She confronts Joss, criticizing the hotel. She asks Patience about it, but Patience is too scared to talk to her. She realizes that she is the only guest no one is allowed inside even for a drink. Mary doesn’t sleep for worrying about Patience’s welfare. Loud and overbearing, Mary resents him the moment she lays eyes on him. Joss is terrifying-he is taller than anyone Mary has ever met, bullies the locals, and drinks too much.

Barely recognizing her aunt, Mary blames Joss. Patience hardly speaks and she seems pale, withdrawn, and meek. When Mary arrives at the Jamaica Inn, she is horrified. Patience would never let a man dominate her. She hopes the rumors are false, but she refuses to let her fears occupy her thoughts. Mary has never met Joss but she has heard rumors that he is a mean-spirited and aggressive man. Mary sets off for the Jamaica Inn, run by Patience and her husband, Joss Merlyn. Although Mary would rather live by herself and make her own way, she knows Patience will be a good influence. Patience is free-spirited, strong, and knows her own mind. She must go to live with her only surviving relative, Aunt Patience. Because it is assumed women can’t take care of themselves, Mary can’t stay on the farm alone. As the novel begins, Mary’s mother dies of heart failure. She doesn’t want the same fate for herself. She has watched men subdue her friends, turning them into housewives with no voice or opinions. She is a quiet but determined young woman who plans to remain single forever. Twenty-three-year-old Mary Yellan lives on a farm in west Cornwall. She died in 1989 in Cornwall, England, where the book is set. Jamaica Inn is one of her earliest novels. Du Maurier always fiercely denied these claims. Despite du Maurier’s successes, numerous authors accused her of plagiarism. Du Maurier was a highly successful playwright and author. Alfred Hitchcock later adapted the book into a major motion picture. Jamaica Inn (1935), a historical mystery by Daphne du Maurier, follows a young woman who finds devious schemes, wrecked ships, and stolen cargo in a rundown hotel called the Jamaica Inn.

The jamaica inn daphne du maurier