Dark sexuality and social class in The Turn of the screw Despite the horror story surface, at its core The turn of the screw relies heavily on the idea of societal positions and hidden sexuality. Seduction leads to destruction as the governess is infatuated with the uncle. She believes her actions at Bly are heroic but they are mainly superficial. Violation of social norms leads to consequences in the Victorian era, and high-class citizens abuse low-class citizens to take advantage of them. The main themes in The turn of the screw highlight abuse and sexuality between social classes though the unnatural relationships of the governess and the uncle, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, and Miles and the governess. The narrative begins like a typical …show more content…
Miles seems to be disciplined and tries to please the governess as much as he can. Undecided on his disturbingly empty nature, the governess remains on guard. It concerns Mrs. Grose that the governess spends plenty of time observing Miles, instead of educating Flora. It is out of place for a governess to be associated with the young master. There are elements of pedophilia in the governess and Mile’s relationship, in chapter 11 James writes “he bent forward and kissed me. It was practically the end of everything” (46). She goes to Miles’ room and sits on his bed in the middle of night, even hugging him. Miles is corrupted to sexuality, with childlike innocence missing and a blunt approach towards forbidden intimacy. The reason he was sent home from school would be linked to the ambiguous letter announcing Miles was expelled from school. This is a strange mixture of attraction and repulsion between Miles and the governess’ sexuality. One of the most challenging ideas of The turn of the screw is if the ghosts are real or purely the governess’s imagination. As haunting as the ghosts appear, the real fear is what society feared. Each one of the relationships between the characters indicates the violation of social class and hidden sexuality. With examples of pedophilia activity, relationships developing between people on different social classes, and children corrupted to adultery the narrative focuses on the dark themes. The inequality of social classes is emphasized through the characters’
The production of Honky is a satirical comedy, following the lives of five people and the language of racism. While it focuses on the plot of 5 characters, the storyline was well thought out and intriguing. One actor in specific, Gerard Joseph, who played Thomas, did an exceptionally well job at conveying emotion and projecting to the audience, in my opinion. The overall directing, from the actors to the soundtrack and lightning, seem to be presented with excellent detail. Overall, this production was well done.
AP English Literature and Composition MAJOR WORKS DATA SHEET Title: A Raisin In the Sun Author: Lorraine Hansberry Date of Publication: 1951 Genre: Realistic Drama Biographical Information about the Author Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930. She grew up as the youngest in her family. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a real estate broker.
When being introduced to the characters, sometimes we learn about their appearance, personalities, profession, or history. Miles is a single man who does not have a successful love life. His first love, Carla Carpenter, was a distant girl (by choice) who ended up marrying Miles’ brother Dale. When Anna Thea Hayworth came along, Miles seems to fancy her but never did anything about it. He has nicknamed her Thanatopsis, but she married Wayne Workman, Staggerford’s principal. Miles does not get along with Wayne, probably due to his liking of Anna Thea. As for nonromantic relationships, Miles has is a friendship with the librarian Imogene Kite. Miles describes her as “too tall and bloodless to be attractive” (Hassler 29). On impulse, Miles kisses Imogene for no reason; this proves that Miles is desperate, lonely, and incapable of having clear feelings.
Every day thousands of people die and their families have to deal with the loss and depression that comes with this.I have personally gone through this experience and had to deal with the grief. When someone goes through a loss they usually go through five stages (D.A.B.D.A) : Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. In Hatchet Gary Paulsen uses survival and Character development to Show the reader how going through a major loss with no help puts emotional and physical struggles on you.
“When you are down in life, your friends get to know who you are. When you're up in life you get to know who your friends are.” -Anonymous. From the novel “Freak the Mighty”, the narrator informs us that Max and Kevin demonstrate a strong friendship. All in all, they were there for each other in the good times and the bad. So in conclusion, good friendship includes teamwork, trust, and having adventures.
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.
The play “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry has many interesting characters. In my opinion, the most fascinating character is Ruth because of her many emotions and captivating personality. She goes through extreme emotions in the play such as happiness, sadness, anger, stress, and confusion. Ruth is very independent, firm, kind, witty, and loving.
...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.
throughout the novel that Peter Quint’s corruption of Miles could have been of a sexual nature.
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
In a criticism on Henry James’s story The Turn of the Screw, Strother Purdy suggests that large amounts of sexual passion may be assumed to exist underneath the surface of the narrative. Purdy says that under a Freudian interpretation of the story, the sexual element is easily recognized and is used as the whole source of the action. According to this theory, the governess wishes to impress her master because she is in love with him and, therefore, exceeeding her authority with the children. Although the governess only sees her master twice, Purdy refers back to what Douglas had said,” it was the beauty of her passion.” Since the master is not impressed by her initial and ordinary course of governessing, she must make up some life-threatening danger to the children so she can rescue them and win the masters love and affection. She figures the danger must be terrible because he told her he did not want to be bothered with matters dealing with the children. He basically tells her he cares nothing for the children. Purdy suggests the governess is unconscious in doing this because she is sexually repressed and cannot admit her sexual motives to herself
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 ...
The Screwtape Letters is a very important to me. It gives me the insight of how the devil does things to try to lure my soul into hell. It teaches me that some things that I may do are not necessarily good for me and my Christian lifestyle. Throughout this essay I will be citing examples from the book on how the evil uses the appearance of the good to further its aims. This book contains letters written by a demon named, Screwtape, who writes letters to his nephew, Wormwood, explaining on how to capture the soul of the good.
Noah is the one of the main characters of The Notebook. He is the hero of this novel. Noah represents true love and true loyalty. In a way, The Notebook is similar to every modern day romance movie, and Noah represents the “dream man” that all the girls always imagine of having. The characters in movies are used to symbolize ideas, and in this novel, Noah represents true, faithful, committed love. Noah remains loyal to Allie even in the situation where he is unsure whether they will ever meet again or not.