The Turn of the Screw and Moral Ambiguity
Henry James’s Turn of The Screw has long been hailed as one of the most classic and genre-defining novels that has ever been written; the complexity, supposed insanity, and eventual downfall of the main character of the governess creates an engaging plot defined by the mental stability and moral ambiguity of the governess. Throughout the entirety of the novel, the governess increasingly becomes a more conflicted and morally ambiguous character whose unreliable narration suggests a larger introspection into the destructive nature of heroism and the effects an unreliable narrator has on the story as a whole.
To begin, the governess first begins the novel as a young woman who is portraited to the reader as a good person, if naïve and dramatic. The reader’s judgement of the governess is first defined when the second narrator, Douglas, describes her as “awfully clever and nice” and “the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position” (12). To this effect, the reader begins the story seeing the governess as a good, respectable person who is completely sane and normal, contrasting to the conclusion of the book.
However, the governess begins to become increasingly morally questionable as the story goes on, due to her seemingly more and more erratic theories and sightings concerning the ghosts. The
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The governess’s moral ambiguity defines the book as a whole, creating the tension for the book and going beyond a simple ghost story; The reader’s growing questions about the true moral standing of the governess is tantamount with the overarching plot of the story, creating the uncertain finale of the novel through her and concluding with the reader questioning the true record of events and the novel
Miss Hancock, her personality and beliefs were contrasted entirely by her character foil, Charlotte’s mother, “this civilized, this clean, this disciplined woman.” All through Charlotte’s life, her mother dictated her every move. A “small child [was] a terrible test to that cool and orderly spirit.” Her mother was “lovely to look at, with her dark-blond hair, her flawless figure, her smooth hands. She never acted frazzled or rushed or angry, and her forehead was unmarked by age lines or worry. Even her appearance differed greatly to Miss Hancock, who she described as,” overdone, too much enthusiasm. Flamboyant. Orange hair.” The discrepancy between the characters couldn’t escape Charlotte’s writing, her metaphors. Her seemingly perfect mother was “a flawless, modern building, created of glass and the smoothest of pale concrete. Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium. In every room there are machines – computers, typewriters, intricate copiers. They are buzzing and clicking way, absorbing and spitting out information with the speed of sound. Downstairs, at ground level, people walk in and out, tracking mud and dirt over the steel-grey tiles, marring the cool perfection of the building. There are no comfortable chairs in the lobby.” By description, her mother is fully based on ideals and manners, aloof, running her life with “sure and perfect control.” Miss
...own choices and the uncertainty that accompanies growing up. Rachel Marsh is a twelve year old indentured servant at the beginning of this novel. She is as lucky in her establishment as she is ill-fated in her sole remaining family member, the crucial, predictable, corrupt and wicked uncle. She is (and was in reality) the nursemaid to John and Abigail Adams. Abigail, an intelligent and forward thinking woman, mentors the young Rachel with books and unfettered opinions. While she is on her quest “to better herself,” she meets up with many of the pivotal figures of the Boston Massacre, such as Henry Knox, Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. Central to Rachel’s saga is her friendship with a young redcoat who becomes involved in the Massacre, causing Rachel even more confusion as she makes her mind up about liberty, civil actions and personal and national freedom and identity.
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...
Ever since the new governess shows up to the household, Bly, in The Turn of the Screw, the story of the residents’ lives change forever. Things go from peaceful, beautiful, and orderly to chaotic, ugly, and messy. Every step the governess makes seems to worsen things, but why? Is it the children making things go awry? Or could it be the ghosts messing with the balance of the peace? Or maybe, is it the one person who you would expect to trust the most who is doing the most damage. The protector is the destroyer. The savior is the killer. In The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, the governess is insane because all her actions from sleeping and sensing demons, to assuming far-fetched notions and being the hero in every situation demonstrates
The governess is sane because she spots Peter Quint on the watch tower staring at her. Peter Quint is a dead employee at Bly who the governess clearly detects. She exclaims that “[h]e did stand there!-but high up, beyond
The sheriff’s second wife, Mrs. Peters was the only other woman among the group. She is not your typical sheriff’s wife. She is quiet and petite. She does not possess a strong authoritative voice like Mrs. Hale. At the Wright house, the three men Mr. Hale, Mr. Henderson, and the sheriff venture upstairs to search for a motive. Mrs. Hale, the dominant woman in this story, strikes up a conversation with Mrs. Peters. It begins with Mrs. Hale displaying her dislike of the men snooping around the house. Mrs. Peters does not agree with Martha. She views the men not as snooping, but as investigating. They are doing their duty says Mrs. Peters. Her loyalty sides with her husband. The women are gathering Mr. Wright’s things wh...
