Something is amiss in Bly. The nameless Governess has always been a person of interest in literature. She has been analyzed time and time again from a trusting standpoint; taking everything she says at face value. Taken with no thought of deception and that ghosts are real and the Governess’ is attempting to protect Miles, not harm him. Also from a psychological or Freudian perspective indicating she was mentally disturbed and kills Miles. Whether the Governess was simply a confused youth, thrust into a position beyond her ability and is further saddled with the tasks of protecting her two charges with ghosts or a manipulative shrew who means nothing but harm to those around her because her mental state is questionable. The Governess is mad.
In class it had been repeatedly suggested that the youth of the Governess is partly to blame for her inability to cope and manage her job and this contributes to her down cycle of lunacy. In reality for that time period in history she was not offered a position that many other women her age were not capable of and doing as well. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a school teacher from 1882-1885, she was fifteen when she started teaching and only eighteen by time she had finished because she had married ("Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum"). However, by today’s standards maturity and age and readiness would not be something we would consider of a woman younger in that field until, perhaps, the age of twenty-five. That is not as it was more than 100 years ago, women were starting families and in careers’ at much earlier ages.
The Governess is an entirely unreliable narrator. The potential for things to have been fabricated to make her own self look better. Also to prove to herself h...
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... of protecting him. Whether she knew that this is what she had done or not will never be solved, the mystery remains.
Works Cited
“Enotes.com" Henry James, The Turn of the Screw - Introduction. 2010.
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Heilman, Robert B. "The Freudian reading of The Turn of the Screw.” 1947. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999. Print.
James, Henry, and Peter Beidler. The turn of the Screw. Bedford/St Martins, 2003. Print.
"Laura's History." Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home & Museum. 2004. Laura Ingalls Wilder
Historic Home & Museum, Web. 14 Feb 2010.
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Spark, Publishing. "Analysis of Major Characters." SparkNotes. 10/2007. Sparks Publishing, Web. 17 Feb 2010. .
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 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.
A series of strange occurrences take place at Bly causing the governess and the reader to question her sanity. Bly, located in Essex, England, can be looked upon as a reputable location for ghost sightings because their have been nearly 1,000 reports of ghost sightings in the UK just in the past 25 years. This gives insight that the governess could possibly be sane and does in fact see ghosts. The governess is complete sane because she experiences supernatural presences on the watchtower, at the lake, and in Miles’ room.
In the governess's insane pseudo-reality and through her chilling behavior, she managed to bring downfall to Flora and Miles, the children of Bly. With compulsively obsessive actions, irrational assumptions, and demented hallucinations, the governess perceived ghosts bearing evil intentions were attempting to corrupt and destroy the children she had taken the role of care for. In reality, the governess herself brought tragedy to the children through her own selfishness and insanity.
Freud, S., Strachey, J., Freud, A., Rothgeb, C., & Richards, A. (1953). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (1st ed.). London: Hogarth Press.
Margaret had huge dreams of one day becoming a writer, but those dreams were put on hold when her father suddenly passed away in 1835. At this time, her mother was also sick and it became her responsibility to take care of her family’s finances. There were not many job opportunities available to women during this time, she found a teaching job and accepted the position. She first began teaching at Bronson Alcott’s Temple School in Boston and taught there until she went on to teach at the well-kn...
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion. New York: Norton & Company Inc., 1961. Print.
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
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...
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. Ed. James Strachey. Trans. James Strachey. Standard. Vol. 22. London: Hogarth Press, 1964.
...person. When these two counterexamples are dissected further, many flaws begin to surface and can be easily viewed differently. In the case of “Bailey Boy”, it can be observed as another sly tactic used to gain more sympathy towards the grandmother. Even at the end when it looked like she was showing compassion towards the Misfit, it can be perceived as her last desperate attempt to save her own life. This was highly plausible since in the beginning of the paragraph, the grandmother noticed that the Misfit had a sensitive spot towards religion, which she could have used against him in order to set herself free. However, her attempt to “comfort” the criminal backfired and led her to her death. These theories can all be debated depending on your outlook of the story, which would really decide whether the grandmother was being sincere or frolicking with the devil.
When the governess first arrives at the small town of Bly to begin her assignment over the niece and nephew of her employer, she describes her self as having gone through many ups and downs in terms of her emotional and possibly mental state. She says, "I remember the whole thing as a succession of flights and drops a little see saw of write throbs and the wrong" (page 121). It appears evident even from the beginning of the story that the governess is not in an 'even keeled' state of mind, neither stable nor calm enough to hand the task set before her in any means.
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.
Education for women in the 1800s was far different from what we know today. During her life, a girl was taught more necessary skills around the home than the information out of school books. A woman’s formal education was limited because her job opportunities were limited—and vice versa. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or the law and therefore did not offer her the chance to do so. It was much more important to be considered 'accomplished' than thoroughly educated. Elizabeth Bennet indicated to her sisters that she would continue to learn through reading, describing education for herself as being unstructured but accessible. If a woman desired to further he education past what her classes would teach her, she would have to do so independently, and that is what most women did.
James, Henry. "The turn of the screw." The turn of the screw and other tales. Ed. Kimberly C.