The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

Product Information

To be honest I watched the movie "The Scapegoat" from 2012 and preferred the ending of this story much more, but probably not as realistic as du Maurier's ending.

After a night of drinking, he finds himself having to take on the identity of this man, an earl caught in financial and domestic trouble. There was ample material for du Maurier to develop the plot, put in some twists and turns, and make the story more engaging and interesting. At the tail end of a tour in this country, John has fallen victim to a feeling of melancholy, of failure. It brings a lot of self-introspection and often times has the reader asking, "What would I do in this situation?

There are heart-stopping moments where the readers wonder whether the dog will recognise the supplanted character of John, in the place of César's master, the Count. If the second Mrs de Winter gets an “identity crisis” and is subconsciously mistaken for another, with one person allegedly wanting to believe she is another person, John in The Scapegoat also finds himself in a position where people around him take him for someone else, imposing their identity perception on him. There is a bit of an anticlimax at the end, and du Maurier did not quite manage to suspend our disbelief completely regarding this situation of two compete look alikes, who speak different languages, not only meeting but then one’s family mistaking a stranger for its own family member, inviting him home.

Ao longo dos dias, vamos descobrindo, com John, quem é quem na família de Jean ("Monsieur le Comte"), que relacionamento têm uns com os outros e quais os acontecimentos passados que levaram ao estado de coisas presente. John, our narrator, is a lonely academic, someone who always felt like an observer rather than a participant in life. There, he sees his doppelgänger Jean de Gué and the latter quickly decides to change places with the “free” Englishman.

Don’t know that one Liz but the reading group read the excellent My Cousin Rachel recently and I used Rebecca in a WEA Romantic Novel course. And here du Maurier is her usual expert self at both instilling alarm and suspense and also at the details. Jean then announces that he has sold John's London flat, resigned from his university job, and cleared out his bank account, so John's old self is effectively gone forever. What Daphne du Maurier achieved is a well-crafted and suspenseful mystery that pulled me into the story very swiftly and even though I've closed the cover I still feel like a deer staring into headlights.

Although Jekyll became subsumed and ultimately destroyed by the malignant influence of Hyde, John conversely seems to become more self-possessed and confident through his exploration of his darker self.You will need to seriously suspend disbelief for this story as it’s highly implausible and yet it had me intrigued from start to finish. Strangely enough, The Scapegoat did not attract the same attention, although it is just as powerful a story. On the other hand, Daphne du Maurier took her fantastic concept to great literary depths and psychological insights that few other books could have managed. 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. Came across a black and white movie and it had a satisfying Hollywood ending, but I was older then and not satisfied with it, and glad I hadn’t watched it before I read the book.

But Daphne du Maurier's descriptions of the little girl's religious fervour, as well as that of her aunt Blanche, serve well to heighten the tension at various points. There are fewer of the traditional gothic tropes on display (the house as a main character, ghosts or dead who preoccupy the minds of the characters, letters received from people long dead, animals who meet bad ends, dark eroticism). 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 leaded guttering was choked with leaves, and when rain came the whole would turn to mud and pour from the gargoyle's mouth in a turbid stream. I do love impersonation stories although they also scare me – you root for the person not to get caught but maybe they deserve to be caught!If everything in the book is supposed to be taken literally, then we need to suspend belief at times: could two men really be so identical that even their mother, wife and daughter can't tell the difference?