Elements of the Gothic in James’s ‘Turn of the Screw’

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Gothic
The First Debate
Apparitionist approach
Non-apparitionist approach
Focusing on the psychometric nature of the governess
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

In 1898, American-born British author Henry James published a short novel that is still causing a great deal of academic debate today. A Turn of the Screw is essentially a simple ghost story, effectively placing it within the realm of the gothic genre that was popular at this point in time. It starts as a group of friends share ghost stories around a fireside. One of the characters, a man who has been silent for most of the evening, introduces the story he has to tell us something that will bother everyone to a greater extent than anything they’ve heard so far, but he heightens the suspense for his story by announcing that he has to send away for the notes of a woman he once knew. She was dead at the time the story started, even though she was suggested to have been a relatively younger woman, but no explanation was provided as to what might have caused her death. The story that follows is supposedly her story of a time when she worked as a governess to care for an orphaned boy and girl at her employer’s remote country estate. In spite of the comfort of the home, she arrives with explicit instructions to never bother the employer, their uncle, in any way. Throughout the novel, James uses elements of the gothic to heighten the sense of confusion and ambiguity involved in his story Turn of the Screw.

The main action of the story begins as the governess arrives at the manor’s house and takes charge of the two children. The oldest child is Miles, a ten-year-old boy who has been expelled from his boarding school for bad behavior. The news has arrived at the house just as the governess begins to take up her new duties and it is she who must determine what must be done. The younger child is Flora, an eight-year-old girl who is simply presented as a heavenly child. Because of Flora’s absolute innocence, the governess decides that the boy must be similarly innocent. As soon as the governess arrives, she also makes close friends with the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, who is a simple countrywoman. As such, she hesitates to correct her betters in any way and considers the governess, with her superior education, among her betters. Although both children seem angelic, the governess begins to see two additional people on the property that disturb her. She soon identifies these people as the master’s old valet, Peter Quint, and the children’s previous governess, Ms. Jessel. As she attempts to investigate who these people were, she learns that they may have been very wicked people who kept the children with them while they were engaged in their wicked activities. Having influenced and possibly involved the children in evil, each of these characters then died strange and mysterious deaths and yet they continue to appear on the estate but only to the governess. As she learns more of the story, the current governess begins to think the children are in league with the ghosts, but no one else in the story ever directly acknowledges that they can see apparitions even when the governess points out exactly where they are. In the end, the governess sends the ailing Flora away from the house in the reluctant care of Mrs. Grose as she attempts to confront Miles about the ghosts. As the story comes to a climax and Miles seems on the verge of finally confirming or denying whether he sees the ghosts, he dies, again with no clear medical cause, leaving the reader and the governess to try to determine whether it was the ghost or a weak heart that killed him. The story ends with numerous questions still circling through the reader’s mind and the realization that they will never be truly satisfied.

Gothic

James uses many elements of the gothic novel, which was already a strong tradition by this time, to make this story interesting. The tradition of the gothic novel emerged in the 18^th century as a small sub-genre in literary circles. According to Hume (1969: 282), the tradition was started with The Castle of Otranto which was published in 1764. Gothic literature is characterized by a unique combination of horror and romance that functions to create a completely new means of telling a story. This approach became more effective once Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory became popular. His theories demonstrated the power of the mind to terrify itself (Freud, 1966). There are several common elements that typify Gothic literature including terror, the supernatural, ghosts, death, madness, darkness, secrets, hereditary curses and crumbling architecture. Characters often fall into stereotypical roles such as the flawed hero, the femme fatale or supernatural or natural monsters of various types. Generally speaking, there are three main characteristics that identify a Gothic novel. These include the presence of darkness in some form, an element of the sublime or the supernatural and an exploration of the concepts of psychometry. The presence of darkness seems self-explanatory, but one must also consider the possible darkness of the soul. In this situation, the individual may be incapable of escaping their situation simply because they are unable to discover their own thoughts within the darkness of their mind. The sublime or supernatural element refers to the concept that something intangible exists that can be felt like a present but cannot be discovered with the human eye. This element can be used in a number of ways, but within the Gothic novel, it is typically used to illustrate the presence of supernatural evil either disembodied or as an element trapped within the body of a known person. Psychometry is a strange-sounding word that refers to the concept of the eternal conflict between the body and the soul. It was an often-used technique in Gothic novels because of the obvious relationship of this to the concept of madness.

The First Debate

Early critics of James’ story focused on the ambiguity of the characters – specifically whether the ghosts were actually there or not – and thus the nature of the story’s darkness. This has had the effect of dividing critics according to two different camps. These are now referred to as the apparitionist and non-apparitionist approaches. These terms are described by Edward Parkinson as they are used within his own work. “I use the term apparitionist to refer to interpretations in which the ghosts are seen as real – i.e. veridical apparitions or manifestations of some paranormal reality existing independently of the governess’s subjective apprehension” (Parkinson, 2007). In other words, apparitionists approach the story with the assumption that the ghosts are real and separate from the governess’s imagination and thus the ideas of darkness and the sublime element are clearly defined. Whether or not any of the other characters are able to see them and what this might mean to the governess’s state of psychometry thus becomes the topic of discussion. The other term, non-apparitionist, is used “to refer to interpretations in which the ghosts are viewed as non-veridical, merely subjective hallucinations of the governess” (Parkinson, 2007). In this case, it is assumed that the ghosts are not real and are just figments of the governess’s imagination. Thus, the ‘evidence’ she sees in the behavior of the children regarding the ghosts’ existence is nothing more than figments of the governess’s imagination. From this perspective, motives are sought as to why the governess might find it necessary to invent such apparitions and why it has the effect it does upon the two children. In this situation, the nature of the darkness and the element of the sublime reaches much deeper into the human soul, suggesting that the governess cannot see the truth because of the darkness in her mind and the sublime is the ability of the mind to affect external change in the behavior of others. Because of the way James wrote the story, each interpretation is equally valid.

