Archetype Myths in Turn of the Screw
In one surface reading of Henry James’s Turn of the Screw, the governess appears to be a victim of circumstance. Some critics however, say that she is not without blame in the turn of events that characterizes the story. They claim that leading to her demise are certain character flaws, such as envy and pride. In categorizing her character as such, this novella resonates several themes found throughout literature. In Northrop Frye’s essay The Archetypes of Literature, Frye suggests that there appears to be a relatively restricted and simple group of formulas in literature. These formulas or converging patterns seem to correlate with the natural cycle. Frye considers criticism that searches for these forms, “a kind of literary anthropology”(Frye,480). In the essay, he identifies the archetype central myth of all literature as the quest-myth. Using his essay on archetypes, The Turn of The Screw, can be read and understood as a quest-myth.
The Turn of The Screw is really two myths in one. The first story would be that of the friends who are gathered on Christmas Eve telling stories. The second story would be the tale of the governess. Frye categorizes myths in phases. The second story can be interpreted in terms of these phases (Frye,483).
Phase one is “the dawn, spring, and birth phase”(Frye,483). In The Turn of the Screw, the story begins with Douglas’s background on the governess. This is the creation of the new story. The governess is young and we learn that she has,“at the age of twenty, on taking service for the first time”,so she is at the beginning of her adult life.(James,25)
Next the story moves on to her narration. She arrives at Bly and is pleasant...
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...ch could be interpreted as Miss Jessel, for she is female, evil, and conniving.
There are surely countless other archetypes present in this work aside from the myth quest, however it is interesting to note how similar Frye’s description of the myth quest is to the actual story. Frye’s phases seem to directly follow the story line from the new beginning to the fatal end. The governess perfectly fits the role of the hero on a quest. Finally the tragic vision of the human world is apparent throughout the story. The similarities and presence of these seem to confirm Fry’s theory that these archetypes are a collective dream of humanity, and thus they are innately present in literature.
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Works Cited
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Every story uses archetypes, including the Odyssey. Since the movie Oh Brother! was based on the Odyssey, they both share and have differences in archetypes. They use the same archetypes in the form of the hero, the temptress, and the fall. These archetypes are used the same and differently in these stories as seen in these examples.
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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...
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In literature, the word archetype is a worldwide blueprint. Its symbolism can be used again and again in different forms, including archetypical heroes, are involved in many diverse cultures (PBS 1). Archetypes explain worldly views, so people created archetypes to elaborate on it. Some explain how cities and holy sites came into being. They can also be used to teach or show us things. According to PBS, the quest archetype shows us that the hero must overcome self-obstacles to achieve what they want (PBS 1).
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In the famous novel, The Turn of the Screw, Henry James tells a story of a governess who
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Archetypes bring order to everyday life- without them there would be chaos. Human use them to predict what may happen, and to empathize with people all around the world. Homer’s the Odyssey has several of these archetypes. The Odyssey is an epic poem, said to have been written down in the time of Ancient Greece. Archetypes are characters, actions, or situations that are generally a prototype of human life. Today, readers can gain insight through the archetypes in the Odyssey. Three main archetypes are: the hero, the monster or villain, and the crossroads.
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