The Turn of the Screw

“‘The story won’t tell,’ said Douglas; ‘not in any literal vulgar way.’”

Douglas corrects the Prologue narrator, who ventures that the governess’s story will tell with whom she was in love. In her narrative the governess confesses she “was carried away” (12) by her employer, but she provides clues suggesting she was also carried away by Miles and was too possessive of him. By dodging questions about his relationship with the governess, Douglas also encourages speculation that she was in love with him. This uncertainty regarding the governess’s love interest contributes to the widespread ambiguity that haunts the novella, making it a “story [that] won’t tell.”

“Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall presently give.” 

These are the words of the Prologue’s narrator, who directly addresses the reader here. The statement begins in the manner of a confession, as if the narrator feels obliged to acknowledge the upcoming narrative is a copy, but it ends with an assurance that the copy is accurate. Yet the narrator’s effort to allay doubts about the story’s authenticity only highlights how far removed the reader is from the original events, which the governess recorded decades after they occurred. She later shared the story with Douglas, who later shares it with the unknown narrator. By signaling how detached the narrative is from its origins, James’s text positions readers to question how “exact” and truthful it is.

“This […] prospective patron proved himself a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage.” 

With his description of the governess as an “anxious girl” and her employer as a bachelor in his prime, Douglas sows the seed for the Freudian interpretation of James’s novella. First popularized in the 1930s by literary critic Edmund Wilson, this interpretation uses Sigmund Freud’s psychological theories to argue the governess is neurotic. She is horrified by unfamiliar sexual desires for her employer and represses them, but they haunt her subconscious. The ghosts are delusional manifestations of her subconscious dread and, thus, not really ghosts at all.

“The large impressive room, one of the best in the house, the great state bed, as I almost felt it, the figured full draperies, the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot, all struck me […] as so many things thrown in.” 

For many reasons, both personal and social, the governess struggles to define her identity. Although Bly’s elegance puts to shame her “own scant home” (10), her father is a parson, and her family’s social status would be respectable. She is by rights a lady, but because financial misfortunes compel her to join the working class, her identity is indeterminate. However, her “large, impressive” bedroom at Bly encourages her to see herself “from head to foot” (10) as more than a governess, and to claim her identity as a lady—and a lady of some worth.

“Are you afraid he’ll corrupt you?” 

Mrs. Grose asks this question of the governess, who, having received a letter from Miles’s school announcing his expulsion, wonders if the boy was a corrupting influence there. The question of who corrupts whom is the novella’s central mystery, which hinges on the question of what constitutes corruption. From the governess’s perspective, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel have polluted the children’s souls by introducing them to evil, the ambiguous nature of which is likely sexual. The text permits another perspective, however, that views the governess as the victim of cultural anxieties about sexuality, particularly female sexuality. Her internalized fear of sexuality destabilizes her psyche, causing her to torment and corrupt the children with hallucinations of nonexistent evil.

“What I then and there took him to my heart for was something divine that I have never found to the same degree in any child—his incredible little air of knowing nothing in the world but love.” 

The governess swoons over Miles’s beauty even more than she does over Flora’s, construing it as a sign of his purity and divinity. If childhood epitomizes innocence because children have yet to acquire forbidden knowledge, then Miles, who knows nothing “but love,” is nothing less than divine, as his angelic beauty signals. Ironically, the governess will soon suspect the children are schooled in forbidden knowledge and that their exceptional beauty—a ruse designed to deceive—proves it.

“I dare say I fancied myself in short a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear.”

After the children are in bed, the governess routinely strolls in the garden, imagining the estate is her own and that she, in full command of Bly’s little world, governs affairs with skill and propriety. It pleases her to think of her employer’s admiration, should he witness her capabilities. Her desire to be seen by her employer betrays her ongoing preoccupation with him and also reveals her efforts to define her identity. Although circumstances allow her to fancy herself a “remarkable young woman,” she wishes for the recognition of others to confirm her as such. Failing to gain this recognition while at Bly, the governess later writes a narrative that conveys her remarkable merits, thereby making them “more publicly appear.”

“Was there a ‘secret’ at Bly—a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?” 

When the governess sees a strange man perched on one of Bly’s crenellated towers, the shocking sight elicits thoughts of two popular, 19th-century gothic novels: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. These references establish the governess’s familiarity with gothic literary conventions and suggest she is predisposed to mapping the genre’s favorite motifs, including dark secrets and unsuspected horrors, onto her own experiences. While the tone of this intertextual allusion gestures toward parody, the dramatic suspense it evokes may be another example of the governess’s penchant for exaggerated foreshadowing.

“‘Quint!’ she cried.”

