OPINION: GHOSTS REAL Interpreting The Turn of the Screw by Henry James from a Marxist point of view brings about serious social class distinctions and consequences of violation within that code. Miles and the unnamed Governess’ relationship demonstrate the wrongdoing of social and legal norms. The Governess’ indeterminate social status leave her as a forbidden woman in Victorian society taking on the role of primary caretaker to children, while Miles embodies the character of the absent master to whom the Governess feels intimately attracted. Mile’s union with rebellious, symbol of threat, Peter Quint, ultimately possesses him and lead to the breakdown of the social hierarchy. The Governess and Mile’s connection display the inappropriate boundary crossed between professional duties and desirable futures as a sexually active individual. Through the two characters moments alone, the rising apprehensions end in the governess’s infringement of social status as she employs to a mysterious sexual relationship with Miles. Marxist criticism leaves society thinking that dominant classes overpower social order. However, its goal is to present ideas of changing social realities, so future generations will know all people are important and equal. During the Victorian period, a Governess was faced with contradictory burdens leaving them uneasy with status imbalance. The governess is uncomfortable with the fact that she could be similar to the servants/ghosts, because she still feels that she is above them socially. Her desire to break out of the class structure, yet her inability to do so, shows her dependence on the structure. From her first moments at Bly or the “castle of romance”, she instantly feels the conflict between her emotional... ... middle of paper ... ...y the governess brings him up, but also to “all the rest.” These equivocal words refer to the initiation to sex by the governess, which is reinforced by Mile’s pointing out that she “knows what a boy wants!” After Mrs. Grose and Flora leave Bly, the two are once again alone, faced with a tyrannical and silent environment leaving the governess thinking they epitomize “some young couple…on their wedding night.” James clearly resists historical interpretation which would fill in the blanks with knowledge on social groups. Yet, through analysis of the Governess and Mile’s relationship by placing their narration and dialogue in a socio-historic context the battle is revealed between desires and demands. Awareness of Victorian sexual commencement allows readers to trace the development of the two characters transformations from pupil and teacher to lover and mistress.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
The classic ghost story, the Turn of the Screw, is filled with loose-ends and ambiguity. Are the ghosts real or imagined? Is the Governess a heroine or anti-heroine? Are the children really as innocent as they seem? In the novel, Henry James rarely provides an in-depth character that the reader actually gets to know. From the young romantic governess, to the intelligent ten year old, James keeps his characters morally ambiguous in order to further the “Unsolved mystery” style.
This idea connects with the governess’ apparent obsessive control over the children. Within certain cases in the novella, it appears that the governess has some type of sexual desire over the children, mostly with Miles. Apart from her constant calling of them beautiful, she acts peculiarly with the children at times that leans more towards her psychotic side rather than her motherly, “suppressed obsessive maternal” suffering side. The first real sight of this is after Mrs. Grose tells her about Quint and his relationship with Miles. She says, “It was Quint’s own fancy. To play with him, I mean – to spoil him. Quint was too much free,” to which the governess responds, “Too free with my boy?” (51). It also says in this moment that the idea of Quint and Miles together gave her “a sudden sickness of disgust” (51). It seems to be a little excessive to be absolutely disgusted by the idea of the child and his servant, especially by another worker in the home. It was these stories that could have caused her psychosis to go overboard, leading to the hallucinations. What if the governess never really saw the apparitions of Quint and Miss Jessel? The governess’ psychosis created the images of the pair from Mrs. Grose’s tales about them to have something to protect the children from. After ‘seeing’ Quint and Miss Jessel late at night, she frequently visits the children’s rooms to check up
In Part I of the novel, Agee quickly establishes the importance of the father-son relationship. Rufus Follet, Jay's six-year-old son, accompanies his father to the silent film theatre against the objection of Rufus's mother, who finds Charlie Chaplin (one of James Agee's heroes) “nasty” and “vulgar.” This disagreement underscores the marital conflict that underlies Rufus's ambivalent feelings toward both his parents. When Jay takes Rufus to a neighborhood tavern after the picture show, despite the father's warmth and love for his son, it is clear that the father's pride is constrained by the fact that the son's proclivities, even at this early age, follow the mother's interests in “culture” rather than the father's more democratic tastes for athletic ability and social pursuits. Tensions between Rufus's parents are apparent as Jay's drinking and “vulgar” habits become a point of contention in the household, with the child Rufus caught between his sometimes bickering parents. For her part, Mary Follet is a character whose extreme subjection to moralistic attitudes suggests...
