Over the course of the story The Turn of the Screw, Henry James utilises themes of ambiguity, trust, and insecurity in order to present the reader with a thoroughly frightening tale. This is exemplified in a paragraph on page 147, in which the narrator recounts an interaction between the governess and Mrs. Grose. The characters in question are rehashing what became of Quint, and what role he played in the house. As shown by the pauses integrated into the conversation by James, such as “Alone with us.’ Then as from a deeper depth, ‘In charge,’ she added,” there is a clear negative effect that Mr. Quint has left on Mrs. Grose, which is only perpetuated as the paragraph proceeds with “She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. ‘He …show more content…
In another conversation with Mrs. Grose, the governess rebukes a comment with “Won’t, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think it” (219). The governess is questioning the integrity of Miles, and the relationship they have together. Here is another instance of James leaving the characters to wrangle with ideas in their own heads. This can relate back to the ambiguity James uses. The governess's insecurity over her relationship with Miles elicits several subjects of contention in the book. The self doubt prominent in the Governess’s life is projected onto the reader, which reflects an eerie feeling on to content. With every close relationship being called into question, an ominous feeling is cast onto the tale that escalates how frightening scenes are. The themes of insecurity and trust can also play hand in hand. A lack of trust in Flora also exacerbated the insecurity of the Governess. The governess discusses a sighting by saying “Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood the other time” (212). This is ignored by Flora, which is indicated by the Governess thinking “The revelation then of the manner in which Flora was affected startled me in truth” (212). With the children not admitting to sightings of the ghosts, the governess is just further driven into a realm of questioning and self doubt. Though James …show more content…
By letting her insecurity get the best of her, the governess allows distrust to engulf her. When a candle goes out during the night, she thinks “I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguished it” (174). The continuous self doubt leads the Governess to subconsciously augment her mistrust of others. Unabating mistrust throughout the whole story leaves a portentous effect hanging over with story. With the Governess constantly unsure of who to trust, the reader is kept on edge in regard of the characters different relationships. When questioned about Flora’s witnessing of Miss Jessel, she exclaims “No, for God’s sake don’t! She’ll say she isn’t--- she’ll lie!” (157). This quick retort underscores the innate suspicion which was driven by insecurity. The governess doesn’t even want to be associated with Flora out of the fear that she’ll undermine her credibility. This idea isn’t as frightening is the physical state as it is when one thinks about it. The Governess was pushed to a point where the couldn’t trust anyone, even an eight year old girl. Though Miles and Flora could have caught sight of the ghosts, the Governess overthought the dynamic of the siblings and drove herself into a crazed frenzy. This section of the book was demonstrating how themes in a story could influence through the mind rather than a physical scare of a
The main character, the Governess, is the perfect example of a morally ambiguous character. It is impossible to label her as purely good or evil, and much debate of this novel is on the trustworthiness of her narration. The Governess is a twenty year old daughter of a country parson who accepted the job of caretaker of two children. She's something of a romantic, being swept off her feet by her employer and viewing her job as a kind of calling. However, behind the innocent young woman, there are two ways of viewing her character. Some defend her as a sane heroine, while others claim she is an insane anti-hero...
...eives nothing from the children. It should be obvious to the reader at this point that the children are obviously in no way doing any wrong and are telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. The continual obsession of the governess over maintaining the protection and innocence of the children gets so severe that it causes Flora to come down with a serious fever and Miles grows seemingly weaker and sicker without his sister there with her.
