The Turn of the Screw
Webpages concerning "The Turn of the Screw"
|
The contents has been generating using technology developed by scientec.
Wikipedia-Article "The Turn of the Screw"
The Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation.
Due to its possibly ambiguous content and powerful narrative technique, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The reader is challenged to determine if the protagonist, a nameless governess, is reliably reporting events or instead is some kind of neurotic with an overheated imagination. To further muddy the waters, her written account of the experience -- a frame tale -- is being read many years later at a Christmas house party by someone who claims to have known her.
The account lends itself to many different interpretations, including those by Freudian psychologists and those trying to determine who or what exactly is the nature of evil within the story. In her 1976 dissertation The Concept of Ambiguity: The Example of James, Shlomith Rimmon analyzes aspects of verbal and narrative ambiguity in this and other texts by Henry James.
Contents |
Plot summary
An unnamed narrator listens to a manuscript read by a male friend from a former governess whom the latter claimed to know and who is now dead.
A young governess is hired by a man who has found himself responsible for his niece and nephew after the death of their parents. He lives in London and has no interest whatever in the children. The boy is at a boarding school. The girl, Flora, is living at his country home where she is cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. He gives the governess full charge of the children and makes it clear he never wants to hear from her again regarding them. The governess travels to her new employer's house and begins her duties. Shortly thereafter, the boy, Miles, turns up after being expelled from his school. For some mysterious reason, the headmaster feels he is a threat to the other boys.
The governess begins to see and hear strange things. She learns that her predecessor, a Miss Jessel, and her lover Quint, a clever but abusive man, died under curious circumstances. Gradually, she becomes convinced that the pair are somehow using the children to continue their relationship from beyond the grave. The governess takes action against the perceived threat with tragic consequences.
Key themes
Throughout his career James was attracted to the ghost story genre. But he was not fond of literature's stereotypical ghosts, the old-fashioned screamers and slashers. Rather, he usually created ghosts that were eerie extensions of everyday reality - "the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy," as he put it in the New York Edition preface to his final (and masterful) ghost story, The Jolly Corner.
He certainly followed this formula in The Turn of the Screw. In fact, some critics have wondered if he didn't intend the "strange and sinister" to be embroidered only on the governess' mind and not on objective reality. The result has been a long-standing critical dispute over the reality of the ghosts and the sanity of the governess.
Beyond the dispute, tribute must be paid to James' sheer storytelling ability. The Turn of the Screw leads up to its powerful climax with excellent pacing and many memorable scenes. It's an indication of the story's simple power to entertain readers that its hundred or so pages have generated thousands of pages of critical comment.
Critical evaluation
The dispute over the reality of the ghosts has taken an actual toll on some critics, most notably Edmund Wilson. He was one of the first proponents of the insane-governess theory. But he was eventually forced to recant this view under fire from opposing critics who harped on the governess' point-by-point description of Quint.
Then another commentator pointed out hints in the story that the governess might have gained previous knowledge of Quint's appearance in non-supernatural ways. So Wilson recanted his recanting and went back to his original view that the governess was unbalanced and the ghosts existed only in her imagination.
While other critics haven't been caught up in such a tangle, The Turn of the Screw continues to be the subject of extensive critical comment. What nobody seems to deny is James' technical mastery in the story, which remains one of his most popular works. In odd testimony to its power, a glimpse of the book was included in ABC's television show Lost.
Derivative work
An opera, The Turn of the Screw, was written by Benjamin Britten in 1954. The Turn of the Screw has been filmed at least five times. The best regarded version, entitled The Innocents, was directed in 1961 by Jack Clayton and starred Deborah Kerr. The story has also been converted into a ballet by William Tuckett.
References
- The Turn of the Screw: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism edited by Deborah Esch and Jonathan Warren (New York: W.W. Norton & Company 1999) ISBN 039395904X
- The Tales of Henry James by Edward Wagenknecht (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1984) ISBN 080442957X