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The genius of Henry James's masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw, lies in the ambiguity and indeterminacy of the text. The question of whether the ghosts are real or imagined by the governess, for instance, has been the subject of much speculation over the years, and a good case can be made to support either position on this matter. However, given the unreliable narrators of this story, and the character of the governess's confidant, Mrs. Grose, there is a great deal of evidence that the ghosts are imagined. Yet the strongest evidence that the ghosts are not real stems from the fertile imagination of the mentally unstable governess.
First of all, the story is told from the perspective of several unreliable narrators, including the governess. The setting is established by an unnamed narrator, who relates to the reader that a group of friends at Christmas time are exchanging ghost stories and competing with each other to tell the most chilling tale. As Douglas tells his guests, for example, "If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children - ?" (47). From Douglas's manuscript, which is written in the hand of his sister's former governess, who died twenty years earlier, the unnamed narrator has transcribed his own manuscript. And finally, twenty years after the death of Douglas, it is the initial unnamed narrator's manuscript we are privy to, but it is written from the governess's point of view. Because it has changed hands so many times, the truthfulness of the story is highly suspect. For example, when the governess tries to describe to Mrs. Grose the man she saw in the tower, she tells her, "He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor," but then she adds, "I've never seen one, but so I suppose them" (45). Similarly, the governess compares Bly in autumn to a theatre after a performance. Since she has never seen an actor, we can conclude she has never been to a theatre, either. Therefore, the reference to an actor and a theatre may have been added into the transcript by one of the unnamed narrators, and these instances point to a corrupted text. It is also noteworthy that Douglas, "for whom the explanation of ghosts rather than madness renders the governess innocent," is one of the framers of the events (Grade Saver). The fact that he was in love with the governess renders his view a biased one, which the reader must be wary of, when considering whether the ghosts are real or imagined.
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Second of all, the text is not the only element of the story susceptible to corruption. The impressionable governess is quickly smitten with her employer, and her decision to accept a position that entails the strange stipulation that the employer never be contacted about anything, shows her lack of good judgment and the employer's sexual power over her. From the moment she arrives at Bly, she has delusions of grandeur and aspirations to climb the social ladder. She assesses the master's summer home to be more beautiful and larger than she had expected, and seeing the two maids peaking out the window as she arrives makes her feel important. She thus begins to imagine a more promising future for herself. She tells the reader, for example, "I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be a matter beyond his promise" (48). In addition, the governess makes an allusion in her narrative to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, a novel in which a governess marries her employer. Therefore, the governess hoped for a similar fate, and she set out to take charge of everyone and everything at Bly, to become the master's "wife by proxy" (Grade Saver). In addition, the governess's first view of herself in a full length mirror at Bly not only signals the disparity between her poor upbringing and the wealth of the master, but it also symbolizes how little she knows of her self.
Third of all, the irresponsible governess, unwilling to notify her employer about her concerns, lest it reflect badly on her abilities, can only confide her fears in the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The elder Mrs. Grose is thus the governess's confidant, and through their exchanges the reader learns more about the machinations in the mind of the young governess. Unfortunately for the governess, Mrs. Grose is only a soundboard and not a voice of reason, for she is mindful of the governess's superior position and is careful not to overstep her bounds or usurp the governess's authority. Even when she does offer her opinion, Mrs. Grose never manages to say anything that would alleviate the governess's fears or her pre-occupation with the existence of morally corrupt ghosts. When Mrs. Grose chimes in, for example, that Quint was inappropriately spending too much time with the boy, the governess misconstrues this to mean inappropriate sexual behavior between the adult and the child. Mrs. Grose's real objection to Quint's behavior, however, stemmed from the fact that she considered Quint, who was a menial laborer, to be beneath Miles's station. Furthermore, Mrs. Grose is so deferential to the governess that she agrees not to contact the master about what is going on with the children, which allows the increasingly unstable governess more control.
Lastly, the love-struck governess, whose mind is overburdened with repressed sexual fantasies toward a man above her station, projects her desires and disgust unto Quint and Miss Jessel. She fears that the ghost of Quint, who had an affair with Miss Jessel - a woman above his station is sexually interested in Miles, and that similarly, the ghost of Miss Jessel is interested in morally corrupting Flora. The governess even suspects little Miles of misbehaving sexually with the boys at school. In the final analysis, the governess's sexual frustration overwhelms her and undermines her mental health. Therefore, when she is unable to reconcile her strict Victorian and religious upbringing with her instinctual sexual desires, this conflict manifests itself in the form of hallucinations about amoral ghosts.
Despite the ambiguity of the text and the aforementioned evidence that the ghosts are figments of the governess's imagination, The Turn of the Screw can be described as a story about good vs. evil. The prepubescent children epitomize good, for example, and the selfish, sexually preoccupied governess represents a form of evil. Thus, in an ironic twist, the governess's professed intention to protect her young charges from evil spirits results in the destruction of the angelic-looking children because the governess is the real evil influence, even if unwittingly so. When she loses control and is unable to endear herself to the children as their mother, which in turn jeopardizes her ambition to marry their uncle, she unleashes her fury on them like a wicked stepmother. The ending of this story, therefore, in which little Flora is driven nearly mad and little Miles dies in the arms of the governess, is a result of the governess's madness, and not the doings of ghosts they exist only in the mind of the governess.
James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. The American Tradition in Literature. Vol. , th ed. Perkins, George and Barbara Perkins. McGraw-Hill College, 14. 478-54.
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