Rebecca (2020)

I am not a fan of “Gothic” romances, or films. But this latest film version of the 1938 classic, written by Dame du Maurier, is (seemingly) quite faithful to the story line.

After a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo with handsome widower Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), a newly married young woman (Lily James) arrives at Manderley, her new husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast. Naive and inexperienced, she begins to settle into the trappings of her new life, but finds herself battling the shadow of Maxim’s first wife, the elegant and urbane Rebecca, whose haunting legacy is kept alive by Manderley’s sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas)

Netflix

Manderley Forever (2015)

I have not read this book, yet, but I will. For the moment, though, I want to share a couple of insights that I got from watching the film last night and doing my research this morning.

Manderley may be a fictional house/estate but it clearly is based on Du Maurier’s leased home near Fowey, Cornwall: Menabilly. She lived there between 1943 and 1969.

That’s the hint, folks. This story is about the two sides of the author’s personality.

Daphne du Maurier (May 13, 1907 – April 19, 1989)

I have rectified the birth time. Most astrology sites list an inaccurate time of 4:00 pm. That would make the Mars/Uranus opposite the Midheaven. That’s too heavy-handed to me. The masculine energy that she claims ‘drives’ the writing needs to be more closely aligned to her 1st House personality. Because Mars and Uranus are in the ‘secretive’ sign of Scorpio, the rising sign needs some compensatory energy, Sagittarius. So I chose 10:00 pm instead. That opens up the chart to a more ‘interesting’ double Yod: Ascendant inconjunct Sun inconjunct Midheaven; and Sun inconjunct Midheaven inconjunct Saturn.

Because Daphne married her husband, Sir Frederick Browning, at about age 25, I see the Pluto placement of this rectified chart as an ‘eye-opener’ for her. And that Gemini Moon hasn’t gone unnoticed either. I suspect she always identified with both sides.

The opposition of Jupiter/Neptune with the Mars/Uranus conjunction made her a surprised, celebrated author. Her fame grew through the years and she wrote up until her death in 1989.

The timing of this ‘death’ chart is randomized. It is said that she died in her sleep, but no one has said whether that was day or night time. The reason I’m sticking with the time of 12:28:42 pm is because it highlights a similar pattern to her birth chart. A Yod, but this time involving the Ascendant and Jupiter pointing to Uranus. Free at last.

When you combine the birth and death charts, some interesting connections are made:

This is a person who lived her life to the fullest, and completed her objectives. She died with only one inconjunct, involving her ‘natal’ Mercury and her ‘fatal’ Moon.

The writer will forever live on in her books. But she noted wryly…