Henry James's The turn of the screw: analysis and themes

Turn of the Screw

In speaking of ghost stories, one may say that while there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, there's something really rotten in the House of Bly. That is to say, the Turn of the Screw by Henry James is chock-full with moral depravity and psychological terror, so much so that it gives even the greatest ghost story of all time a run for its money. But what makes the Turn of the Screw such a tour de force is not the fact that like Shakespeare's rendering of Denmark in Hamlet, the House of Bly is "an unweeded garden" of "things rank and gross in nature," but that unlike Hamlet the source for that moral depravity and psychological terror is a complete mystery (Shakespeare). It is the purpose of this essay to examine who is to blame for all the misery and terror in the Turn of the Screw.

From the start the reader gets a sense that there's something wrong with the Governess, but what? Obviously, she starts seeing dead people, but there's more to it than that. There's something, for lack of a better word, 'off' about her, but what is it exactly? This is a question that the reader asks himself/herself throughout the book.

As mentioned, early on, there are signs of her bizarreness, like when she meets young Flora the first time, she tells the reader, "But it was a comfort that there could be no uneasiness in a connection with anything so beatific as the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty had probably more than anything else to do with me restlessness that, before morning, made me several times rise and wander about my room to take in the whole picture and prospect" (James). To explicate, the narrator is so infatuated with her little darling that she's having trouble sleeping. Sure, while it's polite to be complimentary of young children in one's care, it's rather uncouth to describe them in such romanticized terms. Moreover, it's rather creepy that she's having trouble sleeping because of the young girl's 'angelic beauty.'

This description, and there are plenty more throughout the novel involving both young Flora and young Miles, reminds one of Humbert Humbert's fiery characterizations of his muse, his nymphet, his captive: Lolita. One cannot easily forget the impression Lolita leaves on him, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my -- . My sin, my soul," and one wonders if the Governess shares some of H.H.'s faults, mainly his pedophilic predilections (Nobokov). While there's no hard evidence to implicate the Governess as a child molester, her words betray as much:

"While this was done Miles stood again with his hands in his little pockets and his back to me -- stood and looked out of the wide window through which, that other day, I had seen what pulled me up. We continued silent while the maid was with us -- as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter. He turned round only when the waiter had left us. "Well -- so we're alone!" (James).

Of all the ways to describe one of her last meetings with Miles, the Governess opts to invoke the dynamics of newly wedded couple who are on their honeymoon and bristling with sexual desire. The sexual tension between the two lovers is so strong that when a waiter spots them they blush, becoming bashful. While there's nothing explicit to confirm this interpretation, it's a fair reading of the text especially considering the concluding exclamation by Miles, "Well -- so we're alone!" This cliched phrase certainly implies that there is a strong sexual undercurrent between the Governess and her charge.

Both themes - moral depravity and psychological terror - are fully manifested in these latently sexual descriptions. That is because like the best horror/suspense writers, Henry James understands the governing rule of his genre: that a heavy horror is most amply conveyed by a lightness of touch (Lane). Instead of directly telling the reader of the Governess's perverse thoughts about her subjects, James only hints at them. James understands that by omitting certain juicy facts and salacious details, he is provoking the reader's baser instincts. As a result, the Turn of the Screw is a Rorschach test. It is a menacing tale that is not concerned with supplying answers, only asking questions. James denies his readers any solid ground on which to stand, any clear lens through which to view his characters, so that they are left to the cruel art of supposition and speculation -- and really, what's more haunting than that?

What's interesting, and perhaps this is apparent from what's already been discussed, is that the characters appear to be placed in an equally perilous position. They also lack certitude with respect to the evil that surrounds them. The Governess discloses this to the reader, when speaking about the House of Bly, "No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half replaced and half utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm!" (James). The Governess admits that she's boarded a wayward vessel filled with lost passengers. Consequently, she feels as though she is put in a position where she must do what she can to steer them ashore, to safety, to a higher moral plateau. To do so, it logically follows that she must find her bearings and then set the ship on a proper course. In other words, she must locate the problem and fix it. Likewise, readers are attempting to do the same thing, determine who's good and who's evil and what the protagonist must do to in order to save the day. but, as mentioned, James does not give his readers or his characters the clarity they seek. As a result, we are all left wanting.

The reader does, however, discover what the Governesses intentions are; she voices those in rather emphatic terms. She has taken control of the ship, to further that analogy, so that she may 'save the children.'

"It made me, the sound of the words, in which it seemed to me that I caught for the very first time a small faint quaver of consenting consciousness -- it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize once more the chance of possessing him. "Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you knew how I want to help you! it's only that, it's nothing but that, and I'd rather die than give you a pain or do you a wrong -- I'd rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles" -- oh, I brought it out now even if I should go too far -- "I just want you to help me to save you!" But I knew in a moment after this that I had gone too far" (James).

At this point in the book, Flora has pretty much turned on the Governess, but she still thinks she has a shot to save Miles. Through her incessant questioning, she hopes to get to the bottom of his problems at school. She wants to know why it was that this precocious little boy got expelled, moreover, why the ghost of Peter Quint is haunting him. Did Quint molest and/or somehow corrupt Miles in some way, that's what the Governess wants to find out. Of course, it's also what the reader wants to find out as well.

One also has to point out the extreme, obsessive adulation the Governess feels for the young boy in addition to the lewd intonations in the language. Telling the child in such dramatic fashion that she would rather die than "give you a pain or do you a wrong" is something that one would hear one lover tell another. And with regards to the lewd imagery the language creates, this line, in particular, reeks of sex, "it made me drop on my knees beside the bed and seize once more the chance of possessing him." it's one thing to want to save a person, it's quite another to want to possess him/her. While one can argue that she's talking simply about holding him, given what she's said in the past, one can't help but to think that she may want more. And the fact that the reader cannot trust her, the fact that she is an unreliably narrator, only complicates and deepens ones reading of the story because the reader is left to wonder, is the Governess the cure or the curse?

Thus far, this paper has placed the blame for much of the woe squarely on the shoulders of the Governess. While this might be the case, a careful reading of the text would suggest that there are others who are at fault. It is after all a ghost story, so one may assume, just based on the conventions of the genre, that the two apparitions in the story are indeed evil. Supposing the reader takes the narrator at her word, there is evidence to support that the red-headed lecher, Peter Quint, and his infamously beautiful paramour, Miss Jessel, are the hell raisers the Governess makes them out to be.

The Governess describes Miss Jessel in demonic terms when she spies her across the lake, "Another person -- this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful -- with such an air also, and such a face! -- on the other side of the lake. I was there with the child -- quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came" (James). According to this initial description, Miss Jessel fits the profile of an evildoer. It should be noted that this initial impression of Miss Jessel is later complicated, if not contradicted, by a later description where the Governess is the one doing the haunting, "I remained where I was, and while I waited I thought of more things than one. But there's only one I take space to mention. I wondered why she should be scared (James)."