Tera Kirk
English 101

Concerning The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, there are three major schools of interpretation. For one school, the novella is a simple ghost story, with real apparitions, possessed children, and a heroic governess. For another, the story is a psychological drama--the ghosts are hallucinations of the governess’ distorted mind and it is her madness that corrupts the children, not ghosts. Then there are those who believe that Henry James wrote The Turn of the Screw with such ambiguity that we cannot say for sure if the ghosts are real or the governess is mad. All of these schools seem to operate on the principle that the ghosts’ reality and the governess’ madness are mutually exclusive concepts. What if the ghosts are real and the governess is mad--and these two ideas intertwine? The ghosts in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw are real, but the stress the governess is under heightens her perception of--and belief in--them; her psychological fragility and her experiences with the ghosts cause her to lose her sanity and kill Miles in the end of the story.

James does give us evidence of the ghosts’ reality in The Turn of the Screw and, while it is impossible to say that most of it absolutely proves that the ghosts exist (in other words, some critics will undoubtedly find their way around it), it is nevertheless very convincing. The first and perhaps most convincing evidence that the ghosts aren’t in themselves figments of the governess’ imagination can be found in the governess’ description of, and Mrs. Grose’s identification of, Peter Quint. He is described thus: “ ‘He has no hat...He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight good features and little rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair” (James 46). When Mrs. Grose asks how this man is dressed, and the governess replies, Mrs. Grose identifies the man’s clothes as the master’s and says, “ ‘Peter Quint--his own man, his [the master’s] valet, when he was here!’” (James 47). Then Mrs. Grose informs the governess--and the reader--that “he died” (James 48). Therefore, the governess has described in great detail a man she has seen but doesn’t know, and Mrs. Grose identifies him as someone she herself knows--but whom the governess has never seen--who has died.

Some readers believe that the ghosts are manifestations of the governess’ sexual repression. Stanley Renner asserts in his essay, “Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Boogeymen, and the ‘Ghosts’ of The Turn of the Screw” that aspects of Quint’s physical appearance are commonly associated with Satan. He says that “...in ancient lore it was held that Satan materialized in the form of a red-haired male” and that Quint’s “[wearing] the clothes of a gentleman in order to be taken for what he decidedly is not is also very much a part of his Satanic aura” (Renner 230). He concludes that Quint’s resemblance to common representations of Satan is proof that he is the product of the governess’ mind. He writes, “...the governess envisions an attractive male figure...in the form of the Tempter himself, as that form was imprinted in the mind of the culture of which she is representative” (Renner 231). There is no doubt that Quint could very well represent the devil, but there can be doubt as to whom is doing the representing. Does the governess’ unconscious mind associate Quint with the devil, or does James’ conscious one? Perhaps James endowed Quint with features like those of Satan to give the reader a greater sense of his evilness.

Aside from his appearance, Quint is connected with the devil in another way, by someone other than the governess. Near the end of the story Miles says, “ ‘Peter Quint--you devil!’” (James 116). Some critics believe that Miles is calling the governess a devil here, not Quint. However, in The Madness of his Art: A Study of Henry James, Walter F. Wright says that, “If James had wanted to study sexual frustration, he could have written a much simpler tale. Moreover, the sex-starved mortal is merely pitiful. In so far as he is abnormal he has little universal significance” (Wright 177). Thus, for those who believe so adamantly in the ghosts’ complete nonexistence, the scene of Peter Quint’s identification presents as a difficult obstacle to surmount.

Another piece of evidence of the ghosts as ghosts--and not hallucinations of a troubled mind--comes from Henry James himself. In his Preface to the 1908 edition of “The Turn of the Screw” he says that “The exhibition involved is a fairy-tale pure and simple” (James 139). Later, he says, “I had to decide in fine between having my apparitions correct and having my story ‘good’--that is producing my impression of the dreadful, my designated horror” (James 122). James is also quoted as saying of Quint and Miss Jessel, “ ‘They would be agents in fact; there would be laid on them the dire duty of causing the situation to reek with the air of Evil’” (Banta 117). Here, James seems to talk about his ghosts as though they are indeed real ghosts, created for an impression of horror.

