The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

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Jean de Gue had acted wrongly. He ran away from his life, he escaped the emotions that he himself created. John brought forth 'his' emotions - and whether right or wrong...( I think even the most skeptical readers can suspend disbelief, in this masterfully written fiction novel), .....I had faith that what John was searching for would somehow transform not only him but heal bruised family members with empathy and love. But how? And at what cost? On another occasion, when the reader is finally about to learn the truth about the mysterious Maurice Duval, Even the structure of this one sentence gives the impression of hurtling towards doom. It does not let up; there is no break. 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. John learns a few things about Johnny. He has a wife (Alice Ewing-Orr) and a child (Eloise Webb). He's sleeping with his sister-in-law (Jodhi May) and a woman in the village (Sylvie Testud); his sister (Sheridan Smith) loathes him; his mother (Eileen Atkins) is a morphine addict and he is to have brought her more; and his brother (Andrew Scott) is in his shadow. And he has been away to settle a contract dispute with their foundry's biggest client.

Even if I held their flagging interest for a brief half hour, I should know, when I had finished, that nothing I had said to them was of any value, that I had only given them images of history brightly coloured – wax-work models, puppet figures strutting through a charade. The real meaning of history would have escaped me, because I had never been close enough to people. Real-life dogs are another device. 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. In "Rebecca", the dog is suspicious for a long time of the new wife. In both cases the apprehension devolves on the viewpoint character. When César, the dog, finally accepts John, the author says, The Scapegoat was made into a film in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. Additionally there is a 2012 film with Matthew Rhys which is based on the novel. However this is not set in France but in the UK in 1952 just before the coronation. Teacher John Standing, who has just lost his job, meets his doppelgänger Johnny Spence, a failed businessman. Thus none of the French associations are there, and in fact the story is entirely different, with different characters, different major and critical episodes - and even a different ending! I wanted Jean to be so egotistical, so rapacious, so monstrous that he would lose his family for good! Bette Davis plays French Alec's grande dame of a mother and the role is done in grand Bette Davis style. According to the Guinness biography Davis dislikedYou 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... Seven days is all John got but what was accomplished in those seven days was remarkable changes for the whole family of Comte de Gué of St. Gilles and the family business of Verrerie (glass-work) and which all members reside in the stately Chateau. Theory is 'serves as an opportunity to explain failure or misdeeds, while maintaining one's positive self-image.' John learns that Maurice Duval, former head of the glassworks, was killed during the German Occupation. Marie-Noel goes missing and everyone but Françoise searches for her. When she's found in the well at the glassworks, John discovers that Jean murdered Duval and threw his body in the well, accusing him of being a Nazi collaborator. Marie-Noel climbed down the well as an act of penitence on behalf of her father. John also learns that Blanche had a relationship with Duval.

I have read several of Daphne Du Maurier's books and loved every single one. Rebecca is my favorite but this book came very close to it. 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.Kozel otpushchenilla; Zamok Dor, Russian, 2007. Translated by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch and published by Amfora. I think the author's aim was to show how a person, unavoidably, changes the atmosphere around him or her, especially when he or she changes his/her behaviour patterns. 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! Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves.”

The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier, published in 1957, was one of the British author’s successful mid-career novels, coming after Jamaica Inn, Rebecca,and My Cousin Rachel. In her skillful hands, this suspense novel makes an ingenious doppelgänger plot work on many levels. And it wants to exchange identities with us. And totally assimilate our innocence into its own cynical essence. All right,' I said, "I've apologized. I can't do more. if you won't believe the thing was a mistake, there is no more to be said.' Ti Zui yang, Chinese, 2010. Translated by Dafuni Dumuli’ai zhu, Zhao Yongjian and Yu Mei yi and published by Shanghai wen yi chu ban she I could not ask for forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.Probably some time around half way through the book I realised that I’d put aside all my concerns regarding the realism of the story in favour of just enjoying the tale. From this point on it was easy – and hugely enjoyable. As I approached the end I started to worry whether du Maurier would land a bail out happy ending on her readers, even though I couldn’t really work out what this would look like. I needn’t have worried, the story was tied up brilliantly and in a way I couldn’t have foreseen. What would you do if you came face to face with yourself? That's what happens to John, an Englishman on holiday in France, when he meets his exact double - a Frenchman called Jean de Gue. John agrees to go for a drink with Jean but falls into a drunken stupor and wakes up in a hotel room to find that Jean has disappeared, taking John's clothes and identity documents with him! As usual, du Maurier's writing is wonderfully atmospheric. She has a way of making you feel as though you're actually there in the hotel room in Le Mans, the grounds of Jean de Gue's estate in the French countryside and Bela's antique shop in the town of Villars. Anyone that has ever hungered to be a part of a group, but yet always felt as a stranger, will relate to John here. What should happen, however, if you had the opportunity to take someone’s place? Would you do it? When John bumps into an exact likeness of himself in a tavern, he is given precisely this chance. While John is a lonely man with a feeling of emptiness inside, Comte Jean de Gué claims to have only the problem of having too many ‘human’ possessions. Jean wants to play a clever game – that of switching identities with John and assuming each other’s lives. When John wakes the next morning, stripped of his own clothes and everything he had on his person, what choice does he have but to put on another man’s clothes, take his suitcase and assume this new life? I wondered how it would look at nightfall, this town of Villars, turning early to sleep and silence like all provincial market towns, the inhabitants behind their shutters and in bed, the houses in shadow, the mellow roofs sloping to pitchy eaves, the flamboyant Gothic spire of the cathedral church stabbing an ink-blue sky; no sound, perhaps, but the passing footstep of a loiterer homeward bound and the hardly perceptible ripple of the canals still and dark beside the walls".

Horner, Avril, and Sue Zlosnik. Daphne DuMaurier: Writing, Identity and the Gothic Imagination. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999. Print. One had no right to play about with people’s lives. One should not interfere with their emotions. A word, a look, a smile, a frown, did something to another human being, waking response or aversion, and a web was woven which had no beginning and no end, spreading outward and inward too, merging, entangling, so that the struggle of one depended upon the struggle of the other.” Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves. I was too diffident, too conscious of my own reserve. My knowledge was library knowledge, and my day-by-day experience no deeper than a tourist’s gleanings. The urge to know was with me, and the ache. The smell of the soil, the gleam of the wet roads, the faded paint of shutters masking windows through which I should never look, the grey faces of houses whose doors I should never enter, were to me an everlasting reproach, a reminder of distance, of nationality. Others could force an entrance and break the barrier down: not I. I should never be a Frenchman, never be one of them." If only life were this simple. If only human relationships were straightforward, with little or no difficultiesAccess-restricted-item true Addeddate 2010-07-22 14:57:11 Associated-names Rouben Mamoulian Collection (Library of Congress) Bookplateleaf 0003 Boxid IA1170101 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II Donor