...Look What You Did!: An Analysis of Societal Effects in “The Turn of the Screw” “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James is a very riveting story that requires a significant amount of attention by the reader. James uses the governess as a main character in the attempt to produce a psychological thriller, instead of a ghost story. The governess is used to represent the Victorian era and what James predicted to be the result of their ways of life. He particularly uses the subject of repression to formulate the plot of the story. The fact that this was written in the perspective of the governess also allows the reader to somewhat understand the way people, especially women, thought during this time. Throughout this story, the actions taken by the governess and the things she says are blatant examples of her upbringing in such a society. From the beginning of this story, the reader learns minor, yet important details about the governess. Douglas makes it clear that he was quite infatuated with the governess and that she too may have had an interest in him. Douglas states that, “I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me, too” (2). Prior to this comment, he also points out that the governess is ten years older than him. What would constitute him to think that someone so much older than him would like him? Simply put, because she said so. Douglas knew she was in love, because when the governess wrote the story, she was forced to make it clear. There was no...
Words: 1771 - Pages: 8
...Turning the Screw: Analysing Douglas’s Tale In this essay I will be exploring the narrative style present in “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James and discussing the character called Douglas as a frame narrator for the governess’s tale. I will explore the reliability of Douglas and his relationship with the governess and look at any bias caused by this relationship. I will be analysing the narrative style of the novella, and discussing how this style contributes to the development of the story. Along with this, I will be comparing “Turn of the Screw” to traditional ghost stories, and discussing whether there are differences between the two. Douglas is presented from the outset of the story as a frame narrator in that he begins his tale by offering to recite a manuscript written by his sister’s former governess, who is a person who Douglas holds in high esteem. This act of recounting another person’s story, or presenting a story within a story, is a clear indication that the type of narrative present in the book is frame narrative (Frame Story - Wikipedia, n.d.). If we look at this fact in terms of the quote presented within the study material, we notice that Douglas places particular emphasis on his story, proclaiming to be “quite too horrible” (pg 1). Due to the fact that Douglas is a frame narrator rather than an omnipresent narrator, he comes complete with a range of human faults, including exaggeration and bias. The introduction of the story adds to this idea, as Douglas betrays...
Words: 1563 - Pages: 7
...TURN OF THE SCREW: James, Henry TAKES PLACE IN THE COUNTRY GOVERNESS NOT CONCERNED W NATURE-ONLY WORRIED ABOUT GHOSTS NO ORGANIZED RELIGION A An anonymous narrator recalls a Christmas Eve gathering at an old house, where guests listen to one another’s ghost stories. A guest named Douglas introduces a story that involves two children—Flora and Miles—and his sister’s governess, with whom he was in love. After procuring the governess’s written record of events from his home, he provides a few introductory details. A handsome bachelor persuaded the governess to take a position as governess for his niece and nephew in an isolated country home after the previous governess died. Douglas begins to read from the written record, and the story shifts to the governess’s point of view as she narrates her strange experience. The governess begins her story with her first day at Bly, the country home, where she meets Flora and a maid named Mrs. Grose. The governess is nervous but feels relieved by Flora’s beauty and charm. The next day she receives a letter from her employer, which contains a letter from Miles’s headmaster saying that Miles cannot return to school. The letter does not specify what Miles has done to deserve expulsion, and, alarmed, the governess questions Mrs. Grose about it. Mrs. Grose admits that Miles has on occasion been bad, but only in the ways boys ought to be. The governess is reassured as she drives to meet Miles. One evening, as the governess strolls around...
Words: 1066 - Pages: 5
...Imagine seeing what isn’t truly there, breathing air you think is inhabited by the same things as your nightmares. Expecting and hoping others see the same things as you, and you believe they do, but only because of your clouded mind in retrospect to reality. So, you act out. You want to be doing good and in your skewed view you are doing what’s right. That however isn’t the case and tend to do worse things rather than better. That is the main character of this novel Turn of The Screw. The Governess is sick and twisted and wants to do the best she can however because of her mental state she cannot seem too do such a thing. The Governess is lost in a sea of who she wants to be. She wants to be there and help the kids and even Mrs. Grose...
Words: 620 - Pages: 3
...EN1020: First Assessment – Secondary Sources Guy Davidson, "'Almost a sense of property': Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, Modernism, and commodity culture", Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 53.4 (2011), 455-78. In Davidson’s critical text, a relationship between a sense of belonging and property and the manifestations of the ghosts is presented. The way in which the Governess acts can be explained now through the idea of needing to find a sense of belonging on a world and home that isn’t hers. As a servant the Governess cannot feel at peace in a house, especially a house that has no male authoritative figure. Therefore it could be seen that the ghosts is her subconscious creating a Master to obey, i.e. through Peter Quint, and...
