon that quality of hers [Mrs. Van Hopper]" (12).

Chapter III:
"I would feel like a whipping boy who must bear his master's pains when I watched people behind her back" (12). [simile]
"There was nothing for it but to sit in my usual place beside Mrs. Van Hopper while she, like a large, complacent spider, spun her wide net of tedium about the stranger's person" (13). [simile]
"...the face was stiff and lifeless, and the lace collar and the beard were like props in a charade" (20) [simile, regarding the narrator's pencil sketch]

Chapter IV:
"An empty house can be as lonely as a full hotel" (25). [symbolism/simile]
"The harbor was a dancing thing, with fluttering paper boats, and the sailors on the quay were jovial, smiling fellows, merry as the wind (28). [personification]
"I was a person of importance, I had grown up at last" (28). [important quotation]
"The long road climbed the hills, and the car climbed with it, and we circled in the heights like a bird in the air" (28). [personification/simile beginning with "...and we circled"]

Chapter V:
"A denial heralded the thrice crowning of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas" (35). [simile]
"'Is that meant to be a compliment to the day, or to my driving?' he said, and as he laughed, like a mocking brother, I became silent..." (38). [simile]
"There, I had said it at last, the word that had hovered on my tongue for days" (39). [Personification]
"The gulf that lay between us was wider now than it had ever been..." (42). [hyperbole]

Chapter VI:
"...I say to myself - I am not she who left him five minutes ago. She has stayed behind. I am another women, older, more mature. . . "(46). [Important Quotation]
"The thought was worse than poison" (46). [of going to NY]
"They tumbled out, the idiotic words, just as I had imagined them" (51). [personification]
"I'm sorry. I rather thought you loved me. A fine blow to my conceit." [foreshadowing]
"Appraising me, running her eyes over my points like a judge at a cattle show" (60). [simile]
"The flame had a lovely light, straining the paper, curling the edges, making the slanting writing impossible to distinguish" (58). [personification]
"You know why he is marrying you, don't you? You haven't flattered yourself he's in love with you? The fact is that the empty house got on his nerves to such an extent that he nearly went off his head. He admitted as much before you came into the room. he just can't go on living there alone..." (61). [foreshadowing]

Chapter VII:
"On the high-road, there had been a gay west wind blowing in my face, making the grass o the hedges dance in unison, but here there was no winds" (65). [personification]
"There was an old quiet smell about the room, as though the air in it was little changed" (69). [person]
"She (Mrs. Danvers) spoke in a peculiar way, as though something lay behind her words, and she laid an emphasis on the words, "this wing," as if suggesting that the suite where we stood now held some inferiority" (72).

Chapter VIII:
"But the library, so snug and warm last night, with the burning logs, was like an ice-house now" (82). [simile]

Chapter IX:
"...and I saw Mrs. Danvers still standing there at the head of the stairs like a black sentinel" (94). [simile]
"You might imagine, in the winter, it would creep up on those green lawns and threaten the house itself..." (92). [personification]
"The water is far too cold and the beach is shingle" (97).
"I say, I'm getting infernally hungry, what on earth is happening to lunch?" (97). [hyperbole]
"...it ran surely, beneath that little knot of trees below the laws..." (91).
"'She's no oil painting though, is she?'" (98). [Mrs. Danvers]
"The grass had been new-mown, it smelt sweet and rich, like summer" (104). [simile]
"Little clouds scurrying in formation, line upon line" (105). [personification]

Chapter X:
"The spell of Happy Valley was upon me" (111). [important quotation]
"This at last was the core of Manderley, the Manderley I would know and learn to love." [important]
"The first drive was forgotten, the black, herded woods, the glaring rhododendrons, luscious and over-proud." [personification]
"That cottage is supposed to be locked, the door has no business to be open" (116). [foreshadowing?]
 "And then I knew that the vanished scent upon the handkerchief was the same as the crushed white petals of the azaleas in the Happy Valley" (121). [foreshadowing]

Chapter XI:
"I had opened up the door into the past again" (123).
"I had said the name. I had said the word  Rebecca aloud." (126).
"...I had listened to her greedily, like an eavesdropper at a shuttered window" (126).
"...having a sudden vision of myself wandering across the lawn with a camp-stoll and a box of pencils under one arm, and my "little talent" as she described it, under the other. It sounded like a pet name" (127). [simile]
"'The best exercise in the world,' she said briskly..." (127). [briskly...pun... I thought it was so funny!]
"...someone who was never awkward, who when she danced left a stab of perfume in the air like a white azalea" [about the bishop's wife/ personification / simile]

Chapter XII:
"I knew it was not just me personally she hated, but what I represented." [foreshadowing]
"I could not help it if I felt like a guest in Manderely, my home, walking where she had trodden, resting where she lain" (140).
"It was like being a prisoner, giving evidence" (144). [simile / when she broke the cupid]
"...I don't think much of people who judge one by one's clothes" (146).
"What a slap in the eye I must be to them then" (147). [hyperbole]

Chapter XIII:
"He held the fishing line clutched to his heart like a treasure" (157).
"She gave you the feeling of a snake" (157). [Rebecca?]

Chapter XIV:
"I was aware of the same musty, unused smell that had been there before" (167). [olfactory imagery]
"The daylight gave an even greater air of reality to the room" (168).
"I realized for the first time since I had come into the room that my legs were trembling, weak as straw" (168).
"'Do you think the dead come back and watch the living?'" (175).
"I felt deadly sick" (176).
"The rocks had battered her to bits, you know" (173).