The main character, the Governess, is the perfect example of a morally ambiguous character. It is impossible to label her as purely good or evil, and much debate of this novel is on the trustworthiness of her narration. The Governess is a twenty year old daughter of a country parson who accepted the job of caretaker of two children. She's something of a romantic, being swept off her feet by her employer and viewing her job as a kind of calling. However, behind the innocent young woman, there are two ways of viewing her character. Some defend her as a sane heroine, while others claim she is an insane anti-hero...
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.
...ns. The audience is surprised to find out that God forgives and lets her go to Heaven with her family. The readers are passing judgment along with the Misfit and believe that because she cannot justify her sins; she should go to Hell. By using this plot twist the author shows how society has sinned similar to the Grandmother, yet how they can still be saved.
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...
The next unclear situation is when the Governess learns of Miles’ expulsion. This is one of the main mysteries within this story. The question, “What does it mean? The child’s dismissed his school,” is the only question that the reader has throughout the conversation between the Governess and Mrs. Grose (165). Even though their conversation does inform the reader that the school has “absolutely decline[d]” Miles, it doesn’t clarify what exactly he has done to be expelled (165). The Governess comments, “That he’s an injury to the others” and “to corrupt” are her own opinions as to why Miles was expelled (165, 166). Nevertheless, her comment does not help the reader in any way because the remark in and of itself is unclear. Her first comment suggests that Miles might be causing physical harm to other students but her second ...
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.
Although it was difficult to convey at first, I recognized my tendency to divide critical thinking into hypothetical rationale and realistic rationale. For example, I was displeased with the story’s lack of action. So, perhaps if I were a female who was a huge fan of plot, setting, and character driven murder mysteries, then I would have enjoyed the story more. As a seasoned reader of the genre, my instincts would have told me to approach the text with apprehensive patience. Throughout my reading I would be taking note of any suspicions. I would have questioned the significance of minor oddities; like Mrs. Hales recollection of Sheriff Peter’s wife. Furthermore, I may have realized how Mrs. Peters being described as, “someone who didn't seem like a sheriffs wife, for she was small, thin, and didn’t have a strong voice” (Glaspell, 1), meant that she had a character defect which would be exploited at some point. Before eventually finding out the meaning of this foreshadowing, there are several occasions where Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters are patronized for their efforts. Mr. Hale even mocks the two women saying, “women are used to worrying over trifles” (Glaspell, 6). Given the era this story takes place in, both women take the high ground and respectfully respond
To take things one aspect at a time, and to begin with the narrative structure. Whilst not exactly a key issue' of the story, the narrative structure can often inŸuence how those issues are revealed and detailed to readers, so still holds some relevance to the essay title. Chapter Six' overall structure is very similar to that of the story as a whole. It begins quietly, after the climax at the end of the previous chapter (as with the main part of The Turn of the Screw after the prologue, which creates a great deal of anticipation) and begins to increase in tension slowly throughout, with a slight lull in the middle, where the narrative becomes very reŸective and introspective, with the Governess writing her thoughts seemingly as they enter her head, creating a somewhat rambling, dense prose. Finally, when readers are least expecting it, the plot suddenly leaps into view once again, creating an exciting žnale ("Then I again shifted my eyes - I faced what I had to face.•) which leaves many plot threads open to inter...