Words: 1611 - Pages: 7
...“The Turn of the Screw,” by Henry James is a novella that is open to countless of interpretations due to its ambiguity. There is contradiction after contradiction about whether the governess is sane enough to be able to see the ghosts of Ms. Jessel and Peter Quint. In fact, since the novella was published, many critics have argued that the projections of the ghosts are subjective to the governess’s imagination, while others argue the opposite. The story revolves around a young woman, who has recently finished her education. She accepts her first job: being the governess of little Flora and Miles. The two children are under the care of their uncle after the death of their parents. For this reason, the governess moves to the mansion in Bly, where...
Words: 1048 - Pages: 5
...How successfully does the black-and-white film version of The Turn of the Screw, The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961), render the ambiguity of James' original text? Ambiguity, the art of deliberately creating something that can have more than one meaning, lends itself to the written word without difficulty. A written story can involve ambiguity in the characters, plot, narrative - every factor in the story can have to it a sense of uncertainty. However, uncertainty concerning ambiguity is subtly different from uncertainty involving vagueness; the former is a deliberate ploy by the writer to leave interpretation open to the reader's own imagination, whereas the latter comes about due to a lack of detail delivered on the part of the writer, probably due to lack of talent or attention. With The Turn of the Screw, Henry James crafted an immensely complex and highly ambiguous book - there is nothing vague here; when Jack Clayton decided to make it into a film, he faced an upward struggle. Adapting a book for a film is always beset with difficulties - the written word has the ability to be far more subtle than the projected frame - but capturing the ambiguity of The Turn of the Screw would be immensely difficult. Words do not have to be precise in their meaning but a picture on a cinema screen is just a picture - there is little subtlety or uncertainty. A director has to employ imaginative techniques to make a viewer doubt what he is so evidently seeing. This was especially...
Words: 2764 - Pages: 12
...Turn of the screw was published in 1898 and written by Henry James. It is a Gothic novella detailing the disturbing and ambiguous events that a young governess experiences during her time at Bly, the country house is which the children and their caretakers live. From the beginning of her stay at Bly and up until the end of the novella, the young Governess is plagued by visions of spectral figures (a man named Quint and a woman called Miss Jessel) that seem to take particular interest in the Governesses young charges( a boy named Miles and his younger sister named Flora). It is hinted, by the head of the house, that the spectral figures, which were previous caretakers of the children before their ambiguous deaths, engaged in illicit activities...
Words: 434 - Pages: 2
...Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw addresses the destruction that result from the desires of the people in the government in the early 20th century who, because of their greed for more power created a corrupted and stained society. Their hunger for power and capital destroyed the balanced system of society leading to the hatred of the citizens towards the government officials. James’s imagery envelops the essence of the destruction which exists as the two apparitions, hinting at the destructions as a result of greed in the 19th century for dominance. Furthermore the narrator’s tone amplifies the dramaticness of the novella, which expresses the governess’s hysteric mind and desire to protect and shield Flora and Miles from the corruption of the ghosts that don’t exist. James employs multiple types of figurative languages throughout the whole novella, enhancing the suspense and ambiguity within the lines of the text. First the governess’s the solemn one who actually sees the ghosts, which contributes to the fact that the ghosts’ only exist in her imagination therefore classifying the narrator as unreliable. For example in chapter 20, when Mrs. Grose and the...
Words: 867 - Pages: 4
...The Death of Miles: Smothering “Love” Is it possible for death to be able to cure a child from corruption of the mind? The definition of corruption goes as follows; the state of being corrupted or dishonest proceedings. The tale of The Turn of The Screw by Henry James as portrayed in the book as well as the governess that appears in both seems to think so. She simply thinks that corruption of the children she has been trusted and set out to take care of are in danger of being corrupted by ghosts of the adults that used to look after them. The novel by Henry James is a tension building thriller that brings the reader inside the mind of a young governess that thinks she has the ability to save the children from corruption. After the governess has her first encounter with Peter Quint she thinks that he is looking for Miles, and the battle of possession over Miles begins. The governess state of mind becomes delusional to the audience as she obsesses over her thought that Quint has come to corrupt Miles, as her obsession becomes stronger throughout the novel, we find Miles dead in the arms of the governess as she kills him with her smothering love. The setting that surrounds the governess at Bly allows the reader to be able to attach reason to the governess actions and assumptions at a early part in the novel. The second encounter the governess has with Peter Quint when Mrs. Grose told her that it indeed was Quint, was where she made her conclusion that Quint was looking for...