Also, those who argue that the governess is “mad” may not see that the governess’ actions and thoughts, while “strange” when considered under normal circumstances, are for the most part perfectly logical in her particular circumstances (i.e. being visited by ghosts). For instance, one of the governess’ major concerns, upon learning of the existence of the ghosts, is that of the children’s safety. She says, “I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most lovable...I was a screen--I was to stand before them. The more I saw the less they would” (James 51-2). Later, when she encounters the figure of Quint on the stairs, she gathers up her courage like the horror story heroine some people believe she is: “I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, thank God, no terror...I felt, in a fierce rigour of confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease...to have him to reckon with” (James 66). She says that the silence itself was “indeed in a manner an attestation of my strength” (James 66). After Quint leaves and the governess sees the candle she let by Flora’s bed, she admits that “I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, I had been able to resist” (James 66). This strength and courage seems like that which people find themselves displaying in life-threatening situations: pulling a drowning victim out of the water, pushing someone out of the way of an oncoming car, etc. Thus, the governess’ response certainly appears to be a natural response to an unnatural situation, much like those found in real life heroes and horror story protagonists.

Although there is evidence for the ghosts’ existence in a world outside of the governess’ mind, there is also evidence that the governess indeed has some psychological characteristics which heighten her perceptions of and credence in the ghosts. Our narrator is very young, and applying for her first position as a governess. She says that during the ride in the coach to her new house she has been “brooding” over her relationship with her fellow servants (James 29). She is thrust in with people she doesn’t know, and is away from her family. Her general nervousness and inexperience may predispose her to a susceptibility to real supernatural influence--that is, because her psychological defenses are weakened, she is more likely to see and believe in the ghosts that haunt Bly. In Henry James and the Occult, Martha Bant writes that, “In story after story James used real apparitions for his haunted characters to see” (Bant 117). After discovering that she has seen a dead man, the governess questions her own sanity and takes gradually increasing leaps of logic. For instance, when the governess is with Flora at the lake and sees Miss Jessel’s apparition, she deduces that, because Flora does not look at her, she must therefore see Miss Jessel also. She says, “My heart had stood still for an instant with the wonder and terror of the question whether she, too, would see; and I held my breath while I waited for a cry from her...I waited, but nothing came” (James 52). However, even though “nothing came,” she proceeds to tell Mrs. Grose, “They know--it’s too monstrous: they know, they know!” and tells Mrs. Grose not to ask Flora about the appearance because “ ‘--she’ll lie!” She also assumes that “the child will keep it up...[i.e. visiting Miss Jessel] without my knowing it” (James 55). The governess, however, has no concrete evidence for any of this--it is, for the most part, her own filling in blanks with a story. Then, upon seeing Miss Jessel in both Flora’s and Mrs. Grose’s presence, the governess says, “...I remember, strangely....my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She was there, so I was justified; she was there, so I was neither cruel nor mad” (James 98). However, later the reader learns that, for the potential witnesses, Miss Jessel is not there. Mrs. Grose says, “ ‘What a dreadful turn, to be sure, Miss! Where on earth do you see anything?’” and Flora says, “ ‘I don’t know what you mean. I see nothing. I see nobody. I never have’” (James99). Therefore, though the governess is with two other people, Miss Jessel chooses to appear only to her. Flora’s denial of seeing the ghosts brings up another question--do the children actually see and communicate with the ghosts? This is a difficult question, but it seems that one can find logical reasons for their behaviors. For instance, at times Miles says things to the governess that seem not like things a child would say to his sister’s governess, but things a grown man might say to a woman he was romantically interested in. When the governess goes up to Miles’ room to question him about his expulsion from school and she asks what he is thinking of, he says, “ ‘What in the world, my dear, but you?’” (James 88). Later, during the governess’ last confrontation with Miles, he tells her, “Well--so we’re alone!” (109). Miles’ maturity has led some critics to believe that it is not Miles speaking at all, but the spirit of Peter Quint. However, there is evidence in the story that Quint may have taught Miles this way of speaking to women while he was alive. Regarding Miles’ relationship with Quint, Mrs. Grose tells the governess, “ ‘It was Quint’s own fancy. To play with him. I mean--to spoil him...Quint was much too free’” (James 50). Mrs. Grose’s meaning of the word “spoil” is unclear. She may mean that Quint overindulged Miles, or that he spoiled Miles’ innocence or morality.

