![]() ![]() He asks, “How can we ever know what factually happens in life when every human being sees things from a subjective, and therefore biased, point of view?” The Pirandello premise has inspired wonderful tellings such as Kurosawa’s film RASHOMON, Ian Pear’s novel The Instance of the Fingerpost, and Sarah Treem’s television series THE AFFAIR. His plays dramatize the ways subjectivity warps the truth. To create her open ending, Du Maurier took a page from the playwright Luigi Pirandello. Du Maurier’s answer to “Did she or didn’t she?” is like staring at a gestalt:Ĭould be either but we’ll never know which. Instead, the novelist opted for ambiguity and an open ending. Either ending would give the reader closure. The plot could have built to an either positive or negative climax in which Phillip discovers for certain that Rachel is innocent or for certain that she’s guilty, and acts accordingly one way or the other. ![]() Gossips spread rumors about murder, but the medical authorities ascribe both deaths to natural causes.įrom that set-up, Du Maurier could have written a novel about Phillip, the prospective third husband of the widow Rachel, a man who senses he could become her third victim. ![]() To set up her novel, Daphne du Maurier invented a backstory in which the first two husbands of a captivating woman die in uncertain circumstances. ![]()
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