The Turn of the Screw

In Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, Flora and Miles are some of the most important characters. The Governess, the caretaker of the children, has an unhealthy obsession with the children. She is intoxicated by their beauty and perfection. By the end of this book, readers can understand that infatuation can truly kill.

As her employer, the uncle will be unsatisfied with the children’s care and the governess will be left without a job. Flora leaves Bly with Mrs. Grose because she finds the governess to be “cruel”. Flora begs for Mrs. Grose to “take [her] away from [the governess]” (James 169). The governess believes that Flora had been influenced by Jessel, but whether the children were possessed is unclear. Before “his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped,” Miles says to the governess, “Peter Quint – you devil” (James 207). Miles slips away from the governess and she is left in isolation. Miles could be speaking to the governess as though she is the “devil” or he could be referencing to Peter Quint; James never, openly, tells the reader. Only the governess saw the ghosts, so this lead to the other characters to believe the governess is paranoid. When the governess is speaking of the ghosts to Mrs. Grose, Mrs.Grose does not show that she believes the governess’s conspiracy theories in chapter twenty-one. The governess’s perception of the children is negative which leads to her treating them negatively, and the children and Mrs. Grose leave to escape the governess’s torment. This allows the governess to be left in

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.

Miles represents a socially and sexually corrupt figure by the ghost of Peter Quint who violated status on two occasions. His being “too free” with Miles leads to controversy as well as his love affair with the previous governess. The governess’s knowledge on the history behind Quint and Miles changes drastically as she learns more information to discover truth. Her rejection of the idea that Miles could be “bad” transforms into an obsession noting his every action in hopes to reveal that the children are being possessed by ghosts. Despite the connotation of Quint’s clash of class boundaries, the text also suggests the potential homosexual nature of his association with Miles. Therefore, the ghost of Quint stands for everything the Governess is afraid of, and his sense of menace dictates Miles living through his identity.

Charlotte Gilman, through the first person narrator, speaks to the reader of the stages of psychic disintegration by sharing the narrator's heightened perceptions: "That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care--there is something strange about the house--I can feel it" (304). The conflicting

The major plot of “The Turn of the Screw” is that the governess is trying to protect the children from the ghosts she is seeing, she even continues to do this when she starts to feel that the children have been corrupted by the spirits. She even begins to plead with the children to guide them away from the apparitions. “’Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you knew how I want to help you! It`s only that, it`s nothing but that, and I`d rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong – I`d rather die than hurt a hair on you. Dear little Miles’ – oh, I brought it out now even if I should go too far – ‘I just want you to help me to save you!’”

The Governesses madness derived from the horrifying visits from the ghosts and the mysteries of Peters expulsion. The “along” perspective of madness reveals the most powerful harassment that would drive anyone to the state of madness. As well as the ghost visits and the childrens behavior, the internal struggles the Governess faced when battling the haunting uncertainty of what she should consider true or

It is also notable that their conversation happens exactly at the same place where the governess first sees Quint. While Miles turns his back at her, looking out of the same window, she suddenly suspects “an extraordinary impression” from Miles’ “embarrassed back” (80). At first she is still in a sad mood because she is barred from the ghosts to reach some aspects of the children, but next moment, she suddenly realizes that she is not the one being barred, but the ghost Quint is the one being barred from her place—the house. As she thinks “I was not barred now, […], it was positively he who was” (80), the window for Quint is “of a kind of failure” (80). She recognizes that the ghosts are not able to fully reach the children because they are prevented outside the house, they can only exert influence outside the place and stare outside the window. Thus in her opinion, the window or the house becomes the only place that helps her to protect the children. She begins to feel “a throb of hope” (81), for she finds the limitation of the ghosts that there is not only something she cannot see, but also “something he couldn’t see” (81).

The Governess deals with an overwhelming amount of insecurities, leading her to conjure up ghosts in her mind rather than see the surroundings at face value. The delusions serve as a reflection of herself that she must battle. Tyson states that a common core issue of anxiety could be an “insecure or unstable of self- the inability to sustain a feeling of personal identity, to sustain a sense of knowing themselves” (16). In light of Psychoanalytic criticism, the protagonist’s biggest problem is her lack of identity and purpose. Her unstable mind gives her anxiety, compelling her to act outside their realm. This idea links to the Governess’ deluded visions because “What the governess is hallucinating in Quint and Miss Jessel is her own ‘confederation of psychic entities,’ the other

Her desire to protect Miles and Flora indicate that she believes the apparitions possess the children and that the children represent evil; this shows that the governess’ point of view is biased. The governess sees two ghosts constantly across her narration, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Mrs. Grose confirms that the description the governess had told Mrs. Grose about her encounter with the apparition is in fact correct. “Context - tell more background. She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to express the wonder of it.

The Governess’ inconclusive narration contributes to the possibility that either the children are perfectly innocent, charming, and talented, or that these qualities mask a more sinister relationship with the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. The Governess’ reality differs from Miles’ and this causes her failure

During those times, everyone was at a very difficult stage. The help needed jobs desperately and parents who were working diligently needed assistance with children, especially those with huge tasks. This is why when the governess is asked to watch over the children, she is more than happy. During this era, ghosts were not taken seriously. The men and women who claimed they saw the dead were viewed as crazy. Due to the belief system of that era, the governess was not taken seriously when she said she saw ghosts.

This beginning and story from Douglas seems mundane and irrelevant once you reach the governess’ story, but it becomes important later, if only the reader can recall it at that point. It sets the stage for the comparison between Douglas and Miles. As it is proposed in Robert B. Heilman’s analysis of The Turn of The Screw, Douglas remembers the governess from a child’s viewpoint because he is Miles in the story.

Douglas clearly cares about the governess, and maintains personal connection to the story even though it’s been sitting in a drawer for twenty years. Douglas feels attached to the story because he lived the story so many years ago.(as Miles) “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It's quite too horrible.”(p. 292) This shows that the manuscript isn’t just a good ghost story for him to tell people because he’s never shared it before. He also finds that Douglas’s audience is more perceptive than he appears ready. They make inferences about he and his love, and Douglas reveals bits and pieces about her. “I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me, too. If she hadn't she wouldn't have told me.(p. 293) In the story, she mentions several times that Miles was the most beautiful boy that she had ever laid eyes on, and over infatuation with the boy like that would easily lead Miles to believe he was the object of her utmost affection. To add to the fact that the woman he was in love with was the governess was when one of the guests mentions that

Throughout The turn of the Screw by Henry James, the theme of ambiguous issues is constantly leaving the reader on their own. The ambiguity and uncertainty within this text causes the readers to come up with their own theories as to what the text really means. The ghost story perspective only adds to the infuriating vagueness. The title itself is about all of the twists within this story and basically foreshadows the confusion that the text will cause.