Near the end of the story, the governess discovers the reason for Miles’ expulsion from school. He has “said things” to “those [he] liked.” When the governess asks if those Miles said things to repeated them to anyone, Miles says, “Oh yes--they must have repeated them...to those they liked” (James 114-5). Miles does not say much more on the subject, but the indication is that the things he said had sexual connotations, and that he learned to say such things from Peter Quint. Thus, Miles’ unnatural way of speaking to the governess does come from Peter Quint, but it was learned while Quint was alive, and not a result of his possession of Miles now that he is dead.

When the governess sees Flora at the window, Flora says, “You naughty: where have you been?” She says that she felt the governess had gone out on the grounds, and that she was looking for her. When the governess asks, “ ‘Why did you pull the curtain over the place to make me think you were still there?’” Flora answers, “ ‘Because I don’t like to frighten you!’” The governess wonders why Flora would have done this if she thought she might be on the grounds, the little girl replies, “ ‘Oh but you know...that you might have come back, you dear, and that you have!” (James 67-8). Though some readers find this exchange and Flora’s poise during it odd, there is nothing in it that proves that Flora is lying. The governess herself notes that Flora “absolutely declined to be puzzled” (James 67); Flora could be displaying this attitude because she had no reason to be puzzled at all. She may have been truly looking for the governess, and had thought not to frighten her lest she return unexpectedly. There is also no proof that Flora is lying when she tells the governess that she does not see Miss Jessel’s ghost. In fact, she seems truly frightened by the governess’ behavior. In her feverish sense of triumph and justification, the governess tells the little girl,“ ‘She’s there, you little unhappy thing--there, there there, and you know it as well as you know me!’” (James 98). The governess’ frantic anger would certainly be enough to frighten a little girl who has no idea what is happening, and such a little girl would be justified in saying, “ ‘I think you’re cruel. I don’t like you!’” (James 99). After all, the governess has said a cruel thing to Flora. Flora’s fear of the governess is so great that it makes her ill, and she worries “ ‘every three minutes...if [the governess is] coming in’” (James 102). There is nothing to say that the governess’ strange behavior would not have this effect on Flora.

Thus, the ghosts do not appear to the children, but the children’s behavior adds to the effect the ghosts have on the governess’ state of mind. It can also be argued that the ghosts are in fact aware of the governess’ psychological fragility and use her sanity as some kind of toy. Miss Jessel may have actively chosen to appear only to the governess at the lake, and not to Mrs. Grose or to Flora, for the purpose of causing the governess to question her sanity even more. If this is true, then it leads to a possible interpretation of Miles’ death: that it is the governess who kills him in a fit of insanity brought on by the strange events at Bly. When the governess is with Miles she says, “I caught him, yes, I held him--it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held” (James 116). Though there is room for debate concerning how Miles dies (or if indeed he dies at all), some critics wonder Miles was truly “dispossessed” (James 116) at the end of the story or if he simply dies. According to Wayne C. Booth in his essay, “Are we Blessed or Cursed by Our Life with The Turn of the Screw?” some readers see that “though the governess loses the battle for little Miles’s body, she saves his soul from the ultimate human disaster: being possessed by evil” (Booth 169). He also writes that, for other readers the novella is a “portrait of neurotic governess who goes mad and one way or another destroys an innocent child” (Booth 171).

