Rebecca

by Daphne du Maurier
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis:

Du Maurier's style in the novel is highly descriptive, and she is a master of "showing" instead of "telling." She makes heavy use of imagery to plunge the reader straight into the narrator's flashbacks to her life at Manderley. One example occurs in Chapter 11, when the narrator describes what it was like to receive a flurry of visitors in her first weeks at Manderley:

The agony of those wheels on the drive, of that pealing bell, of my own first wild rush for flight to my own room. The scrambled dab of powder on my nose, the hasty comb through my hair, and then the inevitable knock on the door and the entrance of the cards on a silver salver.