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Critical analysis of turn of the screw by henry james
Critical analysis of turn of the screw by henry james
Studies in henry james turn of the screw pdf
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Ben Klingler Mr. Sarossy Freshman Humanities 5 March 2015 Mother asks, “Is there a ghost inside my child?” is a headline that is similar to how the novel The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, is played out. Psychoanalytic criticism interprets the governess as being sane. This is because she is taking her job to the next level by acting like a mother toward the children. She is over-protecting Miles and Flora because she believes the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel are trying to get the children. The governess is also acting like this because she feels the need to over-protect the children because she never had a mother figure in her life. Furthermore, psychoanalytic criticism focuses on the unconscious mind and thoughts of the author. Using psychoanalytic criticism, the governess is not crazy. There is a good quote in What is Psychoanalytic Criticism that talks about how the governess is not insane, “According to Freud, all of us have repressed wishes and fears; we all have dreams in which …show more content…
She also believes that the children created the ghosts and are trying to play a prank on the governess and Mrs. Grose. A good quote that talks about this is, “Why, of the very things that have delighted me […] as I now strangely see, mystified and troubled me. Their more than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness. It’s a game. […] it’s a policy and a fraud” (James 171). A good quote that shows how the governess is worried that the ghosts are trying to get the children is, “They haven’t been good—they’ve only been absent. […] They’re not mine—they’re not ours. They’re his and they’re hers! […] Quint and that woman’s. They want to get them” (James 171). This shows how the governess very worried and believes that the ghosts are after Miles and Flora. It’s also revealed that the governess believes that Peter Quint and Miss Jessel have possessed the
In conclusion, it is not the ghosts, as the governess suspected, that are corrupting the children, but the governess herself, through her continually worsening hysteria that is corrupting the children. Both Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are not real ghosts that have the peculiar habit of appearing before the governess and the governess alone but they are merely the signs of the fragmenting mental state of the governess.
One issue which, like the rest, can be answered in more than one way is why Mrs. Grose believes in the Governess when she tells her about her ghost encounters. Usually one would second-guess such outlandish stories as the ones that the governess shares throughout the story, yet Mrs. Grose is very quick to believe our borderline-insane narrator. One of the explanations for such behavior could be the underlying fact that Mrs. Grose and the governess have a similar socio-economic background, therefore making them somewhat equal even if the governess does not always seem to think that way. This fact makes them susceptible to trusting and believing each other, and to believing that the ghosts are there, for the people that the ghosts are presenting used to be servants and therefore from a similar socio-economic background. To add on to that, Bruce Robbins proposes in his Marxist criticism of The Turn of the Screw that the idea of a ghost is synonymous to that of a servant, subconsciously making the two lower-class workers of Bly more vulnerable to believe that the ghosts were real; in other words, servants were ghosts....
The issue whether the governess was insane or not may never be solved. Not only because critics seem to be able to find as much evidence as possible to prove their arguments but also, the reliability of the account of the governess colors the whole story with great ambiguity. We are not certain of the state of mind of the governess when she wrote down the story and when she related the story to Douglas. However, as we closely examine the state of mind of the governess, her reliability does appear to be in question. Beidler provided two readings of The Turn of the Screw and in the second one he declared: ¡§the governess saw only what she wanted to see¡¨ (Beidler 9). She was so exhausted from her prolonged insomnia that she envisioned a story with ghosts for herself to fulfill her growth as a governess.
The governess sees a woman on the other side of the lake and jumps to the conclusion that Flora has seen her and is choosing to act like she didn’t. The child was playing with a boat and had her back turned to the lake. Why would she think that she had to have seen her? There is no proof and does not even ask the child if she saw anything. She automatically assumes it’s Miss Jessel, the previous governess who died and that she is after Flora. She tells her story to Mrs. Grose drawing her in more deeply into believing her crazy hallucinations and Mrs. Grose asks her if she is sure its Miss Jessel and the governess replies “Then ask Flora—she’s sure!” and then immediately comes back to say “no, for God’s sake don’t! She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll lie” ((James 30). She comes to the conclusion that the child will lie about it when there is no reason to suspect that she would. Again, this is her jumping to conclusions, because there is not any proof to say that the children have seen or know anything about the ghost’s. “Thus a very odd relationship develops between the governess and the children, for the more she loves them and pities them and desires to save them, the more she begins to suspect them of treachery, until at last she is convinced that they, in league with the ghosts, are ingeniously tormenting her’ (Bontly 726). “The ghosts appear, thus, when the governess is both aware of the corruption which threatens the children and convinced of her own power to preserve them untainted” (Aswell 53). It’s the governess fabricating all this up in her mind again so she can play the part of
with Mrs. Grose, she learns that they are ghosts and former employees of the Gentleman
She believes she is actually protecting the children against an outside evil, which happens to coincide with her drive to demonstrate heroism and devotion to the master. According to Purdy, the governess conjures up ghosts because she invited them and willed them to come. Purdy feels the housekeeper plays her trump card and the governess' concern is not for the children but for all that would become of her, her bargain with the master, her relationship, and her passion for him. Purdy finds the following quotes to show her passion for the master and show that this serves as the motive of action.
After Abigail Williams and the girls are discovered dancing in the forest by Reverend Parris, there are rumours of witchcraft among them, when Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam are found "witched". Once the girls discover this, they become more and more frightened of being accused of witchcraft. Abigail is the first to "admit" to seeing the devil, and all the other girls join in, so the blame will not be placed on them. "I saw Sarah Good with the Devil. I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil. I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil."
