An Analysis Of The Turn Of The Screw

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With each turn of the figurative screw, more screws were loosened in the governess. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James is a story about a governess that slowly went insane. She saw the “ghosts” of deceased workers and her reactions to these visions made the children and Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, fear and distrust her. The governess began showing signs of mental instability and throughout the book her condition worsened, until she was completely insane. From the very beginning of the book, the governess showed signs of mental instability. The first, and the only, time she met the uncle, she was instantly swept away by him; her youthful innocence and ideology betrayed her. She also showed an early obsession with the children. The governess admitted she is easily influenced and she even told Mrs. Gross that she was fond of the Uncle at their Harley Street meeting.“I’m rather easily carried away.” (James 8) The children were inarguably beautiful and could do absolutely no wrong in her eyes, …show more content…

The ghosts were hallucinations, and like many mental disorders, her condition escalated with every hallucination she saw. She began telling Mrs. Grose, her only friend and confidante at Bly manor, but a few discrepancies appeared. As the governess narrated her visions of the ghosts, she gave very few visual details, only location, body language, and what she felt as she saw them. Details of their appearance came when she told Mrs. Grose, who then filled in her own descriptions of the ex-coworkers Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. This only fueled the governess and allowed her to draw her own crazed conclusions. However, every time she told the kindly housekeeper of her visions, Mrs. Grose trusted her less and less, eventually causing the complete loss of trust between the two, leaving the governess alone in her fight against her unstable

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