At its core, and for several reasons that will be explained in more detail in this analysis of the narrator and nature of the story “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, it is clear that this story is psychological thriller based within the Gothic tradition. If one wishes to place “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, in the gothic tradition of literature, this means, by proxy, ghosts or elements of the supernatural should be present. Before the reader begins to get a solid grasp on the subtext of what occurs in the story, however, it does seem to be very much a simple ghost story, although even literary critics disagree with this assessment of “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. There is even an expectant audience for “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James by Henry James looking to be scared by a good tale and like that audience, the reader begins by expecting the same. However, aside from being a mere ghost story or psychological thriller, the fact that the narrator might not be reliable plays into the classification of this story as well and in fact, the question of whether or not the narrator is reliable in “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James becomes of paramount importance.
We are told immediately in “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James that there is a ghost as well as a woman and a large old house (again, classic tenants of Gothic fiction) but we are not told that this story offers more than meets than eye. Instead of being directed to focus on the events in the tale solely, we find there are increasing needs to pay attention to the mode of narration and the reliability of the narrator herself. In fact, as the text progresses after the Governess’ first encounter with Quint, it is reasonable to focus more heavily on the Governess’s sanity and question whether or not this is all occurring in her head or if this is a true story and whether or not she is a reliable narrator. Therefore, instead of being a typical ghost story where we simply focus on the tale, much of our attention must also be directed toward the subtext. As a result, this is a psychological thriller as the reader is constantly being forced to balance both the tale as well as questions about the mind of the person relating it and the fact that this might not be a reliable narrator.
Before the reader of “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James is aware that there might be an unreliable narrator and that he or she should pay attention to the psychological cues in the text, it is rather easy to believe that this is a simple ghost story and nothing more. It is reasonable to assume that her sanity is not in questions even though there a few clues that she has a rather active imagination. For instance, the first time the slightly unreliable narrator of “Turn of the Screw“ by Henry James sees Quint at the top of the tower, her perceptions of him are incredibly intense and her descriptions quite vivid. For instance, she notices from an incredibly far distance how, as stated in one of the important quotes from “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, “His eyes are sharp, strange—awfully; but I only know clearly that they’re rather small and very fixed. His moth’s wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he’s quite clean-shaven” (23). Even at this early point in Turn of the Screw by Henry James the reader must question whether or not she is really seeing all that she claims to be and is perhaps not a reliable narrator, especially since it is on a high tower. Interestingly, our unreliable narrator sees his picture in the house and can recognize him but for the first time the reader must delve into her psyche and go past the ghost story form itself to wonder whether or not she might have already seen the picture and after it excited her imagination, imagined this encounter. She was, after all, walking around the grounds of the estate and dreaming about encountering her beloved master on the grounds and one might infer psychologically that she was already in an excited state of mind to begin with.
One scholar posits the notion that on a psychological level, the Governess was projecting her desires into a hallucination and while she is an unreliable narrator. She comments upon the fact that the reader’s constant questions about the real versus the psychologically-driven are, she even states that by the end, the death of Miles as he is held by the Governess “implicates all of late-Victorian culture. The abuses of power were paid for at terrible cost. The Turn of the Screw is about the return of the oppressed as well as the repressed” (Veeder 47). As a result of this undercurrent of oppression, particularly sexually, all of the Governess’ impressions and narration are tainted with an element of psychological complexity. As she appears to get more intense about her beliefs and further convince Mrs. Grouse of the reality of her observations, the more insane she might appear to be.
This could be because as a woman of the late Victorian period in literature and society, all of her desires about her master and her wish to appear as the perfect caretaking woman coupled with the isolation of the isolation of the house were making her slightly insane and prone to hallucination. She sounds almost desperate when she attempts to convince Mrs. Grouse of the existence of these “horrors” saying to her in one of the important quotes in Turn of the Screw by Henry James when she questions that existence of Mrs. Jessel, “Then ask Flora—she’s sure!’ But I had no sooner spoken than I caught myself up. ‘No, for God’s sake, don’t!’ She’ll say she isn’t—she’ll lie” (30). Times like this make her seem as though she may be going mad and trying to tell others what she sees. In that same vein the children might also become so troubled because she is trying to scare them with ghost stories. The story “only concerns the narrating governess to the extent of her involvement in narrative space, that ‘beyond,’ where everything is ungraspable. She draws the children into the indecisive space of narration, into that unreal beyond where everything becomes phantom” (Sheaffer-Jones 231). In other words, she is so caught up in her crazed visions based upon her own repressed desires that she is blind to what she is doing to what is most important to her—the children. Although the fact that Miles dies in her embrace at the end after seeing Quint might reinforce the opinions of some who would suggest that he really did exist and was haunting the children, it could also be the case that the Governess killed him herself and used the hallucination to cover her tracks, both in real terms as well as in her mind. As a result of these and other questions revolving around the reliability of the narration, the reader is not just engaged in the ghost story that is occurring, but is also caught up in the difficult task of discerning the mental processes of the narrator in “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James.
Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Critical Analysis of “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James : Literary Criticism in Context • Class and Satire in “The American” by Henry James and “Huck Finn” by Mark Twain • Realism in American Literature • American Literature in Historical Context : 1865 to Roosevelt • Gothic Qualities in the Works of Poe
Works Cited
Sheaffer-Jones, Caroline. “The Subject of Narration: Blanchot and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.”Colloquy: Text Theory Critique no. 10 (2005): 231.
Veeder, William. “The Nurturance of the Gothic.” Gothic Studies 1.1 (1999): 47.
