The Governess In The Turn Of The Screw

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One of the oldest sayings is that someone in love will do crazy things. This applies to the governess in The Turn of the Screw. One of the oddest actions is that she takes her first job under the condition that she will not contact him about any issues concerning the children. She did not even think the condition through though or else she would have understood how unusual it was, but her main thoughts are of how attractive the uncle is. Her thoughts throughout the entire book are that she needs to get the uncle’s attention. With that as her goal, she thinks that she can have no problems to prove her worth to the uncle. She has become too obsessed with the thought of being so perfect that she creates a problem that, in her mind, ruins everything. …show more content…

When Mrs. Grose and the governess find Flora the governess points out the ghosts to them, but Mrs. Grose exclaims, “She isn’t there, little lady, and nobody’s there—and you never see nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel—when poor Miss Jessel’s dead and buried?” (71). If the ghosts were real it would have been proven at that moment, but Mrs. Grose denies that they are there even when the governess, who is the only one who can see them, says that they are right there. The first time that the governess ever notices Miss Jessel she vaguely describes her as being, “a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful—with such an air also, and such a face,” (30). If the ghosts were real then the governess would have had a much more detailed description of what Miss Jessel actually looked like, and not have Mrs. Grose being the one to tell her who it was. When Miles and the governess were talking one day the governess notices Peter Quint, but Miles is so confused about what she is talking about, he thinks that it is Miss Jessel (86). If the ghosts were not a production of the governess’s mind, he would have seen Mrr. Quint as well, and his confusion over the whole event only proves that the ghosts are not

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