While James’s novella offers ample support for the argument that the psychologically troubled governess hallucinates the ghosts, those readers who claim the ghosts are real point to this moment as proof. The governess never met Peter Quint and was unaware of his existence, so she could not be familiar with his appearance. After she provides a detailed description of the figure she has seen, however, the housekeeper immediately identifies him as the master’s former valet and cries “Quint!”

“I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by excepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of the rest of the household.” 

The governess’s rhetoric here contains messiah-like imagery as she visualizes sacrificing herself to Quint’s demonic designs to save the innocence of her charges. Although “Mrs. Grose had kept back” and never specified Quint’s transgressions, the governess “read into” (33) her words that they were sexual. The self-professed “joy” with which the governess anticipates serving as Quint’s victim thus allows for two interpretations: As a devout Christian, she rejoices at the opportunity to model Christ’s sacrifice; alternatively, as a sexually repressed woman, she is subconsciously enticed by Quint’s infamous promiscuity.

“It was a pity I should have to quaver out again the reasons for my not having, in my delusion, so much as questioned that the little girl saw our visitant even as I actually saw Mrs. Grose herself, and that she wanted, by just so much as she did thus see, to make me suppose she didn’t, and at the same time, without showing anything, arrive at a guess as to whether I myself did!” 

Having seen Miss Jessel’s apparition while at the pond with Flora, the governess tells Mrs. Grose she knows Flora saw the ghost, too, precisely because the girl showed no sign of seeing it. Baffled by this logic, the housekeeper presses the governess to explain her certainty that Flora is in league with Miss Jessel’s spirit. Notably, the governess does not expound on her reasons, but rather repeats what she has already told Mrs. Grose, albeit with greater circuitousness. With its many clauses that equivocate between who did and didn’t see, this sentence produces more confusion than clarity and typifies the governess’s evasive, ambiguous narrative style.

“They’re seen only across, as it were, and beyond—in strange places and on high places, the top of towers, the roof of houses, the outside of windows, the further edge of pools, but there’s a deep design, on either side, to shorten the distance and overcome the obstacle: so the success of the tempters is only a question of time.” 

These are the governess’s words to Mrs. Grose, ostensibly warning that the apparitions of Quint and Miss Jessel are conspiring to close in on the children, to tempt them into surrendering their souls to damnation. Subjected to Freudian analysis, however, this statement registers the governess’s fears of her own subconscious demons. She has repressed her disturbing sexual thoughts and feelings, and as of yet, they only haunt her from “the further edge” of consciousness. They will inevitably “overcome” her mind’s barriers—just as children inevitably lose their innocence—and she will fall prey to the temptations that both intrigue and horrify her.

“I call it relief though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush.” 

These two sentences end Chapter 13 and demonstrate the governess’s use of foreshadowing, which she relies on throughout her narrative. As a literary device, foreshadowing produces suspense, a desirable effect if, as James remarked, he simply intended his novella to be a “potboiler.” According to the novella’s own structural premise, however, the governess has written the main narrative. Her allusions to gothic novels imply she is familiar with the genre’s conventions, which include forebodings of terror. Because the governess yearns to “be seen” as remarkable and heroic, she arguably writes her narrative in the gothic style to cast herself—and craft her identity—as a gothic heroine.

“Turned out for Sunday by his uncle’s tailor, […] Miles’s whole title to independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing to say.” 

While walking to church with Miles, the governess notes that the boy, dressed in the fashion of his uncle, conveys an air of independence and authority to which men of his social class are entitled. As a woman and a servant, she has no rights to these privileges, and she acknowledges as much by thinking she could only remain silent should he demand freedom. This is the governess’s plight: Her inherent lack of authority fuels her desire to “be seen” exercising authority to protect her charges, but her charges—especially Miles—have the authority to expose her power as illusory.

“My fear was having to deal with the intolerable question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, since that was really but the question of the horrors gathered behind.” 

Since her second day at Bly, the governess has avoided addressing Miles’s expulsion from school. She now believes Quint’s evil influence is behind Miles’s misconduct and, from this point on, presses the boy to explain the dismissal. From her perspective, she can save Miles from Quint—and damnation—by securing a confession of his sin. From another perspective, “the horrors gathered behind” (67) Miles’s expulsion are really the governess’s own subconscious horrors of sexuality, which she projects onto the schoolmaster’s vague letter. Through her hallucinations of Quint, she transforms this inner horror into an external evil against which she must fight to save the innocent.

“Dark as midnight in her black dress, […] she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers.” 

