The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

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I was sceptical about the premise too, but when the main character got to the castle as someone else in the story, I was just so impressed by all the psychological insight, detail, atmosphere, suspense and character development. At the start of the novel we learnt that John is dissatisfied with his life as a university lecturer, and tending to become depressed with what he sees as a futile life. In this case, or rather, my interpretation of it, is that she created a what if scenario of her own heritage. There is also another way to interpret the story, one which goes deeper into the psychology of identity - I won't say any more about that here, but if you read the book this theory may occur to you too.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The edition I got was by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and it was already in its 5th printing. She was sidetracked by a walk, in the square of a French town, du Maurier saw a man who looked just like someone she knew. Even the fantastical situation seemed to be part of that exaggerated overall design intended by the author, like a play so many characters engage in too. In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.John gets himself entangled in a play of another’s making and is becoming both an actor and a director: “As a stranger I was like a spectator at a play, but I was also in a sense a producer too: circumstances were forcing them to follow my lead, and upon my actions would depend their own” [du Maurier, 1957: 236]. His double, Jean de Gue, is self-centered, extroverted, and the head of a large French family and a failing business. In The Scapegoat, her ancestral glass-blowing foundry became the failing business of the de Gué family.

Before long John has passed out and when he wakes he realises that his identity has been stolen – Jean, his Gallic lookalike, has run off with his clothes, wallet and car. Another thing I love about Daphne du Maurier's writing is her ability to always keep the reader guessing right to the final page (and sometimes afterwards too).

However, by trying to rectify someone else's mistakes of the past you are running the risk of getting emotionally involved with the people who have nothing to do with you and the place where you do not belong.

John, our narrator, is a lonely academic, someone who always felt like an observer rather than a participant in life. He's further astonished to wake up (after a night out), the next morning and find that his double, Frenchman Jean, has disappeared with John's identity! Don’t think, I’ve ever heard of this one before, but I’ve enjoyed Rebecca and in particular My Cousin Rachel and just read The Birds for the first time. As our narrator uncovers the secrets of Jean’s life, he begins to insert his own sensibilities into the lives he controls.

While both men try to come to terms with their destinies, the women are in a constant battle for the alpha position in the family. The exploration of what makes a man and a life, of to what degree a man plays different roles as he live that life, and to what degree good and evil coexist in that man is quite brilliant; and all of that is wrapped up in a cleverly plotted, beautifully written, compulsively readable story. When John, an Englishman whose area of expertise is France, meets his doppelganger, the Comte Jean de Gue, he finds himself unexpectedly tricked into trading places. In "Rebecca", the episode where the new wife accidentally destroys a valuable china ornament given to her predecessor (Rebecca) on her marriage, and becoming a particular favourite, is powerfully symbolic.