How Daphne du Maurier helped shape contemporary horror
Despite the complex narratives and themes prevalent in all of Daphne du Maurier’s work, it took the novelist a long while to earn critical respect. Often brushed off as ‘nothing more’ than a romance writer, du Maurier once claimed, “I am generally dismissed with a sneer as a bestseller.”
While being a romance writer should not be frowned upon, du Maurier’s position as a female author meant that critics often failed to consider that she could be anything more. Thus, her preoccupation with deeply psychological themes, the uncanny and suspense, was often severely overlooked. Yet, du Maurier was a masterful gothic writer whose simmering, atmospheric works of literature paved the way for plenty of modern horror, as well as providing the basis for several iconic works of fear-inducing cinema.
The author’s sublime ability to make a novel terrifying without using any explicit horror tropes makes her work extraordinary. Through carefully written prose, du Maurier transports the reader to worlds where something lingers, although we are not always entirely sure what the threat is. This sense of unknowing, paired with the frequent use of the uncanny, such as doppelgangers (The Scapegoat), creates an unnerving undercurrent.
Moreover, du Maurier often worked with tropes such as unreliable narration, forcing the reader to question the truth of what they’re reading. By creating an air of speculation and tension, with contradictions keeping readers on their toes, du Maurier’s books become rich with possibility. Through the embedding of subtle gothic imagery, du Maurier’s work toys with the reader.
In Rebecca, for example, the title character is dead before the book begins, but the characters’ preoccupation with her allows the mysterious woman to haunt every page of the book, becoming an unshakeable apparition. Yet, she never appears as a ghost – this is not a supernatural horror story. Rather, Du Maurier allows the true horror to emerge through psychology and the capacity of the human mind to be ruled by obsession and paranoia.
These themes and techniques made several of her stories the perfect source material for someone like the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, who adapted three of her works for the big screen. Beginning with Jamaica Inn in 1939, Hitchcock’s interpretation of the novel was marred by the interference of producer Charles Laughton, and it remains one of the director’s weaker works.
Yet, following Jamaica Inn, Hitchcock adapted Rebecca, one of the filmmaker’s great masterpieces. Perfectly emulating the novel’s psychological terror, du Maurier loved the adaptation, and it seemed like Hitchcock was the perfect director to take on her thrilling novels.
Hitchcock also adapted her short story, The Birds, although he drastically changed the tale, much to du Maurier’s displeasure. Still, it is highly regarded as one of the director’s greatest films, with du Maurier to thank for the terrifying idea that birds could randomly start attacking humans. The author is also responsible for penning Don’t Look Now, which Nicolas Roeg faithfully adapted in 1973, two years after the short story’s publication. Again, du Maurier’s tale takes a terrifying look at grief and the ways in which the mind can warp and obsess.
Thus, through du Maurier’s dark tales, she suggests that horror can be found in the everyday, in the corners of our minds, and in the relationships we have with others. Horror movies don’t have to merely rely on scary monsters and knife-wielding, blood-thirsty killers to produce thrills. Instead, atmosphere, location, the unspoken and the uncanny can often provide enough material to keep us on the edges of our seats.
