Born Unattached, Raised in PrisonAn Ivy League girl with no daddy issues and a wealthy family is no better than another woman because she never took off her clothes for money. A girl is no better than a woman who allows people to caress her, or who accompanies her according to her limits. Different things work for different people. Free a woman to live the life she is in, more than what she looks like, what she buys or what she has to sell, and she will surpass what society could have imagined for her. Compromising to be accepted is insolent. Once the boundaries set by society are broken, society does everything in its power to contain the beasts again. Daphné Du Maurier felt the constraints that 1920s society imposed on her by idealizing domestic women. By using Rebecca as the backbone of his novel and counteracting such a strong character with a weak narrator, Du Maurier shows that oppression can only be destroyed through rebellion. In Rebecca, Daphné Du Maurier uses the contrast of female characters to highlight the malevolence of 1920s society towards women and justify their right to break away from patriarchal submission in order to distinguish themselves as an equal. Rebecca's identity as a "lady of the night", ultimately contrasts with the "ideal woman" of 1920s society. She is the antagonist of a classic love story heroine: strong, strong-willed , sexually light and openly manipulative. Du Maurier's characterization of Rebecca as a woman in control of her own body and destiny deliberately shows that female novelists challenge oppression. Rebecca says during her negotiations with Maxim: "You'd look pretty stupid trying to get a divorce now, after four days of marriage." So I'm going to play the role of a devoted wife in the middle of a paper... progressing in rebellion. The narrator herself was imprisoned by a masculine essence which almost led to her death, she faded into the background. Her identity was lost in societal oppression and the force of domestic life. Du Maurier's use of Rebecca as the moment-to-moment commander in Rebecca further accomplishes his attempt to distinguish the faults of society. One can only fight against an unfree world if you become so absolutely free that your existence is an act of rebellion in itself. Works CitedDu Maurier, Daphné. Rebecca. New York: Harper Perennial, 1997. Print. Harbord, Janet. “Between identification and desire: rereading “Rebecca”” Feminist review. 53 (1996): 95-107. Internet. April 20, 2014. Light, Alison, “'Returning to Manderley' - Romantic fiction, female sexuality and class. » Feminist magazine. 16 (1984): 7-25. Internet. April 20 2014.