Peterson, M. Jeanne. "The Victorian Governess: Status Incongruence in Family and Society." Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Ed. Martha Vicinus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.
and tries to protect them. In the classic novel, The Turn of the Screw, the governess and the
In a criticism on Henry James’s story The Turn of the Screw, Strother Purdy suggests that large amounts of sexual passion may be assumed to exist underneath the surface of the narrative. Purdy says that under a Freudian interpretation of the story, the sexual element is easily recognized and is used as the whole source of the action. According to this theory, the governess wishes to impress her master because she is in love with him and, therefore, exceeeding her authority with the children. Although the governess only sees her master twice, Purdy refers back to what Douglas had said,” it was the beauty of her passion.” Since the master is not impressed by her initial and ordinary course of governessing, she must make up some life-threatening danger to the children so she can rescue them and win the masters love and affection. She figures the danger must be terrible because he told her he did not want to be bothered with matters dealing with the children. He basically tells her he cares nothing for the children. Purdy suggests the governess is unconscious in doing this because she is sexually repressed and cannot admit her sexual motives to herself
But in reality, a male narrator gives a certain sense of understanding to the male audience and society’s understand of the male and females roles and responsibilities in a marriage. Just as men were expected to cut the grass, take out the trash, pay the bills and maintain the household as a whole, women were expected to cook, clean, nurture the children, and be a loving and submissive wife to their husband. The only stipulation required for this exchange of power was to establish a mutual love. In the Victorian age love was all it took for a man to take or alter a woman’s livelihood and
In "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, the main character, the governess, is so deluded and lonely that she will do anything necessary to reduce these horrifying feelings and not feel them. She decides that the way to do that is to possibly find love and instead she seems to have found a strange infatuation with her employer. But, sadly because she is located in a country house in Essex, such a longing is not possible to define. When the governess realizes this, she seems to apparently replace her unreciprocated feelings in the shape of ghostly spirits. It possibly is her way of "getting out." Without fully realizing this, the governess has chosen to be an unreliable narrator. Seeing the ghostly spirits which make appearances in this invisible relationship, allows her to feel as though she, herself was a part of an invisible relationship. But in all actuality, there is no relationship because the employer seems to keep ignoring her. When the governess becomes tired of these ghosts, she turns to other characters to fulfill her "goals."
Henry James's Turn of the Screw was written in a time when open sexuality was looked down upon. On the surface, the story is simply about a governess taking care of two children who are haunted by two ghosts. However, the subtext of the story is about the governess focusing on the children's innocence, and the governess trying to find her own sexual identity. Priscilla L. Walton wrote a gender criticism themed essay about the Turn of the Screw, which retells certain parts of the story and touches on the significance they provide for the sexually explicit theme. Walton's essay is accurate because James purposely put an undertone of sexuality and identity confusion in the Turn of the Screw.
There have always been class divisions in England’s social groups, but it was not until the nineteenth century that they were labeled. The lower class was often uneducated and overlooked and mostly servants and prostitutes, the middle class generally had steady jobs and members of the higher classes were born to old money and did not have to work. The French Lieutenant’s Woman written by John Fowles is a complex “Victorian novel filled with enchanting mysteries and magically erotic possibilities” (Canby) in which, Fowles describes a Victorian society in 1867 that is still largely separated by class, which creates strong restrictions with respect to sex and marriage. Notably, conflict in the novel involves scandals where these restrictions are disregarded. Fowles shows that sex and marriage were still largely dictated by whether a person belonged to the lower, middle or upper class in order to highlight that there were more restrictions for higher-class men and women.
...hasize the influences that the upper-class social status has on a person’s lifestyle, behavior, and perspective of others. They also emphasize the social expectations and restrictions for the upper-class women, including their social role, appearance, and personalities. It is indicated from the authors’ literary works, that people are judged based on their social position. Woolf, Austen, and Wilde’s portrayals of the upper-class in their literary works show that an upper-class social status does not ensure happiness.
The physical and social setting in "Mrs. Dalloway" sets the mood for the novel's principal theme: the theme of social oppression. Social oppression was shown in two ways: the oppression of women as English society returned to its traditional norms and customs after the war, and the oppression of the hard realities of life, "concealing" these realities with the elegance of English society. This paper discusses the purpose of the city in mirroring the theme of social oppression, focusing on issues of gender oppression, particularly against women, and the oppression of poverty and class discrimination between London's peasants and the elite class.
Alex Zwerdling states that “Woolf gives us a picture of a class impervious to change in a society that desperately needs or demands it. She represents the governing class as engaged...
In The turn of the Screw, the characters often communicated very indirectly with one another, hinting toward certain situations but never explaining them fully. At the beginning of this story, one of the first vague quotes, “he had been left, by the death of their parents in India, guardian to a small nephew and a small niece” depicts that Miles and Flora’s parents died in India (James 158). However, the details around their death are unknown and mysterious.