Chapter XV:
"I went and sat down with a book and The Times and my knitting in the rose garden, domestic as a matron..." (178) [similie]

"Felt as a fiddle the whole nine months" (180).  [similie / Spoken by Beatrice]

"We are all very found of hunting in this part of the world" (185).

"I wish that I could lay my hands on her face and take the years away" (186).
"She [Gran] used to rock with laughter at whatever Rebecca would say" (190).
"The sense of freedom had departed, and the childish desire to run across the lawns in sand-shoes"

Chapter XVI:
"After all, Mrs. de Winter, you are a bride." (197) [important quotation]
"I decided that he must be the skeleton in the cupboard, and Rebecca, with her generosity had taken pitty on him from time to time and invited him to Manderley..." (203). [Favell]
"But what goes on in the twisted tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone" (204) [quote Skuba might like]
"'When you were a little girl, were you ever forbidden to read certain books, and did your father put those books under lock and key?'" (205). [foreshadowing]
"'There is a certain type of knowledge I prefer you not to have. It's better kept under lock and key. So that's that. And now eat your peaches and don't ask me anymore questions or I shall put you in the corner'" (205). [foreshadowing]

"The house began to wear a new, expectant air" (207). [personification]

Chapter XVII:
"I stood there shivering a moment in my thin dress, listening to the sea as it sighed and left the shore" (226-227).
"The band played on, and the swaying couples twisted like bobbing maironettes , to and fro, to and fro..." (229) [simile]
"His face was a mask, his smile was not his own." (229). [metaphor]

Chapter XVIII:
"Maxim's empty bed brought me to realization with a queer shock to my heart and the full anguish of the night before was upon me once again" (235).
"The fact that I loved him in a sick, hurt, desperate way like a child or dog, did not matter" (236). [simile]
"Perhaps I haunted her as she haunted me" (238). [important quotation]
"'He's never loved me, Frank. It's always been Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca.'" (242).
"The dark trees loomed thin and indistinct" (243).
"'You talk as though my marring Mr. de Winter was a crime, a sacrilege against the dead'" (246).
"He knows she sees him, he knows she comes by night and watches him" (247).

Chapter XIX:
"It [the fog] whirled above my head in wreaths of smoke" (254). [personification]
"All of my fears were without foundation" (256).
"I feel sick with shame at the memory of my words" (255).
"The gulls wheeled overhead, mewing like hungry cats" (259).
"The sea was glassy calm" (261).
"The water in the little harbour was glassy like a mirror" (262). [simile]
"Standing there, looking down upon it from the banks, I realized, perhaps for the first time, with a funny feeling of bewilderment and pride, that itw as my home, I belonged there, and Manderley belonged tom me" (263).
"Rebecca has won" (269).
"Her shadow between us all the time" (270).

Chapter XX:
"'Time and tide wait for no man'" (271).
"'At the moment, I am nothing, I have no heart, and no mind, and no sense. I am just a wooden thing in Maxim's arms" (271).
"'We've got to be together always, with no secrets, no shadows. Please darling, please" (272).
"My heart was light like a feather floating in the air. He had never loved Rebecca" (278).

Chapter XXI:
"The sound of the phone ringing seemed to wake every nerve in my body" (289).
"Rebecca's power had dissolved in the air, like the mist had done" (290).
"The flowers on the mantel piece were dropping, many of them dead" (294).
"...My heart like a stone, heavy, numb" (298).
"'I don't regret anything else. If it had to come all over again I should not do anything different'" (304).

Chapter XXII:
"The air was full of thunder, and there was rain behind the white dull sky, but it did not fall. I could feel it, and smell it, pent up there, behind the clouds" (309) [foreshadowing]
"It was like going with someone to a nursing-home, someone who was to have an operation" (309).
"The heat was coming up at me from the floor, rising in slow waves" (314).

Chapter XXIII:
"We were allies, we travelled the same road, but we could not look at one another" (320).
"I tried to get up but my legs were things of straw" (323).
"I thought, how the routine of life goes on, whatever happens; we do the same thing, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing" (324).
"It was not Rebecca in that crypt, it was dust. Only dust." (326).

""'She's down there, isn't she? She won't come back again. They'll find her there; won't they? The fishes have eaten her, haven't they? She'll not come back no more'" (339). 

Chapter XXIV:
"Favell drank it greedily, like an animal" (341) [simile]
"He was showing the whites of his eyes, just like a dog does, when you're going to whip him" (344).
"Her voice was that old, dead, mechanical one I had heard so often" (346). [Mrs. Danvers]
"She was not in love with anyone. She despised all men. She [Rebecca] was above that" (346).
"There were just two sounds in the room, the falling rain and Mrs. Danvers crying" (347).
"The fury was spent" (348).
"'When I go, Danny, I want to quickly, like the snuffing out of a candle'" (350).

Chapter XXV:
"And in his eyes, I read a message of farewell" (353).
"We began to kiss one another, feverishly, desperately, like guilty lovers who have not kissed before.

Chapter XXVI:
"Somewhere to the north lives a man named Balker who had never heard of us, but he held our future in the hollow of his hand" (363).
"Our storm had been local, there had been no rain here" (367).
"The women who called herself Mrs. Danvers was very seriously ill" (372).

Chapter XXVII:
"Nothing could touch us anymore. We had come through our crisis" (379).
"She watned me to ill her. She foresaw the whole thing. That's why she laughed. That's why she stood there laughing when she died" (380).
"It was a shot with crimson, like a splash of blood" (386).
"And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea" (386).