"When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person"
About this Quote
Du Maurier is laying down a rule that sounds technical but is really moral: first person narration is not a camera angle, its a possession. "One must be that person" rejects the safe, authorial perch where you can wink at the reader and keep your hands clean. If you choose "I", you sign up for the limits and the liabilities of a single mind: its blind spots, its vanities, its self-justifying logic. The sentence is almost puritanical in its demand for total immersion, which is exactly why it lands. It frames craft as an act of identity theft undertaken with consent.
The subtext is a warning about fakery. First person is the easiest voice to imitate superficially - a few mannerisms, a bit of slang, a quirky confession - and also the easiest to betray. The reader can feel when the author is smuggling in knowledge, taste, or judgment the narrator could not plausibly have. Du Maurier is telling you the cost of that cheat: the spell breaks, and the book becomes a performance of intimacy rather than intimacy.
Context matters because du Maurier built careers worth of tension on precisely this claustrophobic closeness: the half-aware self-deceptions of Rebecca, the dreadfully persuasive interiority of characters who want something badly and cannot admit it cleanly. Her line defends the psychological thriller's core mechanic: fear works best when it is narrated from inside the locked room. First person is not about self-expression; its about confinement, and the artistry is making that confinement feel like truth.
The subtext is a warning about fakery. First person is the easiest voice to imitate superficially - a few mannerisms, a bit of slang, a quirky confession - and also the easiest to betray. The reader can feel when the author is smuggling in knowledge, taste, or judgment the narrator could not plausibly have. Du Maurier is telling you the cost of that cheat: the spell breaks, and the book becomes a performance of intimacy rather than intimacy.
Context matters because du Maurier built careers worth of tension on precisely this claustrophobic closeness: the half-aware self-deceptions of Rebecca, the dreadfully persuasive interiority of characters who want something badly and cannot admit it cleanly. Her line defends the psychological thriller's core mechanic: fear works best when it is narrated from inside the locked room. First person is not about self-expression; its about confinement, and the artistry is making that confinement feel like truth.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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