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importance of fairytales
importance of fairytales
importance of fairytales
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Henry James was one of America's most brilliant and fascinating writers. He uses language to tap into the reader's subconscious and always has them wanting more. This sensation is no more prevalent than in his thriller The Turn of the Screw. In this intense psychological thriller, the main character releases her own sexual frustration into the illusions of two ghosts that haunt a quiet country manor. The Freudian Id plays out in the fantasies of Peter Quint and Mrs. Jessel and the governess's own repressed feelings overrun her every thought. James provides insight into the power of Freud's sub-conscious that controls the governess and pushes her farther and farther away from reality. He is also able to equate it to people in everyday situations.
The story is set in a mansion in the English countryside. A young woman is hired to take care of two children, Flora and Miles, and she becomes entranced by a love for their employer. However, she becomes so in love with this employer that it begins to control her everyday life and overruns her feelings. Her unrequited love for this man is played out through her fantasies of two ghosts who haunt the mansion. To the governess, the appearance of Peter Quint is the employer that she is in love with and Mrs. Jessel represents the governess. Together, they play out the fantasy that the governess has to be with the employer and have relations with the employer. The governess would go on these walks alone, and the sole thought that occupied her mind was love or lust. In chapter three the governess narrates, "One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story sud...
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...s story, or racial struggle and take it down to its rudimentary basis in the Id. The Id causes a person to perpetuate these differences as it applies to their desires for control or lust, and it is up to every person to suppress these animal instincts through rational thought. The governess did not do this, thus her mind was polluted and she drove herself into insanity and drove those around her to death and illness because of her evil choices. It does not do Henry James to call this a moral of sorts, but it almost is. Everyday people are faced with choices whether they know it or not, in conversation someone can just glance at the surface of a comment, or delve deep into it, releasing the Id into the mind.
Work Cited
James, Henry. “The Turn of the Screw”. 1898. The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories. Ed. T. J. Lustig. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992:113-236.
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.
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.
In the famous novel, The Turn of the Screw, Henry James tells a story of a governess who
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been the cause of many debates about whether or not the ghosts are real, or if this is a case of a woman with psychological disturbances causing her to fabricate the ghosts. The story is told in the first person narrative by the governess and is told only through her thoughts and perceptions, which makes it difficult to be certain that anything she says or sees is reliable. It starts out to be a simple ghost story, but as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the governess has jumps to conclusions and makes wild assumptions without proof and that the supposed ghosts are products of her mental instability which was brought on by her love of her employer
One of the most critically discussed works in twentieth-century American literature, The Turn of the Screw has inspired a variety of critical interpretations since its publication in 1898. Until 1934, the book was considered a traditional ghost story. Edmund Wilson, however, soon challenged that view with his assertions that The Turn of the Screw is a psychological study of the unstable governess whose visions of ghosts are merely delusions. Wilson’s essay initiated a critical debate concerning the interpretation of the novel, which continues even today (Poupard 313). Speculation considering the truth of the events occurring in The Turn of the Screw depends greatly on the reader’s assessment of the reliability of the governess as a narrator. According to the “apparitionist” reader, the ghosts are real, the governess is reliable and of sound mind, and the children are corrupted by the ghosts. The “hallucinationist”, on the other hand, would claim the ghosts are illusions of the governess, who is an unreliable narrator, and possibly insane, and the children are not debased by the ghosts (Poupard 314). The purpose of this essay is to explore the “hallucinationist” view in order to support the assertion that the governess is an unreliable narrator. By examining the manner in which she guesses the unseen from the seen, traces the implication of things, and judges the whole piece by the pattern and so arrives at her conclusions, I will demonstrate that the governess is an unreliable narrator. From the beginning of The Turn of the Screw, the reader quickly becomes aware that the governess has an active imagination. Her very first night at Bly, for example, “[t]here had been a moment when [she] believed [she] recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when [she] found [herself] just consciously starting as at the passage, before [her] door, of a light footstep.” The governess herself acknowledges her active imagination in an early conversation with Mrs. Grose, when she discloses “how rather easily carried away” she is. Her need for visions and fantasies soon lead her to believe that apparitions are appearing to her. It is from this point on that she begins to guess the unseen from the seen, trace the implication of things, and judge the whole piece by the pattern. After the first appearance of Peter Quint, the governess begins to make infe...
James, Henry. The turn of the screw and other short fiction. Bantam classic ed. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1983. Print.
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."
Turn of the Screw written by Henry James tells the story of a governess and her recollection of events at the country home of Bly. The story begins at a Christmas gathering where everyone is sharing different ghost stories around the fire. One man has a manuscript or diary of a former governess which details her experience at a “haunted house (302).” The audience begs for him to read it, and so he does. As soon as he begins to read the story, the book’s point of view shifts to the governess’s. Over the course of the governess’s interviews with her employer, she immediately falls in love with him. In an attempt to win her master’s approval, she becomes extremely protective over the children. She views herself as their guardian or rather their “hero” in shielding them from the ghosts that she assumes the children are communicating with. The question that strikes every reader is whether the ghosts perceived by the governess are real or not. This also questions the credibility of the governess’s narration. In reading Turn of the Screw, the governess is proven to be an unreliable narrator through her recollection of events at Bly. Because of the governess’s loves for the master and quest for heroism, her insanity is exposed through her hallucinations.
Henry James's The Turn of the Screw paints a landscape that is ripe for psychoanalytic analysis. He has chosen language and syntax that symbolize his main character's psychological fragmentation and her futile attempt to mend herself. Many of Lacan's theories emerge as the Governess reveals her motivations through her recollective narrative.
4 James, Henry, "The Turn of the Screw" in Hampl, Patricia, ed., The Houghton Mifflin Anthology of Short Fiction (Boston: Hougton Mifflin Company, 1989), pp. 617.
There are many different ways to interpret The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. Many critics over the past century have voiced their opinions about the story. Each critical analysis of the story disagrees with the beliefs expressed in another. Robert B. Heilman is a critic who wrote in the mid-twentieth century. He interprets The Turn of the Screw to be a representation of the conflict between good and evil. Heilman's points are clear and obviously well thought out, but there are flaws in his argument that make his interpretation questionable.
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.
James, Henry. "The turn of the screw." The turn of the screw and other tales. Ed. Kimberly C.
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. New York : Dover Publication Inc, 1991 edition. Print.