In Ben Wheatley’s new adaptation of Rebecca on Netflix, Lily James plays the protagonist of the film – the second Mrs. de Winter. However, the young heroine’s first name and maiden name are left unknown, and she’s only ever introduced as Maxim de Winter’s wife or as “Mrs. de Winter.” While it’s unusual for the main character of a story to not have a name, it was a deliberate choice by author Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the novel that Rebecca is based on.
Du Maurier’s book does contain a few hints about the second Mrs. de Winter’s name. When Maxim sends her a note at the hotel where the two of them meet, she notes that her name is “spelled correctly, an unusual thing.” Later, Maxim comments that “you have a very lovely and unusual name,” to which the protagonist replies that she owes it to her lovely and unusual father. As the conversation wraps up, Maxim returns to the subject of her name and says “it becomes you as well as it became your father” – suggesting that the “lovely and unusual” name he was referring to was actually her surname.
In the more than 70 years since Rebecca was published there has been plenty of speculation about what the second Mrs. de Winter’s name could be. A popular theory is that the character is named after Daphne du Maurier herself (du Maurier is quite a lovely and unusual name, and one that could be challenging to spell). However, the question of what the character’s name could be is less important than the question of why she is never named. It was a choice by du Maurier to highlight the fact that the second Mrs. de Winter is living in the shadow of the first Mrs. de Winter, so that every time people speak to her there are echoes of Rebecca. In the book and the Hitchcock film she even receives a phone call from someone asking for Mrs. de Winter and replies, “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. Mrs. de Winter’s been dead for over a year.”
![Rebecca: Why Lily James’s Character Doesn’t Have A Name](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Rebecca-Remake.jpg)
The confusion created over the use of “Mrs. de Winter” highlights the fact that Rebecca‘s protagonist has taken over the mantle of a name – and, as far as Mrs. Danvers is concerned, is unworthy of it. In the book and in Hitchcock’s film, Mrs. Danvers continues to refer to Rebecca as “Mrs. de Winter” until finally the second Mrs. de Winter conjures up the courage to confront her about it, telling her firmly that “I am Mrs. de Winter now.”
Having a nameless protagonist is a creative choice that can convey a lot. In Christopher Nolan’s recent sci-fi movie Tenet, the protagonist is simply called “the Protagonist.” In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the characters are referred to as “the man” and “the boy.” And in Fight Club, another story about a person being overshadowed by a more powerful identity, the protagonist similarly goes unnamed.
Mrs. de Winter’s anonymity in Rebecca is also partly explained in the book when she has her first breakfast with Maxim de Winter. The protagonist says that her background and her family are intensely personal and private, and that she never talks to anyone about them. Most of her backstory is left a mystery, besides the fact that her parents are dead, she was only very recently still a schoolgirl, and she somehow ended up working for Mrs. Van Hopper. So when she finds herself opening up to Maxim about her father and talking about her name, it’s a privilege she grants because she’s already falling in love.