The second wife, the drab shadowy creature who narrates this story, remains nameless. We learn that she has a ‘lovely and unusual’ name, and that it was her father who gave it her. The only other identity she has, was also bestowed by a man – she is a wife, she is Mrs de Winter. That a narrator perceived as a heroine should be nameless was a source of continuing fascination to du Maurier’s readers.