If we believe there is more evidence for the children’s behavior to be explained through natural reasons, as opposed to supernatural ones--for example, that Miles’ freedom with the governess is caused by exposure to Quint while he was alive or that Flora is telling the truth when the governess thinks she is lying--then the idea of Miles being dispossessed of Quint’s supernatural spirit would not follow our logic. If we think that the governess begins the story with some psychological fragility brought on by her change of circumstances, and that her experiences with the apparitions progressively weaken her psychological state--which we can see through the governess’ use of circumstantial evidence to “prove” that the children see and are possessed by the ghosts, as well as the fact that she has not been sleeping well--it may be logical to conclude that it is the governess herself who kills Miles. Returning to the scene when the governess, Mrs. Grose and Flora are at the lake and the governess is the only one who sees Miss Jessel, we can see what is, for the governess, one of her most stressful experiences. She has been questioning her own sanity throughout the story, and, when she sees Miss Jessel in the company of potential witnesses, she feels that they will see her too and thus restore her belief in her own sanity. However, she does not get what she expects--rather, her question is, at best, not resolved or, at worst, answered negatively--i.e. that she is in fact mad. She can justify Flora’s denial as a lie, but Mrs. Grose’s is not so easy. As Sister M. Corona Sharp writes in The Confidante in Henry James: Evolution and Moral Value of a Fictive Character, “The importance of Mrs. Grose’s role...is determined by her being the only listener available and is enhanced by her motherly sympathy, which encourages the governess’ confidence” (Sharp 41). Mrs. Grose has been the governess’ support and confidant throughout the story; it is she whom the governess has used as a mirror for her own concerns and has been the only outside source to let her know, indirectly, that she is not crazy. Sharp believes that “in [her] reliance on the housekeeper’s concurrence, the governess is at pains to stress the emotional balance of her confidante, while sometimes doubting her own” (Sharp 42).

The fact that Mrs. Grose does not see Miss Jessel offers the most convincing evidence to the governess that she has lost her mind. The governess calls Mrs. Grose’s blindness a “hard blow of the proof that her eyes were hopelessly sealed” (James 98). It could be argued that through this statement she may realize Miss Jessel’s game--that Jessel has chosen to appear only to the governess. However, if that were true, the thought that Mrs. Grose’s eyes are sealed would comfort her, when in fact, it does not. The governess admits, “...I felt my situation hopelessly crumble...” (James 98). She is now standing on the precipice between sanity and madness, and it will take but one small push to throw her off. In her confrontation with Miles, when she is determined to know why he was expelled from school, Peter Quint appears. The governess shouts, “ ‘No more, no more, no more!’” (James 116). She truly cannot take more; the precarious balance between sanity and madness she is trying to maintain will not allow her to. Yet there is more, and the governess, in a frantic attempt to exorcise the ghosts, destroys Miles; he is a victim of her madness. Thus, the governess begins the story as a rational but nervous person, but becomes mad--at least temporarily--by the story’s end.

Therefore, the ghosts in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw are not figments of the governess’ imagination; however, the anxiety and uncertainty brought about by her youth and the novelty of her environment heighten her sensibilities to them, and they eventually lead drive her to murder Miles. The Turn of the Screw, then, can be interpreted by melding two existing schools of thought. It is a ghost story, but the governess’ eventual madness plays a significant role in the horror the story evokes.

Works Cited

Banta, Martha. Henry James and the Occult. Indiana: Indiana University
Press, 1972.

Booth, Wayne C. “Are We Blessed or Cursed by Our Life with The Turn of the Screw?. in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Renner, Stanley. “Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Boogeymen, and the ‘Ghosts’ of The Turn of the Screw.” in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter Beidler. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Sharp, Sister M. Corona. The Confidante in Henry James: Evolution and MoralValue of a Fictive Character. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965.

Wright, Walter F. The Madness of Art: A Study of Henry James. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1962.