An Unrequited Love in The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
In "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, the main character, the governess, is so deluded and lonely that she will do anything necessary to reduce these horrifying feelings and not feel them. She decides that the way to do that is to possibly find love and instead she seems to have found a strange infatuation with her employer. But, sadly because she is located in a country house in Essex, such a longing is not possible to define. When the governess realizes this, she seems to apparently replace her unreciprocated feelings in the shape of ghostly spirits. It possibly is her way of "getting out." Without fully realizing this, the governess has chosen to be an unreliable narrator. Seeing the ghostly spirits which make appearances in this invisible relationship, allows her to feel as though she, herself was a part of an invisible relationship. But in all actuality, there is no relationship because the employer seems to keep ignoring her. When the governess becomes tired of these ghosts, she turns to other characters to fulfill her "goals."
It seems that the governess starts seeing ghosts at the same time she desires to be in love. The young governess is instantly attracted to the "handsome, bold and pleasant" (p. 7) bachelor uncle of the orphaned children by whom she is hired. It also seems that she has an overwhelmingly obsession with how beautiful a person is. This overpowering feeling was the original incentive for her accepting the job as governess. The governess gives out the sense at the beginning of the novel that she may have been a little desperate seeing as she knew hardly anything about coming to Essex and jumped right at the chance of it. Her craving to ...
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...comes obsessed with and starts seeing his ghost. Finally, at the end of the novel she begins to look to Miles for a sense of belonging. It may even seem as if she wants to find love so badly that she smothers him to the point of death and kills him. He also may have died because she frightened him to death. In the last few scenes, the governess seems to frighten the boy so badly, they he starts sweating and breathing hard and she even starts to shake him. She longs for love so terribly that she believes Miles is Peter Quint. Finally, the governess has a "victory" at the end of the novel and she finally is able to control and manage everything she wanted to know before. The governess and her unreliable narrator poses far too many questions for answers but all the clues point to her infatuation being so strong in Bly, that she needs to have a feeling of belonging.
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...
The existence of the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw has always been in debate. Instead of directly discussing whether the ghosts are real or not, this essay will focus on the reliability of the governess, the narrator of the story. After making a close examination of her state of mind while she is at Bly, readers of The Turn of the Screw will have many more clues to ponder again and to decide to what extent the governess can be believed. While critics like Heilman argue that there are problems with the interpretation that the governess was psychopathic, textual evidence incorporated with scientific research show that the governess did go through a period of psychical disorder that caused her insomnia, out of which she created hallucinations.
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
In restless sleep and longing for contact with those outside of Bly-- particularly her employer-- the governess placed hope in chance meetings of random individuals. In her walk in the yard, the governess began to wish for the sight of her employer who she was still madly in love with. The governess's desire to see him and receive his reassuring approval conceived the ghost of what was later revealed to be Peter Quint she believed she had seen. Later in her climax of interaction with her ghosts, the governess is afraid that the master will come home, for she is fearful of what he will think of her.
Toward the end of the novel, the governess sees Ms. Jessel and tries to point her out to Flora and Mrs. Grose. However, Mrs. Grose questions the governess by wondering “[w]here on earth does [she] see anything?” (James 70). Even though Mrs. Grose claims that she does not see any figure, it is not certain that she is telling the truth. It is obvious that she is overwhelmed in this scene because Flora is fearful of the governess’ behavior. Mrs. Grose is merely trying to be rational and appeal to Flora’s anxiety over the governess’ temperamental and persuasive attitude. Another argument that could appeal to the governess’ insanity is that she is love struck by the master, causing her to be delusional. This is exemplified through her imagining that the master “would appear…and stand before [her] and smile and approve” (James 15). Nonetheless, she is not imagining any people because in the last scene of the novel, Miles recognizes Peter Quint’s presence by implying to the governess that he is in the room. If the governess was creating the ghosts in her mind, Miles would not verbally notice Peter Quint’s presence in the room. The governess is clearly sane and does not simply imagine the
The classic ghost story, the Turn of the Screw, is filled with loose-ends and ambiguity. Are the ghosts real or imagined? Is the Governess a heroine or anti-heroine? Are the children really as innocent as they seem? In the novel, Henry James rarely provides an in-depth character that the reader actually gets to know. From the young romantic governess, to the intelligent ten year old, James keeps his characters morally ambiguous in order to further the “Unsolved mystery” style.
