Maxim De Winter - Blog Posts

what made me able to forgive maxim by the end of the book is the fact that rebecca was doomed anyway. i know this sounds bad, but it's the truth. she wanted to die -> she did everything in her power to die quickly in a manner of her own choosing. maxim became an unwilling and unknowing participant in her assisted suicide. she 100% intended it that way, whether or not it was meant to completely ruin him as well we don't know for sure but come on. the lady had one last ace in her sleeve, of course she would use it to drag him down with her. it didn't even have to be personal, just what he stands for is enough. with all of this i'm not saying that he's justified or that there weren't better courses of action he should've taken. but the stakes were stacked heavily against him. i mean Rebecca lived with him for 20 years, in which time she notably didn't die and we get no mention or even a hint of potential domestic violence either. if nothing else, that man had self control, and his wife of several decades was the best suited person to set him off. a dog you condition to bite will lash out. the first decision he makes completely on his own was to hide her body. he scrubbed her blood off the floor for what must've been hours he definitely had time to think about it and then he decided to not die. it almost destroys him anyway, by the time the narrator meets him he's borderline suicidal. his head had to be pulled above the water by other people because he was more than ready to be hang for his crime, which he recognizes as horrific. but he also admits that he would've shot rebecca again even if he knew what would happen, and he says this while he still thinks he killed a pregnant woman. he felt that much trapped.

@maliania and I fallen into the pit again and that means more Rexim for our cult.

Today we have something special on the menu:

Rebecca and Bea have a fight, that can only be settled with a car race. And because he doesn't have another ride, Maxim needs to tag along.

good dynamic: character who’s too deeply rooted to a fault + character who’s never been able to form roots anywhere before

he’s an unreliable narrator TO YOU. i believe him

My in-universe reaction to Maxim and Rebecca is that she emotionally and psychologically abused him for years, and I don’t blame him for finally snapping.  My out-of-universe reaction is that it was fucked up on du Maurier’s part to signal that Rebecca was a bad woman by making her a promiscuous femme fatale stereotype.

I never really have a character I completely dislike because I'll defend anyone at the drop of a hat lmao. If they're being mischaracterized in an argument, suddenly I am now their lawyer. free my man your honor he didn't do any of that

Me sending paragraphs to @edgyparrot about that sad guy.

I’ve been thinking nonstop about the time someone on ao3 mentioned that Maxim took on some of Rebecca’s worst traits as a way to cope with (or that some of his own worst traits were exacerbated by) the abuse he endured by Rebecca’s hand. And that honestly makes so much sense.

None of this an excuse for how he behaves, but I think it could be an explanation.

I mean, think about it. We know he has quite the horrible temper. In the musical Beatrice states that he was “the same way as a child” meaning that his anger issues have always existed in some way. Of course that is most likely true, but take that and add in years of emotional abuse and it’s certainly a recipe for disaster. What used to be an ordinary bad temper became something border lining on volatile over the years. We see that in those moments Maxim snaps at his second wife. In the musical, during the first boathouse scene, Maxim rushes after his wife who had run offstage in terror, as if he was about to hit her before ultimately realizing what he was about to do and stopping himself in his tracks.

We know that Maxim can be quite cold and distant when he wants to be. At times he is also super patronizing and mocking. In the musical it’s a bit less so (but even that has the “you react like a child” line) but in the book he’s constantly talking down to his wife. Perhaps he does so because Rebecca did the same to him? Of course, Rebecca definitely didn’t compare him to a child as Maxim did to his second wife, but she could have mocked him with his insecurities (his obsession with holding up his family’s reputation, his intense desire to be seen as a strong figure and the toxic level of pressure he puts on himself as a result).

And of course, we can’t talk about Maxim or Rebecca’s worst traits without mentioning manipulation and the abuse of power dynamics. And what’s more is that both of them are fully aware that they are manipulating the situation. Rebecca sought to control Maxim by holding her affairs, Manderley’s standing, etc. over his head knowing full well he either wouldn’t or couldn’t (or a combination of the two) divorce her. See the lyric in “Kein Lächeln war je so Kalt”: “Divorce was taboo for the de Winter family. The family honor was worth more to me than my pride, and she relished in her triumph”.

