A central theme of Rebecca is the haunting of Maxim de Winter’s second wife by the powerful presence of Rebecca, Maxim’s deceased first wife. The narrator’s employer, Mrs. Van Hopper, initially plants the idea in her youthful mind that the widower Maxim cannot “get over his wife’s death” (11). Mrs. Van Hopper describes Rebecca as having been very lovely, “exquisitely turned out, and brilliant in every way,” a giver of “tremendous parties at Manderley” (42) and adored by Maxim. The imaginative, insecure narrator begins “following a phantom” of Rebecca in her mind, “whose shadowy form had taken shape at last” (43). When the narrator sees Rebecca’s signature on the title page of Maxim’s poetry book, she views the bold, slanting handwriting as the symbol of Rebecca’s assurance, in contrast to her own dull, shy personality. The envious Mrs. Van Hopper seeks to puncture the narrator’s marital hopes by suggesting that Maxim does not love her, but only wants to wed to avoid living in an empty house.

When the narrator arrives at Manderley, she is treated as an interloper by the staff. The servants still do their routines according to the way Rebecca had ordered them. Rebecca’s favorite flowers still fill the rooms and Rebecca’s clothes still hang in the wardrobes.