Through out the short novella, 'The Turn of the Screw,' by Henry James, the governess continually has encounters with apparitions that seem to only appear to her. As Miles' behavior in school worsens so that he is prevented from returning, and as Flora becomes ill with a fever, the governess blames these ghosts for corrupting the children, Miles and Flora, and labels them as evil and manipulative forces in their lives. But why is it that these ghosts only seem to appear to the governess even when the children are present at the time of the sightings by the governess? Evidence from the short story leads the reader to believe that the ghosts are not real but are merely the evidence of the fragmenting sanity of the governess.
Think about how much you love your family. How would you feel if someone tried to take them away from you? In the book The Scarlet Letter a young woman named Hester Prynne had to face this dire situation. After a heavily regretted mistake with a man from her village, Hester gave birth to a beautiful little girl whom she named Pearl. Pearl’s beauty radiated and everyone who saw her noticed it with great awe. However, despite her physical beauty, on the inside Pearl appeared a rather strange child, almost acting as a witch. When Pearl reached the age of about six, she and her mother, Hester, visited upon request the governor’s home to discuss something. Once they arrived the men present aroused the issue of whether
and tries to protect them. In the classic novel, The Turn of the Screw, the governess and the
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has been the cause of many debates about whether or not the ghosts are real, or if this is a case of a woman with psychological disturbances causing her to fabricate the ghosts. The story is told in the first person narrative by the governess and is told only through her thoughts and perceptions, which makes it difficult to be certain that anything she says or sees is reliable. It starts out to be a simple ghost story, but as the story unfolds it becomes obvious that the governess has jumps to conclusions and makes wild assumptions without proof and that the supposed ghosts are products of her mental instability which was brought on by her love of her employer
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
...t want to be the only one who does. It is another feeble attempt to prove her sanity to herself and to others. However, because she “is so easily carried away”, she soon believes that the children do in fact see the ghosts by reading into their every remark and behavior. By piecing all of this together, the governess proves to herself that she is not insane. The governess in The Turn of the Screw, is a highly unreliable narrator. From the beginning of the story, her energetic imagination is displayed to the reader. With this knowledge alone, it would not be irrational to conclude that she had imagined the appearances of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. However, these facts in addition to her unsubstantiated inferences allow the reader to intelligently label the governess as an unreliable narrator. Works Cited Poupard, Dennis. “Henry James.” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism: Volume 24. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale research.; 1990. 313-315.
The death of Miles (presuming he is dead and not just unconscious) has a number of possible interpretations, too - he could have died from his fall, from Quint's extended hand or from some other cause. However, it omits the most important possibility as shown in the book, as a consequence of the removal of the strangulation subtleties; that of whether the governess herself killed him. Without this, the book's stunningly powerful ending, whereby the reader is left reeling from shock and subsequently disbelief (as the other possibilities come to the surface, such as the line "and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped• is referring to an emotional heart rather than a physical one, and that the child is, in fact, still alive) is disappointingly absent. Whilst the žlm's ending is effective, it lacks the sheer power of the book's žnale. As with many book-to-žlm adaptions, a desire to change the ending is the žlm's
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, guardian to a small nephew and a small niece” depicts that Miles and Flora’s parents died in India (James 158). However, the details around their death are unknown and mysterious.
In his 1948 essay, Robert Heilman explores the suggestion that The Turn of the Screw is a symbolic representation of the conflict between good and evil. Heilman interprets the apparitions of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel as evil forces. He explains that the ghosts only appear to the governess because evil lurks in subtlety before it strikes. It is the duty of the governess to "detect and ward off evil." She must protect the children from the awful ghosts. The governess describes Miles and Flora as beautiful little cherubs whose only fault is their gentleness (James, 18-19). Heilman views the children's beauty as a "symbol of the spiritual perfection of which man is capable." Heilman explains the ghosts' attempts to reach the children by explaining that evil forces will always try to conquer and possess the human soul. Heilman continues to draw from the descriptions of Miles and Flora to support his theories. He points out that the two children are described as having an "angelic beauty" and a "positive fragrance of purity" (James 9, 13). The governess describes them as if they are perfect and beautiful in every way. This repeated vision of beauty, radiance, and innocence parallels the image of Eden. The house at Bly also resembles this image, "I remember the lawn and the bright flowers..." (James 7). The governess makes mention of the "golden sky" and of Flora's "hair of gold," which Heilman believes connects Bly and Flora with these images of golden hues (James 7, 9).