Likewise, Maxim knows full well that his second wife came from basically nothing. He knows she’s financially dependent on him and that should their marriage fail in some way, she would have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. He even outright admits to her that he “did a selfish thing” marrying his second wife and that he “should have waited and let [his wife] marry a boy of [her] own age”. He knows that he has (and arguably still is) manipulating the dynamics in his own favor until the very moment he confesses to Rebecca’s murder and the power shifts from Maxim to his young wife.

Both Maxim and Rebecca know that they are absolute monsters. But it’s important to also note where they differ. While Rebecca revels in her absolute assholery and abusiveness, Maxim’s situation is the opposite. He hates himself for his own assholery and has basically condemned himself to a suffering of his own making.

Ironically, Mrs. Danvers said it best: “He’s made his own hell, and he has no one but himself to thank for it”. Was Mrs. Danvers just trying to get under the new Mrs. de Winter’s skin and hit her where it would hurt most? Yes. Was it said out of bitterness over Rebecca being replaced? Yes. But was she correct in her assumption? Also yes.

And of course, the key difference between Rebecca and Maxim is that all important shift in power. Rebecca held the power for almost the entirety of their relationship, and Maxim sought to take that power back through any means necessary resulting in Rebecca’s murder. When Maxim eventually confesses to said murder, it serves as an act of giving up that power he had claimed by killing Rebecca. He can no longer hold the weight of it because he knows he is damned and thus power transferred itself to his second wife. Where he was previously codependent on Rebecca, his second wife became codependent on him upon their marriage, and ultimately he became codependent on his wife upon his confession.

This is where the adaptation of Rebecca’s traits begins to fade. Maxim becomes basically a shell of himself, barely keeping it together through the rest of the story if not for the influence of his wife. He becomes as reliant on her as she had previously been reliant on him. This toxic cycle is only truly broken with the burning of Manderley. Only then are they equals. Only then do they begin to truly grow.

Rebecca, on the other hand, never got that chance. It was taken from her by the very man she had ill used. She knew that her “pregnancy” was a lie. She knew that her cancer diagnoses would damn her to a slow and painful death. Did that stop her from perpetuating the cycle of abuse? No. Instead she continued with it until her last breath, passing the torch to Maxim in the process.

Maxim certainly was no innocent. He perpetuated this toxic cycle as well. The only difference was that the person he passed it onto ended up not only breaking the cycle, but also gave him the opportunity to heal from it. He knows he isn’t worthy of it. We as the reader/viewer somewhat know that too. And yet the second Mrs. de Winter unknowingly grants him this post Manderley fire. Maxim has the opportunity to redeem himself where Rebecca did not.

Whether he takes the opportunity or ultimately succumbs to his inner demons (figuratively or literally) is completely up to the one consuming the story.

Personally my opinion is ever changing. While the optimistic part of me believes that he does work to better himself and ultimately succeeds in doing so, the realistic part of me wonders whether that’s the case. Of course, when I am of the realistic opinion I don’t think he reverts back to the traits he took on from Rebecca and those that were made worse during his relationship with Rebecca, but rather he wallows in a state of being that is just numb to it all. He is stagnant in his recovery because he believes, he knows, that he is beyond help. Things don’t get worse, but they certainly don’t get better either.

Ultimately Maxim de Winter is a character that foretells the tragedy of abuse and how the cycle of abuse can continue in ways that those trapped within it don’t comprehend until it’s too late. He is and isn’t a victim. He is and isn’t a perpetrator. We root for his relationship with his second wife on our most hopeful days and yet we don’t on our most cynical. He is an asshole. He is a dick. He isn’t exactly the best of men. And yet he is also broken. He is lonely. He is lost.

