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No matter if we read Henry James The Turn of the Screw for fun or for a serious purpose, we all seem to undergo the search for Peter Quint and Miss Jersey ourselves as the governess depicts her own story. That is, the existence of the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw has always been in debate. Instead of directly discussing whether the ghosts are real or not, here in this paper, attention will be drawn to the reliability of the governess, the narrator of the story. After making a close examination of her state of mind while she is at Bly, readers of The Turn of the Screw will have many more clues to ponder again and to decide to what extent the governess can be believed.
While critics like Heilman argue that there are problems with the interpretation that the governess was psychopathic, textual evidence incorporated with scientific research show that the governess did go through a period of psychical disorder that caused her insomnia, out of which she created hallucinations. In the prologue, Douglas gave a detailed account of the master from the governess point of view. She regarded him as handsome and bold and pleasant, off-hand and gay and kind; he struck her (James 4). Later on we learn from Douglas that the governess accepted the job at Bly for the masters sake, and of course the generous salary offered by the master. Without any experience, the governess passions for the master supported her to accept the job and confirmed her decision to take the challenge even though she feared not having the ability to accomplish the job.
The moral of which was of course the seduction exercised by the splendid young man. She succumbed to it (James 5). With the love for the master, the governess had the courage to visit the master again and eventually took the job. He held her hand, thanking her for the sacrifice, she already felt rewarded (James 6). Her obsession with the master was somehow repressed owing to the absence of the master and the condition that he could not be bothered under any circumstances.
According to Douglass description, the governess was the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson, had at the age of twenty, on taking service for the time in the schoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation (James 4). The governess was young and inexperienced. Douglas described the governess as young, untried, nervous (James 5). The work at Bly was her first experience as a governess. The idea of playing the dominant role at Bly may have scared her because in her whole life, she had never had the opportunity to play that kind of role in her family. Moreover, as a parsons youngest daughter, she had little experience of the world, the grandeur of the villa impressed her as she felt upon seeing it: The scene had a greatness that made a different affair from my own scant home (James 7).
Heller explains: The governess is worried about her responsibility from the beginning. At twenty she is barely an adult herself. The youngest of several children of a poor country parson, she has never seen the kind of life over which she must now rule alone, has never had a large bed, an expansive view, perhaps not even a room of her own. She has never seen herself full length in a mirror before. She wonders whether she can rise to the responsibility of directing the care of two children in such an establishment. (55) Ever since the governess arrived at Bly, her spirit had been kept in a state of alert.
There were a lot of new things thrown in that struck her. In an actual example, a 19 -year-old male college student suffered from insomnia ever since he left home to live at school. Doctors suggested that the therapy should focus on his mixed feelings about leaving home. (Kellerman 115) The governess was very much likely to go through what this college student had experienced since the huge mansion at Bly astonished her. She was trying to adjust to her new life in that grand mansion, learning to exercise the authority that she knew little about, and possibly overcoming the fear inside her. Young and inexperienced, the governess was overwhelmed by the new environment and the new duties that led her to several sleepless nights. Historically, the governesses during the Victorian era were treated as servants by their employers but they were also not of the servants rank, either.
The servants regarded the social rank of the governesses to be higher than theirs and thus it was hard for the governesses to socialize with the servants. The governesses were usually left in a state of isolation in the employers household. As to the governess in The Turn of the Screw, she was given supreme authority and at the same time, she carried the responsibility for the house and the two little children. She was put in a situation in which no one was at the same social status as her and no one could be her real company. Her supreme authority in some way even distanced her from the rest of the people at Bly, leading her to a position of solitude and fear. Douglas also described in the prologue that it was a vision of serious duties and little company, of really great loneliness (James 5).
Since the governess was the youngest in her family, an assumption can be made that she was always treated as a child and she might not have had a chance of her own to take care of little children. When she saw Flora, she thought that Flora was the most beautiful child she had ever seen, (James 7) and she was too excited to sleep the first night at Bly. And what is even more, she fantasized hearing the cry of a child and a light footstep. I had fancied I heard. There had been a moment when I believed I recognized, faint and far, the cry of a child; there had been another when I found myself just consciously staring as at the passage, before my door, of a light footstep (James 8).
When Miles came home from school, she was impressed by him: 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 childXhis indescribable little air of knowing nothing in the world but love (James 13). The governess was so much struck and convinced by Miles angelic image that she did not know what to do about the letter from Miles headmaster. The two children amused her and gave her great pleasure that she had not expected. Even so, the letter indeed bothered her. I had better have let it wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night. With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress (James 10).
The letter from Miles school fell upon her to test her ability of handling the authority. She couldnt figure out what caused Miles to be expelled from the school and also, it surely was a disturbance adding to her on the second day of her new life. The governess took the job at Bly knowing that she would not be able to see the master, however, her obsession with the master haunted her every second. At Bly, the governess made it a habit to wander around outside, taking a w...
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Research essay sample on The Turn Of Screw Henry James
