Turn Of Screw

Henry James's Turn of the Screw was written in a time when open sexuality was looked down upon. On the surface, the story is simply about a governess taking care of two children who are haunted by two ghosts. However, the subtext of the story is about the governess focusing on the children's innocence, and the governess trying to find her own sexual identity. Priscilla L. Walton wrote a gender criticism themed essay about the Turn of the Screw, which retells certain parts of the story and touches on the significance they provide for the sexually explicit theme. Walton's essay is accurate because James purposely put an undertone of sexuality and identity confusion in the Turn of the Screw.

Readers might wonder with whom she was in love. Then the Master told the Governess about the previous governess and her death (James 296). The readers probably want to know the reason of the previous governess' death. When the Master talked about the duties of the Governess, he required her not to contact him in any way (James 297). We do not know why he made that requirement. As the story continues, the readers have many more unsolved questions such as why Miles was dismissed from school, why the Governess could describe Peter Quint exactly though she never meet him, and why the Governess thought that ghosts wanted to catch the two children. Ned Lukacher thinks that "[the way James] has said something also becomes a way of not having said something else" (132). For instance, James revealed some hints regarding the reason Miles was dismissed. We know that "[Miles]'s an injury to the others" (304) and Mrs. Grose thought Miles was "no boy for [her]" (305). However, these hints do not help the readers to completely understand why Miles was sent away from his school. Instead, more questions are posed, such as how such a ten-year-old boy could injure other students and why Mrs. Grose thought about Miles that way. The readers can not easily find the specific and reasonable answers in the story, so they have to guess the answers based on their own

The second visitation of the ghost of Peter Quint also occurs while the governess is by herself. As the governess, the children, and Mrs. Grouse are preparing for church, the governess goes back into the house to retrieve gloves she sees a visage of the same man she saw at the tower. When Mrs. Grose sees her face she immediately asks what is wrong. The governess goes on to describe the man that she has seen in an odd mixture of attraction and revulsion. This adds question to the reader on the subject of the validity of the testimony of the visitations

Grose. They discover that Flora has disappeared while Miles plays the piano. They finally spot Flora on the far side of the Sea of Azof. When they begin their journey back to the house with Flora, the governess sees the ghost of Miss Jessel. She points the ghost out to Mrs. Grose, but she sees nothing. Mrs. Grose says,”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?” (James 71). The governess is the only one that sees Miss Jessel for a second time. Mrs. Grose now knows that the no ghosts actually exist, and the governess is truly insane. The governess imagines all of the crazy things going on at Bly.

Act one begins with Reverend Parris praying over her daughter, Betty Parris, who lies unconscious on her bed. Through conversations between Reverend Parris and his niece Abigail Williams, and between several girls, the audience learns that these girls, including Abigail and Betty, were engaged in occultic activities in the forest lead by Tituba, Parris’ slave from Barbados. Parris caught them and jumped from a bush startling the girls. Betty fainted and had not recovered. During this session, Abigail drank chicken blood to kill Elizabeth Proctor. She tells the girls that she will kill anyone who mutters a word about what happened. The townspeople do not know exactly what the girls were doing but there are rumors of witchcraft.

The next day the boys see a young girl crying and realize after talking to her that it is Miss Foley. They go to her house but when they come back their path is blocked by a parade. The carnival is out searching the streets for them. They hide and the little girl is gone. Will's father sees them hiding in an iron grille in the sidewalk and the boys convince him to keep quiet because the Illustrated Man comes to talk to him. Will's father pretends not to know the two boys whose faces are tattooed on the man's hand, and then when the Witch comes and begins to sense the boys' presence he blows cigar smoke at her, choking her and forcing her to leave. Mr. Dark asks Charles Halloway for his name, and Will's father tells him

The next morning, James got ready for meeting up with the owner of the land he planned to sharecrop on. As he was slipping on his shoes, there was a loud bang on his front door. Mabel hurried to ask who is it and the person behind the door yelled Angus. James jumped up and rushed to answer the door. When he opens the door, it reveals Angus smiling ear to ear breathing heavy as if he had run from the church to his house.

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.

The story began with a family eating dinner together. When one of the son, Sebastian broke the bowl, all of the family members saw a man stood outside their house, in the garden. Everyone was scared. What was more disturbing was that David, the husband,felt like that his soul just left his body. After he got his sense back, the man was gone. After the incident, in a morning when David was dropping his daughter Violet to school, he realized that Violet knew the man in the garden, and he talked to her via television. This fact made David insane as he was trying to figure out why it happened. After he dropped off Violet and sometimes later, he went to watch the TV himself and also saw the guy, he talked to the guy and realized that it was good

Douglas, the narrator, presents the book in the introduction involving two children to be another turn of the screw. This concept paints a

After meeting the two children, Flora and Miles, the Governess thought they were beautiful and well behaved. The Governess has become attached to the children. One day the Governess and Mrs. Grose were talking about Peter Quint. Quint was the former valet at Bly and died by walking home drunk and slipping on a patch of ice. Mrs. Grose told the Governess he liked to spoil Miles.

Henry James’ arrays of characters helps to tie the reality of social conflict in this fictional horror story. His characters each have various economic backgrounds and interact differently with each other. This diversity brings these social conflicts to light and helps readers understand the root of these conflicts. In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James uses characterization and conflict to reveal the horrors of social class in American society.

However, the children are probably not sure as what the governess is doing, and it has definitely harmed the psychology of the children. There is never mentioned in the story the clear intentions of the ghosts, and Miles and Flora have never accepted their sighting with the ghosts, but the governess insisted that the children were aware of their existence and were pretending as if they never knew what was going on. If this is viewed as if governess was pretending then she might be doing this to impress and prove her master how she cared about the children. But whatever the governess was doing, in reality, has confused the children about what she was referring to and they couldn’t understand her. This definitely made the children suffer, as for every child, image of ghost is very much terrifying .Whatever she was doing it resulted in Flora being sick and Miles dead at end of the story ( Poquette 257).

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.

The very setting of the fireside at which Griffin's guests swap stories establishes an atmosphere with which many of us are familiar. We can all relate to sitting around a fire exchanging ghost stories. By employing this particular narrative frame James encourages the reader to abandon their scepticism and give themselves over to a belief in the ghosts. The reader shares in the eagerness of the guests to be frightened; to be delighted by horror. Upon seeing Douglas' distress at the thought of the tale he must tell, and its "dreadful - dreadfulness", one of the female guests actually cries, "Oh how delicious!"5