Is Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca a villain, a victim, or something more complicated? From Daphne du Maurier’s classic novel to Alfred Hitchcock’s haunting adaptation and modern remakes, Mrs. Danvers has captivated and terrified audiences. This deep dive explores how film and literature portray her… as a sinister housekeeper, a queer-coded spinster, and a grieving woman bent on revenge.

Mrs. Danvers, the serene housekeeper who slowly undermines the psyche of the nameless heroine, stands out in my memory as one of literature’s great female villains.

Or is she?

Mrs. Danvers has a point. (Spoilers.) The secretive and sinister older woman resents her lively young mistress being replaced by a pale imitation. Rebecca had beauty; the heroine does not. She had style; the heroine does not. She had force, presence, passion, and power, all things the mousy second Mrs. de Winter lacks. In Mrs. Danver’s mind, it’s like replacing a racing thoroughbred with a pony.

Midway through the book, they find Rebecca’s sunken boat after a storm with her body in it. Mrs. Danvers, along with Rebecca’s first cousin (and lover) Jack, suspects her murdered… which she was. Maxim killed Rebecca in a fit of rage, then sank her boat to make it seem like an accident. Though he evades the law, thanks to the help of his new wife, Mrs. Danvers has the last laugh. She burns down his famous, picture-postcard-perfect house, Manderlay, and leaves town, never to be seen again. (The book implies it, but the movies / miniseries often show her setting fire to the place, intending to perish in the flames.)

The story asks us to root for Maxim and his wife. We want them to succeed, for their love to endure… but let’s think about this for a moment. See it from Mrs. Danvers’ perspective. In another story, she would be the lonely housekeeper mourning the woman she loved. She has kept all of Rebecca’s things where she left them to preserve her memory, and goes through her room each day, lovingly dusting her precious possessions.

Then Rebecca’s murderer comes back to the house with a pallid mouse of a bride, a daily insult and reminder to Mrs. Danvers of Rebecca’s absence. Then, he gets away with his nefarious crime! Why not burn down the house?

If the law won’t help you, take matters into your own hands!

Mrs. Danvers is iconic, no matter which version you watch. While the book places much of the emphasis on Rebecca overshadowing its intentionally nameless heroine (to diminish her in our eyes), Mrs. Danvers also overshadows her. She’s the icy fortress against which the new Mrs. de Winters feels battered. The nameless heroine is so cowed by her that after she breaks an expensive figurine in her own office, she hides the pieces rather than admit what happened and face the wrath and disapproval of Mrs. Danvers and of her husband, Maxim.

Where Did The Evil Spinster Trope Originate?

What drives female villains in literature and on film? What do they have in common? How do writers depict them? Often, as a spinster. You’ll notice that witches in most lore are single and prey on children in a symbolic reversal of the “woman’s role” as a wife and a mother. These witches live outside the normal order of things; because they are single, they are married to Satan.

In vilifying being a “spinster,” there’s an implied bitterness in the implication that no man wanted them (rather than it being their choice) and in fears about women having their own agency. Creating negativity about being a spinster goes back to the patriarchal Middle Ages. Throughout history, the “normal” thing to do has been to get married, produce children, and be under a husband’s influence. And while in the past, this was often necessary for protecting women, it also became a system from which women struggled to liberate themselves.

In heavily patriarchal societies, some men (not all, let’s not vilify every man who ever lived unnecessarily) did not want “independent” women. Particularly those with money! They discouraged it by painting women who defied cultural norms as “spinsters” (“old maids” = “old virgins”) and as witches.

Over time and in literature, this became not a literal witch like in Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but an evil, conniving spinster of some sort… like a housekeeper. (“But her name is Mrs. Danvers,” you argue. Yes, but a housekeeper always went under the title of “Mrs.”; they need not be a widow or married.) Thus, we wind up with Mrs. Danvers, an ironic representation of a symbolic trope. A woman who, by choice, sexuality, or happenstance, remains single in her later years. Maybe because she’s a lesbian and is in love with Rebecca. Maybe because she valued her career and her independence. Maybe for a thousand reasons, which we will never know.

An Iconic Villainess

Mrs. Danvers is a terrific villain. She has truly nefarious aims. She deliberately attempts to wreck Maxim’s marriage by convincing his wife to dress up and emulate Rebecca’s last party frock, hoping not only to humiliate her and upset Maxim, but to show him by comparison what a cheap imitation he made with this new bride. She plants sinister ideas in her head by showing off all of Rebecca’s beautiful things, to intimidate her and make her feel small. And even suggests, in a roundabout way, that it wouldn’t be so hard to commit suicide by flinging oneself out of an upstairs window.

A filmmaker’s impression of Mrs. Danvers heavily influences how the script and the actress treats her. Alfred Hitchcock coded her as queer, a sexually frustrated woman obsessed with a dead non-lover, by emphasizing how much Rebecca mocked her dead male lovers. She “cared about none of them!” Our last scene finds Mrs. Danvers having set the house on fire, wandering through Rebecca’s flaming room with a terrified look on her face, before the ceiling collapses on her. That version also changed Maxim to innocent, to abide by the Code at the time (no murderer can escape without punishment for his crimes; and thus, Mrs. Danvers must also die). It softens Maxim, downplaying his temper and bringing out his romantic traits.

The miniseries version in the 90s gives us a more emotional and sympathetic Mrs. Danvers, reduced to tears through the loss of her beloved Rebecca. She comes across as a bereaved woman mourning a lost lover. There’s no subtlety or ambiguity about it. It doesn’t shy away from Maxim’s bluntness, unlikable nature, or terrible temper, either; Charles Dance brings it to the forefront as arguably the most consistent Maxim with the book. Though, it changes how he killed Rebecca (he strangles her here), making it more visceral and violent than in the novel, which makes his getting away with it even more squeamish for the audience.

The most recent version stars Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs. Danvers. She blows all previous cinematic versions of the villain away for me. The script makes her much more manipulative in her playing of the new Mrs. de Winter. Distraught by the problems between them, her new mistress approaches her and asks to become her friend; Mrs. Danvers agrees. A montage shows them doing things together, laughing together, talking to each other… which makes the eventual discovery of her deliberate sabotage to ruin Mrs. de Winter’s ball even more heinous.

The new adaptation also dives into the loneliness a housekeeper suffers. Mrs. Danvers has no friends, since she’s not allowed to eat with the staff (being higher than them) or the family (as a servant). As she points out, if she’s turned out of the house, at her age, she has nowhere to go. She has no family, and no friends except for Jack. Which makes her choice to commit suicide at the end even more powerful. It’s such an unexpected departure from the novel, it took my breath away. She and Mrs. de Winter share a moment on the cliff beside the sea, before she jumps. She wants to die in the same sea that took Rebecca from her.

I don’t know why I love that so much, but I do.

Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance elevates an otherwise average adaptation into something truly special, by showing us the emotionally distraught woman behind the serene malicious force in the house. She even turns up in the new Mrs. de Winter’s dreams. Before her performance, I considered Mrs. Danvers an interesting literary villain… but I’d never fallen in love with her as a villain before, enough to want to save her. She got what she wanted. Revenge, and to end her life on her own terms, since she had no one to live for anymore. Which is more than a lot of villains.