Daphne du Maurier "Jamaica Inn"

 

Daphne du Maurier

After the death of her mother, 23-year-old Mary Yellan is invited to live with her mothers sister. Aunt Patience, who lives in a place called Jamaica Inn, high up on the Cornish moors. There is something about the coldness of die language in Aunt Patience s letter that puzzles Mary. ‘There have been changes with us that you will not know about,’ the letter says. Aunt Patience used to be a warm, cheerful, affectionate young woman, but there is a strange lack of warmth and comfort in her letter. Mary wonders about the nature of these mysterious changes even more as she approaches her destination. The driver tells her that Jamaica Inn is no place for respectable people, especially young women like her, but he is afraid to say more. What is the secret of Jamaica Inn? Why are people afraid to go there? And why was Aunt Patience s letter so distant and unfriendly?

When Mary steps through the door of Jamaica Inn, she enters a world even darker and more shadowy than the wild, lonely moorland outside. Why does Aunt Patience - now a weak, frightened old woman - stay with such an evil, violent, drunken man 35 her husband, Joss? What are the strange noises in the middle of the night? What crimes are being committed, and why docs the law do nothing to stop them? Mary is by nature an optimistic and courageous young woman; she does not easily lose hope and is not easily frightened. She stays at Jamaica Inn in the hope of rescuing her aunt from the misery of her existence, but discovers that she herself has become a prisoner without a friend in the world, with no hope of escape...

 

 

  

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