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Homework Help: English: Books, Novels & Plays: Turn of the Screw
by Emily McPherson
Its introduction recalls that in supernatural stories of the "festive
kind", the appearance of a ghost to a child "gives the effect of another
turn of the screw". Captivated by this effect, James goes further: two
children give "two turns", he says, and unfolds the tale of little
Miles and Flora.
The story concerns itself to the hideous fate of two "beautiful and
charming" children Ð Miles and Flora Ð whom the governess believes have
been subjected to a baneful and corrupting influence of two evil
intentioned servants, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. We are told that the
servants, now dead, are unable to give up their hold upon so much
beauty, come back to haunt the children as influences of horror and
evil.
The "little fairy prince", Miles, and the "cherub" Flora, are described by the governess as being so lovely in their
childlike innocence, and so delightful in their natural dispositions.
Yet, in a series of bizarre incidents, the governess becomes totally
convinced that these children are accursed, and all but damned, as Flora
becomes an "old old woman", and Miles "accessible as an older person".
She believes them to have "play" with the lost souls, formerly inhabited
by the bodies of their vivacious governess and her paramour Quint who,
in turn, begin the degradation of their victims, and teach them of
"forbidden things".
This corruption, or "love of evil", takes the form of a "knowingness"
which, to the reader, can take on an ominous meaning as the
"incarnations of loveliness" find their souls relentlessly pursued by
evil, including that of the Governess herself. This creates surprising
intimations of physical and sexual abuse, and its ambiguity creates a
vast void of terror, leaving the reader wondering about the sanity of
the narrator.
In the dialogue between the governess and Miles on their Sunday morning
walk to church, the boy asks if he can return to boarding school. The
reasons given is so that he may "not be with a lady alwaysÉand always
the same lady" and so that he may be "with his own sort". This could be
taken to imply a sexual relationship between the governess and Miles, or
a homosexual one between Miles and "his own sort", including his evil
genius Quint. Or, it could quite innocently mean he wants to return to
school. The same can be said about many other conversations, including
when the Governess tells that she'd "rather die than hurt a hair on
Miles". Die, could be taken to mean intercourse.
The horror is in the implied depths of cynical depravity in the boy.
James succeeds in conveying a powerful sense of the child's corruption
without recourse to a single specific detail.
However, all this is only ever implied, and can only be understood by
those who also share the same sexual "knowingness" as the children.
Yet, if the reader is innocent to this, so to would appear the children,
and the whole story would take on a separate meaning. When taking this
into consideration, the children can either be the incarnations of
loveliness and charm, or the microcosm of decadent evil. The children
can only be withered in the flame of the readers knowledge.
The turn of the screw itself, is really the turn of ordinary human
virtue, which can also imply a devilish innuendo. This makes is much
more than just a ghost story as it has been physiologically conceived.
At the beginning, we are told that the thrill is that there is more than
one turn of the screw Ð perhaps the reader is the other victim of this
developed consciousness as it reflects one's own mind. This makes it
even more chilling as the sexuality is always in the text, but can
remain latent.
The children and their circumstances look to be of purity, joy, and
beauty. However, underneath is a sunken corruption, never fully
uncovered, but always darkly, and potentially hinted. The awful
"imagination of evil" that this fair boy and girl posses, with "the
oldness of heart and soul in their young bodies", means that they can be
a bit lower than angels, yet slaves in the realm of evil. The good
and evil are in a constant, delicious combat, making a joint rule of
heaven and hell. However, the underlying evil, once evoked, creates an
extreme form of capture and can override all innocence, energizing the
terror.
Homework Help: English: Books, Novels, and Plays
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