He finds what he is looking for in the end to an extent. A love that, while not exactly the healthiest, sets him on a path to becoming a better person. The relationship between Maxim and his second wife is in a way just like the drive leading to Manderley itself. Constant twisting and turning, plenty of bumps in the road, obstacles that temporarily prevent them from moving forward. And the beauty of it is that they do, in their own twisted way. They move on from the cycle of abuse they started in, however irreparably damaged and emotionally numb Maxim may be by the end.

“Love that liberates”. I’ve seen plenty of debate over whether that signature line from the musical is applicable to the story of Rebecca and the journey the de Winters take. My two cents is that it is, although the love itself isn’t what liberates the de Winters, Maxim in particular. Maxim may delude himself into believe that the love his second wife shows him despite his crimes is what liberates him, but while it certainly sets the foundation for their liberation from the cycle, in the end it is he who must crawl out of the hell he created for himself. No one can pull him out of it but himself.

— Rebecca (1940) vs Rebecca das Musical —

Left: Rebecca (1940 movie)

Right: Rebecca das Musical (Vienna 2022, Stuttgart 2011)

Szabó P. Szilveszter is the only person allowed to play Maxim De Winter, everyone else go home.

Quotes from various interviews:

"Maxim is a very interesting character because on the one hand he is oppressed by his past and his memories, and on the other hand, when he travels to Monte-Carlo, he meets happiness again after a long time: he meets a girl whom we call "I". When it turns out that he can lose her, he is overcome with a convulsive attachment that he has not discovered in himself for a long time…he is emotionally unstable and vulnerable. But he still chains "I" to himself, and actually falls into his own trap from here: he takes the girl and takes her back to his roots, to Manderley. He trusts that her purity and cheerfulness will cleanse his house of the sins, sufferings and secrets of the past."

"This role is the focus of everything I've ever played. Max is very much like me, he follows old principles and demands. It's up to you to decide if he's a real killer or if he just couldn't tolerate certain things anymore. A man who lives in a closed world, Manderley. He holds on for a while, then puts an end to it, and a mysterious murder ensues. A lot is concentrated in this role. Max is just as choleric as I am, but I never make the role like I am, nor the other way around. The two meet on a third track."

"He carries the tragic misdemeanor that happens before the play begins for the rest of his life. No one presumes that he is guilty of anything, that there is murder in his name, no one knows of the burden of it. Then suddenly something happens that you don't expect, that brings new feelings to the surface, and that destroys this beautifully constructed bastion of repression. That not only he loves, but he is also loved is for Maxim de Winter himself a purgatory. Although the key motif of the play is love that is all-giving and conquering, the story is not that romantic. Despite a seemingly happy, exonerating ending, the question remains open whether, despite the strong sense of belonging, Man and woman, Max and “I” will find each other again the next day, whether they can work through what happened. To whom does the viewer side, to whom does he give justice? Is Max's or Rebecca's mirror the more distorted? And in this strange system of relationships, where is the self and Where is Mrs Danvers? This piece demands a completely different kind of acting from the usual one, because in the constantly changing perspective it is necessary to remain authentic at every moment."

“Max is also a bit charming, a bit worldly, there's a little bit of him who likes it hot (I mean his mischief), and maybe a little hypocritical, because we eventually find out he's basically a little boy inside…What I love about him is the elegance, the charm, the ease, of course, with a tremendous amount of work behind his back. That's what's weird to me. If I'd played Romeo, he probably wouldn't be. For there is in Romeo… a wide-open-hearted, all-amazed naive, and then he will become a man. Max is turning from a man to a boy.”

He also said Max has mommy issues, but unfortunately I can't find that interview right now.

Note: This was translated from Hungarian, I tried to do the best I could given that I don't speak it and had to use online translators.

Links to interviews: 1 2 3

Tumblr's all, "we need stories where victims don't forgive their abusers," this and, "more stories where victims take revenge on their abusers," that but when I, Maxim de Winter —

—— “Jégmosoly” (“Kein Lächeln war je so kalt”) from Rebecca ——

LEFT: Bereczki Zoltán as Maxim de Winter & Szinetár Dóra as Én

RIGHT: Szabó P. Szilveszter as Maxim de Winter & Vágó Zsuzsi as Én