After resolving to leave Bly, the governess goes to the schoolroom to collect her things and sees the apparition of the former governess seated at her table. Miss Jessel appears “dishonoured and tragic” (69), but the governess momentarily identifies with her, considering herself no better than her predecessor. Perhaps the governess feels shame over her self-perceived failure to meet her employer’s expectations. Alternatively, Miss Jessel’s dishonored figure may be a projection of the governess’s own mind. The misery and self-loathing she sees in Miss Jessel are really her own feelings, brought on by her unacceptable sexual desires.

“‘To let me alone,’ he replied.” 

The governess arrives at Miles’s bedside in the middle of the night and finds him awake. Preoccupied with the question of what happened at his school, she suggests there is something he wants to tell her, and his reply echoes the words of his uncle, who directed the governess to never bother him, to “let him alone” (9). While the governess yearns for her employer’s admiration, his stipulation forecloses this, so Miles becomes his proxy. The governess grows increasingly attentive toward Miles, and he rebels, claiming his need for independence. Although this is natural behavior for a 10-year-old boy, the governess views it as a consequence of Quint’s demonic influence.

“Much as I had made of the fact that this name had never once, between us, been sounded, the quick smitten glare with which the child’s face now received it fairly likened my breach of the silence to the smash of a pane of glass.”

Silences and gaps proliferate in the governess’s narrative, serving as markers for those matters she perceives to be so dreadful, they are unspeakable. She has “made [much] of the fact that” (83) the children never speak of their former governess and construes their silence as proof of their clandestine communication with the dead woman’s wicked spirit. Notably, the governess breaks this silence herself by saying Miss Jessel’s name, but Flora only glares without speaking. Once again, the governess interprets the girl’s silence as a sign she is guilty of participating in unspeakable horrors.

“Flora continued to fix me with her small mask of disaffection, and even at that moment I prayed God forgive me for seeming to see that, as she stood there holding tight to our friend’s dress, her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, had quite vanished.” 

When the governess demands that Flora bear witness to Miss Jessel’s apparition hovering across the pond, the girl remains silent, and the governess concludes she has lost Flora to the infernal demons. At the same time, the governess perceives the girl’s beauty fading. Her expressed uncertainty over what she sees encourages suspicion that it is actually the governess’s perception of Flora that has changed. Whereas she once attributed to the girl a “childish beauty,” the governess now sees Flora as “almost ugly” due to her supposed loss of childish innocence.

“So I put it before her, but she continued for a little so lost in other reasons that I came again to her aid.” 

Although the governess refers to Mrs. Grose as her friend and companion, she considers herself superior to the housekeeper, both socially and intellectually. The governess repeatedly “puts before” her companion fresh insights concerning Quint, Miss Jessel, and the children, but her line of thinking frequently leaves the housekeeper lost, as it does here. By representing Mrs. Grose as slow-witted, the governess makes her the perfect foil for her own often puzzling claims. Thus, because Mrs. Grose is simple-minded, she fails to understand the governess’s paradoxical logic, which usually relies on questionable assumptions; and because Mrs. Grose fails to understand, the governess must come “to her aid,” largely by drawing conclusions for her—conclusions based on the same assumptions.

“How on the other hand could I make a new reference without a new plunge into the hideous obscure?” 

Mrs. Grose and Flora have departed, and the governess contemplates how to elicit from Miles a confession of his transgressions. She is loath to broach the subject with him for fear of confronting “the hideous obscure,” an admission on her part that accounts for the evasiveness of her own narrative and for the novella’s pervasive ambiguity. “The hideous obscure” lurks beneath James’s text, as does the subconscious below the conscious mind. As the text’s subconscious, it is too hideous to put into words, but it acts through silences and uncertainties to unsettle the meaning of the text.

“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.” 

Although the governess convinced Mrs. Grose to depart with Flora to give her time with Miles to coax out his confession, her “whimsical” thought while she dines with Miles suggests other, perhaps unconscious reasons. She has occasionally fancied herself the lady of the house before this moment, but she now assumes the role more earnestly, informing the servants that she and Miles will eat in the dining room, not the schoolroom. Indeed, by dispensing with “the fiction” (93) that Miles is her pupil and telling him she is his “friend” (97), the governess overlooks the age and class differences between them, which allows her to see them as a couple.

“The frames and squares of the great window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure.” 

After the governess and Miles finish dinner, Miles looks out the dining room window. The governess experiences an intense impression that, although Miles looks for Quint, his clairvoyance fails for the first time. He is “shut in or shut out” (96) from communication with the demon, as symbolized by the window frame. Miles may well feel shut in, but not necessarily because he cannot commune with the dead. Despite his expressed desire to leave Bly, “to see more of life” (66), the governess has narrowed his world to just the two of them, effectively trapping him.