Throughout The turn of the Screw by Henry James, the theme of ambiguous issues is constantly

     Henry James was one of the famous writers during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was known as an innovative and independent novelist. One of James' novels, The Turn of the Screw (1898), has caused a lot of controversy among many critics, and each of them has had a particular interpretation. James' creative writing built a close connection between his novel and his readers. The reactions of the readers toward The Turn of the Screw can be researched psychologically by analyzing how James developed his story using questionable incidents, an unreliable narrator, unexpected changes, an interesting prologue, and effective images and words.

Puissant, complex, sinister, twisted, is the human mind. The human mind is that without a moon, dark and warped. The human mind is that without the stars, sinful and impure thus corrupting others. The human mind even considered ‘sane’ is in contrast unconscious. This depiction of the human mind is depicted through the governess, who has hallucinations of ghosts, in Henry James’ Turn of the Screw. The governess, the young protagonist of this novella, moved to Bly to be a governess of two children, Miles and Flora, whom are strangers to her. Also, upon her interviewing to be governess she fell madly in love with her potential employer. Due to the governess’ job and her sexual repression, the governess’ mind is unconscious due to Freud’s theory which thus enables the diagnostic of the governess to be that she has schizophrenia.

Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a story that not fully established in terms of detail. There are many gaps left in the text, leaving it impossible for the reader to be sure of how James intended his ideas to be interpreted. The main way this is done in the novel is through the use of an unreliable narrator, who is called into question due to her personal qualities and then also created through ambiguity through lack of detail and negated propositions. These factors combine what we don’t know or what we can’t be sure of and invite us to question the most vital part- are the ghosts real, or is the governess simply mad? These gaps enable us to interpret these questions in our own ways- of which there are many.

The Turn of the Screw opens with a prologue in which a character called Douglas is introduced. The author uses Douglas as a way to introduce the main story. Douglas captures the interest of the reader the same way he

In The turn of the Screw, the characters often communicated very indirectly with one another, hinting toward certain situations but never explaining them fully. At the beginning of this story, one of the first vague quotes, “he had been left, by the death of their parents in India,

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is usually read as a ghost story in which the central character, the governess, tries to save the souls of two children possessed by evil. However, the short-story can be also analyzed from many different perspectives, as we come upon a number of hints that lead to various understanding of certain scenes. One of the possible interpretations is the psychoanalytical one, in which we interpret the events either from the point of view of the governess or from the perspective of the two children. I will concentrate on the problem of the governess who, restricted by her own problems and moral dilemmas, projects her fears on her pupils and in this way harms the children. What

Henry James's Turn of the Screw can be an incredibly frustrating and difficult story. It hints at much, but rarely states anything directly. The sheer number of possible interpretations of the events it describes can make it a difficult read, but the openness of the text to multiple interpretations is also, in some ways, the point of the novel. Henry James constructed his story in order to elude to sexual topics without stating anything explicitly. The very language of the story allows sexual implications to proliferate almost endlessly. James's story takes these tendencies to such an extreme, however, that it verges on a parody of Victorian sexual anxieties. The characters and narrator's refusal to address any of the obvious tensions directly seems to be a classic instance of denial. Ironically, the refusal to state anything explicitly breeds a ridiculous number of sexual connotations that includes every character in the story. Every word and every event is arranged so that it becomes almost impossible not to interpret it as sexual in some way. In

The Turn of the Screw is one of the most controversial works in literature and the text has provoked a variety of critical interpretations from its publication in 1898. In this novel, the governess tells her experience with two apparitions that no one but she could see. And the governess accuses the ghosts of servants for corrupting the children, Miles and Flora. Critics concerning about the truth of the story are divided two basic camps based on their acceptance or rejection of the governess's credibility as a storyteller. Some critics believe that the ghosts are real and the governess is a rational and credible narrator, while the others believe that the ghosts are hallucinations of the governess and regard the governess as an incredible and mentally abnormal narrator. Also, we could speculate the author’s intention on the basis of his life experience and other works of Henry James. This essay will examine the reliability of the governess on the basis of the text and interpret Henry James’s intention on the basis of other sources.

After reading 'The Turn of the Screw';, by Henry James, I was left with many unanswered questions. The two main questions are, are the ghosts in the story real, or are they just figments of the narrator's imagination? When I read though the essays of criticism, I took a stand on one particular argument. I took a stand that supports the argument that the ghosts are real.

Born in 1843, he authored over 150 plays, novels and short stories. This decorated collection of work is one of an elitist group that existed at the time. The Turn of the Screw is his most controversial work by far and the novella bewilders readers still to this day, a testament of the great author. The 1890’s was a pivotal time of the Victorian period. Henry published The Turn of the Screw in what is described as “the golden age of the ghost story” by Aviva Briefel. Not only does it include “Victorian literary and cultural clichés,” it also explores the “construct” of Victorian thought. (Briefel

Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw forces us to decide whether or not the events at Bly are the result of supernatural interference. Due to the first person retelling, we wish to side with the Governess and believe in the presence of the ghosts. However, a careful examination of the story can only lead us to the conclusion that there were no supernatural events at Bly. Instead, the tragic events were the result of the hallucinations of a young woman out of her depth placed in an isolated and high-pressure environment. The unreliable retelling from the Governess results in a twisting of facts to make them more favorable to her own viewpoint. This is especially true in her projection of feelings and thoughts onto the other characters. There are no ghosts except those produced by the Governess during her descent into madness caused by stress and her own imagination.

The Turn of the Screw was published in the Victorian era where sexuality was a repressed topic, especially for women, many believing women were only worthy of being married had they abstained from sexual activity. Genealogical doctor William Acton famously stated that “the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feelings of any kind” (Acton 235), which was a bold claim and not entirely representative of all society.

The Turn of the Screw is a short story written by British- American novelist Henry James. The plot centers around the retelling of a story about a manor, called Bly, and its inhabitants. Two children, Miles and Flora, are taught by a young governess who believes the children are conversing with their dead caretakers. She constantly sees the dead workers, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, without anyone else ever seeing them. Mysteriously, the Uncle is not present and wants nothing to do with the children or the governess. In this essay, the sanity of the governess with be questioned by looking at her motives on why she may see the ghosts, whether or not the ghosts are real or not, and why no one else sees the ghosts.

Although it is true that James ignored his audience for the most part of his essay, it is also true that the novel, as a work of art, generates a certain effect on the reader on whom the ultimate interpretation of the story lies. This idea of the active reader that shapes the meaning of the novel according to his or her own understanding is crucial in The Turn of the Screw, where ambiguity is thoroughly present. It is us as readers who decide whether the ghosts in the governess’s story are real or whether they only exist as a projection of her inner thoughts and desires.

The preceding tale, as it happened, proceeded towards the writer upon the general route of the petty town talk. Feeling half-quenched by the apparent buzz, (to be blamed solely on the peculiar inquisitiveness of the writer) hence it happened that the story once again was absorbed, evidently providing a much more absolute procession of facts, through the obliging mother; Mrs. Sheila Jones’s account. Which was precisely thus: