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Critical analysis of turn of the screw by henry james
Critical analysis of turn of the screw by henry james
Henry james short story. important question the turn of screw
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Incapable Governess Make sure to check and see if your house is haunted before you hire a governess. The governess is overwhelmed by obstacles she can not overcome. In The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the governess of the house of Bly seems to go crazy from ghost encounters. She in the end is not capable of keeping the children safe because she is more of a danger to them. The governess is disturbed because of two ghosts continuously showing themselves just to her. The governess does not at first become or seem crazy but soon her actions show how she becomes crazy from the ghosts. The first encounter is with a man called Peter Quin. He is a man described by Mrs. Grouse as a person who had died after slipping while drunk walking around. She sees this …show more content…
Flora, the youngest of the two children at age 8 becomes sick after the governess’ latest encounter with Miss. Jessels apparition. The governess explains that Flora is not alone by telling Mrs. Grouse “ shes not alone, and at such times shes not a child: shes an old, old woman.” (68) She describes Flora as an old woman because earlier in the story Miles distracts her while Flora goes to the Sea of Azof, to what the governess thinks see Miss. Jessels apparition. When Flora goes on this adventure she paddles a boat all the way across the pond and hides it. Which the governess thinks a young girl could not do on her own. By this point she is so crazy trying to prove that the apparitions are real and she is not crazy that she kept Flora out all night for what Flora just thought was a joke. Causing the young girl to get very ill. The governess is a clear danger to the children so Mrs. Grouse takes Flora to her uncle for safety and so she can get better but leaves Miles behind to fend for himself. In the end the governess’ craziness overwhelms her and the final time she saw an apparition she kills
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
as a being a ghost to frighten the family. This is shown by the sudden
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.
As they speak with one another The Misfit collectively sends members of the family into the woods. Before long the family is all killed and only the grandmother remains. At this point the reader can sense what will happen next. The grandmother is becoming deeply religious as her death nears her. Finally the grandmother realizes she is no better than The Misfit and touches him on the shoulder. O’Connor demonstrates the dominant grandmother finally does not get her way. She is shot three times and thrown into the ditch soon after (Bloom
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
There has been many ghost stories told over the years, but the same question remains… are ghosts real or not? The book Ruined, by Paula Morris, is inspired by the history and culture of New Orleans. Fifteen year old Rebecca, is suddenly shipped off to New Orleans, a year after hurricane Katrina. She is forced to go there when her dad leaves for a business trip in China for six months.
with Mrs. Grose, she learns that they are ghosts and former employees of the Gentleman
With these two divergent personas that define the grandmother, I believe the ultimate success of this story relies greatly upon specific devices that O’Connor incorporates throughout the story; both irony and foreshadowing ultimately lead to a tale that results in an ironic twist of fate and also play heavily on the character development of the grandmother. The first sense of foreshadowing occurs when the grandmother states “[y]es and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, Caught you” (1042). A sense of gloom and an unavoidable meeting with the miscreant The Misfit seem all but inevitable. I am certain that O’Connor had true intent behind th...
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.
...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.
The Governess enters the Imaginary Stage of Lacan's psychoanalysis theory when she sees herself in the mirror on her first night at Bly. She recalls,"the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot..." and as her idealized image gazes back, the Governess has now symbolically split from her mother and is now her own Self, or so she subconsciously thinks. How can she reconcile how she perceives herself and with what can never be? Lacan says that fragmented selves try to locate meaning outside of themselves, and the Governess subconsciously tries to accomplish self-healing by conjuring up ghosts.
This unnamed character feels superior and far more knowledgeable to that of the rest of her family while truth behold, she is just as manipulative, sneaky and selfish as the rest of them. She treats her son like a foolish idiot, is critical and judgmental of his wife. She is constantly nagging on the children and revels a greater moral attitude towards them. The plot begins with a family car trip in which they ironically run into a criminal they were trying to travel away from all because the Grandmother insisted on a detour to see an old house. Throughout the story, theology is depicted in a tricky way. God is mostly nonexistent but assumed to be believed in by the Grandma because she is a “perfect lady.” It is not until the final scene when the Misfit threatens her life, that she finally experiences a moment of grace by recognizing him as one of her own children. O’Connor demonstrates a strong belief in the salvation of religion by describing the Grandma sitting perfectly and looking up into the cloudless sky after her death. Through the Grandma’s character, it is learned that O’Connor believed everyone deserves to be saved no matter how sinful his or her actions may
From the very beginning of the narrator's vacation, the surroundings seem not right. There is "something queer" about the mansion where she resides it becomes obvious that her attempt to rest from her untold illness will not follow as planned. The house is an "ancestral" and "hereditary estate...long untenanted" invoking fanciful gothic images of a "haunted house" (3). The house they choose to reside in for the three...
In restless sleep and longing for contact with those outside of Bly-- particularly her employer-- the governess placed hope in chance meetings of random individuals. In her walk in the yard, the governess began to wish for the sight of her employer who she was still madly in love with. The governess's desire to see him and receive his reassuring approval conceived the ghost of what was later revealed to be Peter Quint she believed she had seen. Later in her climax of interaction with her ghosts, the governess is afraid that the master will come home, for she is fearful of what he will think of her.