The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

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As our narrator uncovers the secrets of Jean’s life, he begins to insert his own sensibilities into the lives he controls. But does he see these people as they are, or does he supply his on version of them? Does he help them, or does he simply confuse and disrupt their lives? What would they think if they knew he was just a stranger playing at being their son, husband, father, brother, lover or master? And, what does he discover about himself along the way? The writing style too, feels very like Daphne du Maurier's other novels. There is much description to add colour and mood. On quite a few occasions she will use personification, or even the pathetic fallacy, to influence and further heighten the atmosphere, such as when, Bremmer, Jan N. (2015). Eidinow, Esther; Kindt, Julia (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Greek Religion. Oxford University Press. p.610. ISBN 978-0-19-105807-3. I wondered how much further I had to fall, and if the sense of shame that overwhelmed me was merely wallowing in darkness... I had played the coward long enough." John, an English lecturer in French history, is on holiday in France. In Le Mans, he meets a French count, Jean de Gué, who looks and sounds exactly like him. As the two drink together, John confesses that he is depressed, feeling as though his outward life is a meaningless façade, and the pair move on to a hotel where John passes out. Next day he wakes to find his clothes and possessions gone, with Jean's chauffeur urging him to get dressed (in Jean's clothes which are left for him) and come home to the ancestral château.

The Scapegoat is a 1957 novel by Daphne du Maurier. In 1959, it was made into a film of the same name, starring Sir Alec Guinness. It was also the basis of a film broadcast in 2012 starring Matthew Rhys and written and directed by Charles Sturridge. The Scapegoat is a 1957 novel by Daphne du Maurier. In a bar in France, a lonely English academic on holiday meets his double, a French aristocrat who gets him drunk, swaps identities and disappears, leaving the Englishman to sort out the Frenchman's extensive financial and family problems. You see, the evil In this world never sleeps - but we’ll never know it if we’re hypnotized by all the glitz & glam of the entertainment world... There's a fair amount of suspension of disbelief that is required on the part of the reader, but du Maurier is so skilled at engaging us, there were very few times that I stopped or scratched my head. I was only too happy to be along for the ride. The way she slowly reveals information is well timed, a natural unfolding.

I really wasn't expecting to get completely hooked to this story, but after a certain point that was exactly what happened and I didn't care about anything other than what was going to happen next at St. Gilles! A fluttering sound by the window made me turn my head. It was a butterfly, the last of the long summer, woken by sunshine, seeking escape from the cobwebs that imprisoned it. I released the butterfly from its prison, and it hovered a moment on the sill, then settled once more amongst the cobwebs."

mother off morphine, 'tonight she'll be a raving maniac', and he thinks that John's plan for Renée and Paul will break up their marriage even sooner, 'Renée Trauma: Being deprived of a family’s love, singled out as the “bad one” in the household, and having one’s positive attributes overlooked can set up a child for a lifetime of emotional and psychological distress, where they struggle believing they are good, worthy, competent, or likable. The story has been the basis of two films: one in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis and one in 2012 starring Matthew Rhys. from the chateau- 'none of these people under his roof would be behaving as they had behaved tonight but for something he had done to them' (p.76)-but he sees an opportunity for himself to put it right. Jean de Gue, master of a chateau, and director of a failing business says, "You complain that your life is empty", to me it sounds like paradise. An apartment to yourself, no family, no business worries".

Quotes from The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier

Indeed there are at least two other contenders for the description of "scapegoat". Either the daughter or the wife could be seen in these terms. Marie-Noel seems over-eager to sacrifice herself for her father, as does Françoise, the Count's wife. The intensity of the little girl Marie-Noel's relationship with her father is clearly a reflection of that between the author, Daphne du Maurier, and her own father, the charismatic actor-manager Gerald du Maurier.