Living in Maryland, the narrator and her little brother Joey lived a very simple life. There mother had job that required many hours, and her father was unemployed and still in the process of trying to find a job. They lived in a very run down house in a very small poor community. One summer day, the narrator , Joey, and a group of kids from the community were bored and wanted to do something different. So,the narrator and the kids went down to one of the elders home, Miss Lottie. Miss Lottie was the old woman that everyone made stories about and for the kids they knew her as the witch. In the summer time Miss Lottie would always be in her front yard planting marigolds, which were an easy target to destroy. The kids all took part in throwing rock at Miss Lottie's marigolds, and the narrator was the coordinator. After they sprinted back to the oak tree, the narrator started to feel guilt for what she
As humans, we can’t help but to jump to conclusions, but the governess’s assumptions are too misguided and are taken too far without substantial proof. When she first arrives at Bly, she automatically infers that Ms. Grose, although not showing any hint of it, is relieved that the governess is there and simply “wish[es] not to show it” (7). This could be the case, or, as it would seem to any sane person, Ms. Grose could just be unmoved by the governess’s arrival. Her second assumption with Ms. Grose is when they agree on one thing and the governess assumes that “on every question [they should] be quite at one” (9). Some people can hope that a person may have similar ideas to them, but they wouldn’t expect to agree on everything all the time. People understand that we all have different views, but obviously the governess does not. Then, the governess goes on to guess that Miles got kicked out of school because “he’s an injury to others” (11). She has no specific proof that shows he was kicked out for any reason but she is quick to make the inference. She hasn’t talked to the school, the uncle, or even Miles himself to find out what happened, but instead goes along with her own imagination. She also makes many assumptions about the ghost when she hasn’t even been talking to them. She deduces the ghost of Peter Quint “was looking for Miles” but she only had a feeling to base that off of
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James continues to stir up an immense amount of controversy for such a short novel. Making a definite, educated decision on the actual truth considering the countless inquiries that develop while reading this story proves more difficult than winning a presidential election. That being understood, taking one particular side on any argument from a close reading of the story seems impossible, because the counter argument appears just as conceivable. Any side of the controversy remains equally disputable considerably supported by textual evidence from the novel. One issue which, like the rest, can be answered in more than one ways is why Mrs. Grose believes 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 equals 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 we...
The existence of the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw has always been in debate. Instead of directly discussing whether the ghosts are real or not, this essay will focus on the reliability of the governess, the narrator of the story. After making a close examination of her state of mind while she is at Bly, readers of The Turn of the Screw will have many more clues to ponder again and to decide to what extent the governess can be believed. While critics like Heilman argue that there are problems with the interpretation that the governess was psychopathic, textual evidence incorporated with scientific research show that the governess did go through a period of psychical disorder that caused her insomnia, out of which she created hallucinations.
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
...le older and a chance to show off her bravery emerges in the form of Flora making her escape, she doesn’t even consider playing the part of the hero, she simply follows her father’s orders, and even that she goes back on when she leaves the gate open. She doesn’t daydream of action and excitement anymore; she instead imagines herself in a love story.
...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.
Many readers believe this piece of fiction to be a ghost story, but it is one that is about a woman with acute psychological delusion, portrayed through the use of characterization and occasion. Bowen begins her dramatization by defining the woman’s psychological delusion through the characterization of her anxiety and isolation. She establishes the woman’s anxiety in the beginning and closing of the third paragraph when she subtly narrates how, “she was anxious to see how the house was”(Bowen 160) and “she was anxious to keep an eye”(Bowen 160). To believe that it is impossible to imagine a letter, is someone who does not know the mind of a person plagued with psychological delusion.
This also ties in with the theme of supernatural. Irving also describes, “ There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land” (Irving 1). This helps us readers imagine the atmosphere and the theme of supernatural within the town. The mentioning of the hauntings brings up the past once
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).
...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.”
The governess only hardly indicates that she is scared the ghosts will physically destroy or kill the children. In fact, Miles’s death comes as a surprise to us as readers. This is because we are unrehearsed in the book to think of the ghosts as a physical threat. Till she sends Flora away, the governess does not seem to consider removing the children from the ghosts. She even does not try to scare away the ghost from the house. Instead, the governess’s abilities focus on the ‘corruption’ of the children by the ghost. Before she could realize about quint, the governess thinks that Miles has been corrupting other kids. Although the word corruption is an understatement that permits the governess to remain unclear about what she means. The clear meaning of corruption in this text means exposure to information of sex. According to governess, the children’s exposure to knowledge of sex is a far more dangerous aspect than confronting the living dead or being killed. Therefore, her attempt to save the children is to find out what they know, to make them admit rather than to forecast what might happen to them in the future. Her fear of innoce...
The next unclear situation is when the Governess learns of Miles’ expulsion. This is one of the main mysteries within this story. The question, “What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school,” is the only question that the reader has throughout the conversation between the Governess and Mrs. Grose (165). Even though their conversation does inform the reader that the school has “absolutely decline[d]” Miles, it doesn’t clarify what exactly he has done to be expelled (165). The Governess comments, “That he’s an injury to the others” and “to corrupt” are her own opinions as to why Miles was expelled (165, 166). Nevertheless, her comment does not help the reader in any way because the remark in and of itself is unclear. Her first comment suggests that Miles might be causing physical harm to other students but her second ...