Words: 1819 - Pages: 8
...Through ambiguity, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James accomplishes multiple attributes of a traditional gothic story. This ambiguity, however, spurs some debate regarding the plot of the story, whether it is a ghost story or psychological horror. The protagonist, the governess, is convinced she is interacting with the supernatural, but no one is able to confirm this, indicating that the ghosts do not exist. As her hysteria grows, she sees more ghosts and the children’s behavior becomes stranger and more distanced. One can conclude from these aspects of the story that it is not the ghosts that are harming the children, but it is the governess in fits of madness. On the eve of her employment at Bly, the governess is unable to get a proper...
Words: 553 - Pages: 3
...In his book Turn of the Screw, Henry James shows that an inattentive upper class is blinded by their own prejudice towards the lower class causes a chain of corruption. Quint corrupts Jessel, who then becomes a social outcast and it is implied that she loses her baby while Quint remains unaffected. Quint is the person with the lowest status in the novel and he succeeds in creating Jessel a social outcast and causing much suffering. Jessel was a “lady,” while Quint was “dreadfully below,” in terms of class. Jessel did not realize Quint’s motive to use her as a puppet, consequently she “didn’t forbid him.” Quint had an infinite amount of time to corrupt Jessel, “she spent hours with him.” Quint was not an innocent lower class man, he was insinuating...
Words: 771 - Pages: 4
...In Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, the reader must question the governess’ sanity and determine for themselves whether the ghosts seen by the governess are projections of her own unconscious thoughts and desires, or if they are truly there and haunting the children. The text itself allows for these two highly contradictory perceptions. The differing perceptions of readers contribute to the ambiguity of the text itself forcing the reader to become one with the story as well as a product of the story in order to gain an understanding of the text itself. To interpret the events that transpired throughout the story, one must first immerse himself or herself into the story. Felman writes, “…the story’s frame thus encloses not only the story’s content, but, equally, its readers and its reading” (124). Once one becomes part of the story, his or her perceptions become part of the story as well. Each new insight creates a deeper meaning of the story and a new lens one can use to comprehend it. At the very end of the story, when the governess begins to interrogate Miles, she becomes so engrossed in the...
Words: 713 - Pages: 3
...ENC 1102 02 December 2010 Ambiguity: Is The Turn of The Screw based on a true story or is it a tale of insanity? The ambiguous writing style used by Henry James in The Turn of The Screw leaves the story open to the interpretation of the individual reader. I will show how this ambiguous writing style does not lead the reader to any specific interpretation, but it is actually used by James to deliberately confuse the reader and foster an atmosphere of uncertainty. This purposeful lack of facts by James throughout the story makes the reader draw his own conclusions about what actually takes place. Many critics have analyzed The Turn of The Screw and most of them have come to the same conclusion; that the story is littered with ambiguity, but this is where the consensus ends. Nearly everything that takes place in the story can be interpreted in more than one way (Beidler 189). This novella penned by James has generated more than three hundred books, articles, and doctoral dissertations over the last forty years (Teahan 349). One critic, Edmund Wilson, wrote in his evaluation “There is a very good reason, however, in the fact that nowhere does James unequivocally give the thing away: everything from beginning to end can be taken equally well in either of two senses” (172). Just a few of the many unanswered questions that get asked are: Why did Miles really get sent home from school, is he as angelic as he is originally portrayed or is he a bad boy? Why does the uncle...
Words: 1747 - Pages: 7
...The Innocents, a film directed by Jack Clayton, adapted from Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw by John Mortimer, William Archibald and Truman Capote, can be argued to have subject matter of either a supernatural or psychological nature. The same can be said for Henry James’ original, but having digested both texts it is made clear to me that there are some very noticeable differences between the two, that both hinder and enhance our understanding of the stories. In both the film and the novella, the principal story is narrated, somewhat unreliably, by Miss Giddens, the governess appointed to care for the two children by their uncle. In Henry James’ version however, the story is framed in the prologue by an unknown character, Douglas, who introduces the story to a few friends at a house party. In the film, we see Miss Giddens crying with her hands together as if praying, emotionally exclaiming: “All I want to do is save the children, not destroy them. More than anything I love children. More than anything.” It then fades into the interview scene with the uncle, soft focus, to suggest a flashback. Both these openings elicit an anachronistic or nostalgic feel, and with The Innocents, this sensation is strengthened by the black and white cinematography. The cameraman, Freddie Francis, used a special filter which darkened the edges of the frame similar to the ‘vignette’ effect. This had practical uses for characters walking of screen but it also gave the impression that...
Words: 2028 - Pages: 9
