The Turn Of The Screw

– Evaluation And Critique Essay, Research Paper

The Turn Of The Screw

Thesis Statement: While ?The Turn of the Screw? initially appears to be a typical ghost

story, progression of the novel exposes the narrator?s ignorance and unfamiliarity of

her position as the narrator moves towards a nervous breakdown.

?The Turn of the Screw?, by Henry James, first appears to the reader as a ghost

story. It is the tale of how a young lady accepts a job as a governess, and how she is to

be in charge of a house resided by two children, Flora and Miles. The young lady (never

given a proper name) instantly falls in love with the two children, and is quite content with

her job. However, some strange and ominous things start to happen. First, Miles is

withdrawn from school, and then the young lady begins to see people where she shouldn?t

be seeing anyone. Upon questioning, Mrs. Grose (the housekeeper) tells the young lady

about two previous residents of the house and their position to the children( 24). She

also tells the young lady that both of them are now deceased. The young lady becomes

convinced that these two apparitions she sees are indeed these two previous residents

(Peter Quint and Miss Jessel.) The rest of the novel is dedicated to showing the young

lady?s despair, and Miss Jessel.) The rest of the novel is dedicated to showing the young

lady?s despair, how she convinces herself that the children are aware of the apparitions,

and how they all together are forming a conspiracy against her. At the climax of the

novel, Flora becomes deathly ill and is taken away by Mrs. Grose, and Miles dies due to

the shock of ?seeing? Peter?s ghost.

In actuality, however, none ever sees, or at least claims to see, these apparitions

that the young lady is so uneasy about. The young lady is the narrator of the story,

and her narration and viewpoint are both very questionable. It seems that what she sees

and even what she thinks she sees are all incomplete, and filled in by her imagination and

her paranoid and jumpy conclusions. When she begins spotting these ?ghosts?, she has no

clue who they are. She first encounters the ?apparition? of Peter Quint, and upon

explanation she tells Mrs. Grose that he appeared ?far from a gentleman.? Mrs. Grose

brings up Peter Quint, but says he always looked like a gentleman, but acted suspicious.

On page 27 of the novel, Mrs. Grose says the following about Peter Quint, ?Quint was so

clever- he was so deep.? It is then and only then that our narrator decides that the person

he saw was ?indeed a gentlemen.? This attitude, this perspective, brought on probably by

the anxiety of the new job, new responsibility, and sheer loneliness, is only fuel to her

conception of these ?apparitions?, which is practically handed to her with illustration by

Mrs. Grose?s steady supply of information.

Another example of the narrator?s presumed fact is how she decides that the

children are in association with the apparitions. She is completely convinced of this. Yet

when she ?encounters? the ghost of Miss Jessel at the beach shore for the first time, Flora

is completely unaware of the ?apparition?s? presence, and actually has her back towards

her. Even more illuminating, about two hours later the narrator tells Mrs. Grose ?The

Children know all that we know – Flora saw!?(30) She is, of course, speaking of Miss

Jessel, and how by this time paranoia has caused her to honestly believe that Flora saw

her, yet it is clearly shown that Flora is too preoccupied with the water and her toys to

even notice Miss Jessel.

The end result of the narrator?s lunacy and anxiety is Flora contracting a deadly

illness and the untimely death of Miles. After the narrator verbally assaults Flora, calling

her a liar ( 70) and accusing her off conspiring with Miss Jessel, Flora becomes deathly ill

and the narrator pleads with Mrs. Grose to take Flora away, thus saving her from the evil

that supposedly resides in Bly. The narrator also says that she will handle Miles, and

spends time with him.

At the finish of the novel, the narrator sees Peter Quint in a window, and attempts

to force Miles to admit that he sees him too. But when poor Miles turns toward where

Peter is, he drops dead from the fright caused by the narrator. Poor Miles heart caves in

as he experiences a fraction of the narrator?s lunacy. Even the last sentence of the novel

displays the narrator?s madness when she says ?…his letter heart, dispossessed, had

stopped.?(88) In my opinion, the only thing possessing young Miles? heart was fear

and insanity, initiated from the governess.

Regarding the criticism and interpretation of this book, of the ones I?ve read, I

agree with Leon Edel?s ?The Point Of View?, which is his take on the novel. He states

essentially the same thing I do, being that the narrator is not stable and not to be trusted.

I think that he sums it up the best when he says

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