On 30th January 2020, the English Departments own Dr De Bono gave an Academic Enrichment Lecture on the Life and Love of Daphne du Maurier
Disclosing her life-long admiration and enjoyment of du Mauriers work, Dr De Bono presented staff and students with a focused and eye-opening analysis of du Mauriers fractured identity. The lecture addressed du Mauriers personal gender hybridity and how her work is a projection of her frustration with femininity. In addition, De Bono considered du Mauriers psychological realism as a mechanism for the dichotomy present throughout her works.
De Bono discussed du Mauriers male alter ego Eric, who, often described by du Maurier herself as the boy in that box, was a phantom of her genderless self, and a reflection of her self-declared half-breed status. Du Maurier regarded femininity as the ultimate masquerade and, as reflected in the masculine traits of the eponymous Rebecca, Du Maurier aimed to manipulate gender as a means of expressing her detestation of womanhood.
De Bono made the poignant observation that the fictional Manderley is a model of du Mauriers own home in Cornwall, over which she obsessed for most of her adult life, even before buying and living in it. It was in this home that she allowed Eric some leeway after an extended period of repression. Du Maurier was candid in her confessions of gender complexity, admitting that her desire to be a boy stemmed from her fathers want of a son. She made no secret of her unhealthy relationship with her father, whom she seemed to both adore and abhor. Her biography of his, Gerald, is revealing in its criticism of Gerald du Mauriers cliched thespian behaviour.
Many thanks to Dr De Bono for shedding light on a side of one of Britains most inventive novelists, and reminding us of the resonance of her perspective on gender as well as fiction.
De Bono recommends du Mauriers two short stories Dont Look Now and The Blue Lenses.