The movie Girl, Interrupted, written by Susanna Kaysen, is a good text to use for a Psychoanalytic Criticism lens. A memoir turned into a movie about a young girl being admitted to a psych ward after trying to end her life and living with a mental illness and finding treatment is a great example to show what Psychoanalytic Criticism really is. “The forgetting or ignoring of unresolved conflicts, unadmitted desires, or traumatic past events, so that they are forced out of the conscious into the realm of the unconscious” (Barry, 97). In applying psychoanalytic criticism the definition of psychoanalysis itself must be understood. It is a form of therapy that is used to help cure mental disorders “By investigating the interaction of the conscious
Throughout the whole book, the governess is assuming things about the children. From what Mrs. Grose tells her about Miles getting kicked out of school, she assumes he is bad. Knowing he is bad, she assumes that he is talking and planning with ghost because that is what a bad kid would do in her mind. Then, she assumes that Flora likes her without any confirmation. The governess says, “I felt quite sure that she [Flora] would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose for herself” (8). This shows that she is so overconfident of her thoughts that she, at first, has no doubt that Flora and Mrs. Grose like her. Later in the story, the governess see the ghosts and automatically thinks the children are seeing them. She never asks the kids if they see the ghosts she is confident that they are there. She is so over confident in herself that she does not ever think that the ghosts could just be hallucinations of her mind. Flora is eight and Miles is ten, so they are still childish and when they run away or try to pull a joke on the governess is not out of the ordinary. The governess blames their behavior on ghosts without even thinking that they are acting this way because they are young. The governess is so caught up in herself and what she thinks is going on, that she is not in touch with
Whether the intentions were good or not, the thought of erasing a living creature from this earth is not easy. The question arises: How do you live each day and move forward? The Ghost Child is harder to put out of the mother’s mind because she’s filled with visions of what will never be! “The singers and workers that never handled the air” (4), because the child was not born, the mother doesn’t know if the ghost child would’ve been a singer, movie star or a CEO of a corporation! What kind of mother would she have been? All because she snatched away their breath before the child could experience being! While she physically erased the child, the consequence was a spiritual birth of a ghost child that torments and haunts her memory, leaving her remorseful and full of grief. Who would Ghost Child look like? Every child that crosses her path is a constant reminder of what could have
...t want to be the only one who does. It is another feeble attempt to prove her sanity to herself and to others. However, because she “is so easily carried away”, she soon believes that the children do in fact see the ghosts by reading into their every remark and behavior. By piecing all of this together, the governess proves to herself that she is not insane. The governess in The Turn of the Screw, is a highly unreliable narrator. From the beginning of the story, her energetic imagination is displayed to the reader. With this knowledge alone, it would not be irrational to conclude that she had imagined the appearances of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. However, these facts in addition to her unsubstantiated inferences allow the reader to intelligently label the governess as an unreliable narrator. Works Cited Poupard, Dennis. “Henry James.” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism: Volume 24. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale research.; 1990. 313-315.
“Come on, Nancy. Tell us the truth. Where are the children?” wrote author Mary Higgins Clark in her chilling novel, Where are the Children. Clark’s thrilling murder mystery describes a toxic relationship between a professor, Carl Harmon, the mentally insane and abusive husband of Nancy Eldridge, a beautiful young mother who is being accused of the murder of her children. Manipulative tactics and gender play key roles in creating discussion and open ended ideas toward the theme of this novel. The reader can see how Nancy has been unfairly accused for the murder of her first set of children. Although in the end Carl is finally identified as the murderer, the entire novel is set to make it seem as if Nancy was capable of harming her own flesh and blood. Mary Higgins Clark writes a happy ending novel to give
In the governess's insane pseudo-reality and through her chilling behavior, she managed to bring downfall to Flora and Miles, the children of Bly. With compulsively obsessive actions, irrational assumptions, and demented hallucinations, the governess perceived ghosts bearing evil intentions were attempting to corrupt and destroy the children she had taken the role of care for. In reality, the governess herself brought tragedy to the children through her own selfishness and insanity.
In his 1948 essay, Robert Heilman explores the suggestion that The Turn of the Screw is a symbolic representation of the conflict between good and evil. Heilman interprets the apparitions of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel as evil forces. He explains that the ghosts only appear to the governess because evil lurks in subtlety before it strikes. It is the duty of the governess to "detect and ward off evil." She must protect the children from the awful ghosts. The governess describes Miles and Flora as beautiful little cherubs whose only fault is their gentleness (James, 18-19). Heilman views the children's beauty as a "symbol of the spiritual perfection of which man is capable." Heilman explains the ghosts' attempts to reach the children by explaining that evil forces will always try to conquer and possess the human soul. Heilman continues to draw from the descriptions of Miles and Flora to support his theories. He points out that the two children are described as having an "angelic beauty" and a "positive fragrance of purity" (James 9, 13). The governess describes them as if they are perfect and beautiful in every way. This repeated vision of beauty, radiance, and innocence parallels the image of Eden. The house at Bly also resembles this image, "I remember the lawn and the bright flowers..." (James 7). The governess makes mention of the "golden sky" and of Flora's "hair of gold," which Heilman believes connects Bly and Flora with these images of golden hues (James 7, 9).
Throughout The turn of the Screw by Henry James, the theme of ambiguous issues is constantly leaving the reader on their own. The ambiguity and uncertainty within this text causes the readers to come up with their own theories as to what the text really means. The ghost story perspective only adds to the infuriating vagueness. The title itself is about all of the twists within this story and basically foreshadows the confusion that the text will cause.