Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Use of supernatural elements in literature
Good and evil in the history of literature
Good and evil in the history of literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Use of supernatural elements in literature
James’s The Turn of the Screw allows the reader to manoeuvre the story page by page on two different levels. The narrative provides an unsurpassed prospect to read in a split fashion, due to this the reader has the freedom to shift from ghostly story to character study. However, even though the reader is free to alternate from one interpretation to the other, as one advances further into the narrative, each version develops more horrifying stature than the former. With this gruesomeness building, the lovely Bly country house credibly disappears. The house, that at the beginning of the story brought beauty and sweetness into the hearts of the readers, peels off like rotting flesh from the skull of a corpse. This new, infernal landscape is made up of bones and stones, with a lavish amount of spaces to run, but unfortunately no place to hide.
Examining James’s tale closer, it becomes certain that the narrative is constructed in such a demanding way that the reader is almost certain to fall in love with the governess. Even though this implied love is challenged in the events of the story, the governess’s tale leads the reader back to compassion for her misery. One can even say that sympathizing with the governess allows the reader to accept uncertainty, thus accept the terror. This terror comes from not knowing what the governess has done, this terror outwardly haunts her to the day she died. But the governess did not let go even after her death, she passed on her horrific tale to Douglas, who in return became haunted. And presently, the tale comes to haunt its readers. This vicious circle of terror is never ending, and will continue to terrify many readers. Neither the governess, nor the reader can know if Miles was saved or just evi...
... middle of paper ...
... beings are tangible there are rough flaws in the interior of the natural versus supernatural dimensions, thus no one is safe for long. Does not matter what kind of ghost stories one reads, the most frightening ones will always have subliminally tactful narrative that understands the far-reaching disproportionateness. James’s The Turn of the Screw demonstrates that the good and evil are not correspondingly harmonised, even though good might conquest evil and the saved souls might find its way to the celestial afterlife, evil will nevertheless go down without a fight. It has shimmering serpent appearance, which mesmerizes and then chocks the final breath from the breast. The ones that relegated themselves to the eternal allure of evil are damned and restless in their purgatory. Maybe some of them are too horrid for the underworld, thus they sometimes walk among us.
Diane Urban, for instance, was one of the many people who were trapped inside this horror. She “was comforting a woman propped against a wall, her legs virtually amputated” (96). Flynn and Dwyer appeal to the reader’s ethical conscience and emotions by providing a story of a victim who went through many tragedies. Causing readers to feel empathy for the victims. In addition, you began to put yourself in their shoes and wonder what you would do.
The Screwtape Letters is a book made up of letters sent from one demon named Screwtape to another demon named Wormwood. Wormwood is a tempter trying to coerce a human away from Christianity, and Screwtape, his uncle, is attempting to assist him in his work though letters of advice. The human Wormwood tries to tempt, called The Patient by Screwtape, does end up defeating Wormwood’s attempts to trick him and makes it to heaven. However, it was not an easy process, and it was filled with strife, and in some cases, failure. He converted, relapsed, then returned to Christianity, but his second conversion was very much different from his first. His second conversion marks a major turning point in the book, from the Patient being easily fooled, and
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...
...d in the governess's eyes. After feeling she had lost Flora to the ghost, when in reality the governess had scared the child to death, Miles still shown to be a ray of hope for the demented governess. She refused to leave him alone and began to become angry and suspicious of his corruption when he would ask of his desire for schooling.
Interpreting The Turn of the Screw by Henry James from a Marxist point of view brings about serious social class distinctions and consequences of violation within that code. Miles and the unnamed Governess’ relationship demonstrate the wrongdoing of social and legal norms. The Governess’ indeterminate social status leave her as a forbidden woman in Victorian society taking on the role of primary caretaker to children, while Miles embodies the character of the absent master to whom the Governess feels intimately attracted. Mile’s union with rebellious, symbol of threat, Peter Quint, ultimately possesses him and lead to the breakdown of the social hierarchy. The Governess and Mile’s connection display the inappropriate boundary crossed between professional duties and desirable futures as a sexually active individual. Through the two characters moments alone, the rising apprehensions end in the governess’s infringement of social status as she employs to a mysterious sexual relationship with Miles.
The Stephen King’s short story, “The Reaper’s Image,” is considered by many to be one of the best pieces of American Gothic Literature. The story is centered around a mysterious, rare mirror called The Delver Glass. Sometimes, when people look into it, they see a haunting reaper. All who see it run away and mysteriously disappear. Its dark, bleak setting, supernatural events, and psychological torment makes the story a classic in the genre.
...was a desperate act of a lonely, insane woman who could not bear to loose him. The structure of this story, however, is such that the important details are delivered in almost random order, without a clear road map that connects events. The ending comes as a morbid shock, until a second reading of the story reveals the carefully hidden details that foreshadow the logical conclusion.
...eives nothing from the children. It should be obvious to the reader at this point that the children are obviously in no way doing any wrong and are telling the truth to the best of their knowledge. The continual obsession of the governess over maintaining the protection and innocence of the children gets so severe that it causes Flora to come down with a serious fever and Miles grows seemingly weaker and sicker without his sister there with her.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Many valid questions about these letters have been left unanswered by previous scholarship on this work. For example, what do these writings in The Turn of the Screw reveal about the traumas at Bly? What can they tell us about the past, about the ghosts, and about their unnatural deaths? How does James use the story as a letter to his readers with other letters inside it, to characters in the text? What can they reveal about their authors, and ours? What do they say about their readers? How do these letters hide each other, and the secret of their own importance?
Hidden subjects, the corruption of innocence, gender, and the destructiveness of heroism, can all be argued to be the main theme of The Turn of The Screw but only one can really bring the truest theme out of the story by Henry James. Many argue that there is no theme, or more than one but I believe that Forbidden subjects is truly the source that really captures what the story is all about. We can easily come to this conclusion by looking at the items in the story and piecing them together. For example, the young male child named Miles suddenly gets kicked out of school, but the reason for the expulsion is never uncovered. As the story continues, there are more questions and mysteries that never become revealed, which I believe is the entire purpose as to why James wrote this; to simply leave us puzzled as a crossword. Yes, the other themes are well organized and presentable, but they are not the underlying theme that James is trying to convey. James skillfully incites the reader’s anxieties by arousing the psychological mechanisms of the horror of the unknown. Without the forbidden objects in the story, it would just be another ghost tale with no mystery. That is why I firmly believe that hidden objects and solving mysteries are the main and most important theme to Henry James’s “The Turn of The Screw”.
In every community, there’s always one person who seems kind at first, but turns out to be not who you expected them to be. Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Possibility of Evil”, gives an example of this type of person. Miss.Strangeworth has loved in the same town, on Pleasant Street, all seventy-one years of her life. Miss.Strangeworth’s character can be analyzed by considered by what she says or does, what the narrator says about her, and how other characters interact with her.
“So many interpretations, so many exegetic passions and energetic controversies” (Felman). In The Turn of the Screw by Henry James there are many different interpretations. Readers use scrutiny to decode different parts of the text and create many different interpretations. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka forces readers to think what the true cause of the problem is. However, compared to The Turn of the Screw, the interpretations in The Metamorphosis is from a lack of context. Both texts get a deeper meaning and interpretation when put side by side and examined. The largest factor contributing to the similarities between the two books is ambiguity. Both novels create a craving in readers for more information or at the least a moment of clarity.
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 ...
Robert Heilman perceives that the ghost of Peter Quint is a direct representation of the serpent that plagues the Garden of Eden. Heilman supports this with the description of Quint found in the text, "His eyes are sharp, strange- awfully; .