Apparitionist approach

There is a great deal of evidence to suggest James intended this story to be interpreted as a gothic ghost story. According to Anne Willis (2009), “throughout his career, James was attracted to the ghost story genre. However, he was not fond of literature’s stereotypical ghosts, the old-fashioned ‘screamers’ and ‘slashers.’ Rather, he preferred to create ghosts that were eerie extensions of everyday reality – ‘the strange and sinister embroidered on the very type of the normal and easy as he put it.” This would encourage him to create a different kind of ghost than the stereotypical interpretations offered by other authors of his time while still intending for them to be actual ghosts within the novel. At the same time, he was astute enough to allow the mystery of the characters to drive interest in his story. Other clues exist that James intended the story to function as a gothic story. For example, there is a consistent reference throughout the story to the gothic architectural elements of the property of Bly such as in the building structures. “This tower was one of a pair – square incongruous crenelated structures … They flanked opposite ends of the house and were probably architectural absurdities, redeemed in a measure indeed by not being wholly disengaged nor of a height too pretentious, dating, in their gingerbread antiquity, from a romantic revival that was already a respectable past” (James 25). Upon first seeing the ghost of Quint standing on the older of these two towers, the governess asks, “Was there a secret at Bly – a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?” (James 28). The Mysteries of Udolpho was a popular book produced in the late 1700s that served as the prime example of the gothic novel. Its action is characterized by the torment of a young girl at the will of supernatural elements. Her torment only comes to an end when she is able to take control over her responsibilities in the form of her inheritance (Webber, 2008). However, James also provides a sense of a more prosaic explanation for the governess’s visions by alluding to the character of Bertha in Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (Kaufmann, 1986). In this story, Bertha was the insane first wife of Mr. Rochester who is kept hidden and confined in the attic of his country manor house, introducing the possibility of darkness in the form of madness.

Non-apparitionist approach

The non-apparitionist approach is generally acknowledged to have started with, Edmund Wilson, a book critic for the New Yorker. In 1934, he wrote an essay entitled “The Ambiguity of Henry James.” In this article, Wilson describes secret motives found within the text of the story that might encourage the governess to imagine the ghosts. These secret motives are mostly centered upon Sigmund Freud’s ideas of sexual repression. They have suggested in the way that the governess falls in love with her employer on the spot during her first and only interview. She quickly agrees to do anything for him based only on his simple request and she remains determined to see it through as a means of proving herself worthy of his regard. Her continued obsession with this delusional romantic idea appears even late in the story when she describes how she and the children would pretend, at times, that he would come to visit or to write. “He never wrote to them – that may have been selfish, but it was a part of the flattery of his trust of myself; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort” (James 87). The non-apparitionist argument holds that the repressed sexual feelings the governess has for her unattainable employer are manifested in the ‘infamous’ sexual deviants of her predecessor and her lover as they seek to claim the souls of the angelic children that have been placed in her care as if they were truly hers. One of the major challenges to this interpretation is found in the detail with which the governess describes the appearance of Quint to Mrs. Grose and the fact that Mrs. Grose is able to immediately recognize who she is describing. However, later arguments were developed to meet this challenge. These ideas were brought forward by John Silver in 1937 and were used to support Wilson’s claims regarding the ‘crazy governess’ theory. Specifically, it is pointed out that Quint’s physical appearance isn’t described to any great detail in spite of a stated clarity of vision upon the first time the governess sees him and she doesn’t mention him to the housekeeper until after she has had a chance to make inquiries within the village. As a result of these inquiries, she would have likely heard about both him and the former governess enough to provide a more accurate description.

Whether one takes the apparitionist approach or the non-apparitionist approach thus has a great deal to do with how the book is understood and which gothic elements are recognized. An analysis of the character of the governess generally tends to lead toward a non-apparitionist approach regardless of attempts to view the ghosts as real and thus a sense that the darkness of the novel extends much deeper into the human soul than the common gothic novel. This interpretation gives a sense of the psychometry that is such an important element of the gothic story. There are numerous hints provided throughout the text that the governess is the insane character as she attempts to fill some of the emptiness she feels as a result of her role. It is, for example, notable that the story is told by the governess herself, and thus is filtered through the lens of her own observations and self-interest at portraying herself as an admirable person. In spite of this, she is sent into the world as a young woman to fend for herself after having received a barely adequate education for the role she is expected to fulfill. This is made clear when it is mentioned that the 10-year-old boy is ahead of her in his studies. Despite her lack of adequate training, she is shipped off immediately to a remote country location where she is expected to remain forever celibate as an example to her pupils. Even though she is expected to take up the full duties of mother and father in this role, she is still considered little more than a servant and is thus outranked by her students. She is well aware that this position effectively removes any authority she might have and she knows she is likely to be tossed aside without thought once the children are grown enough to no longer require her services. It was Virginia Woolf who pointed out the extreme silence of Bly, in which everything from the calls of the birds to the laughter of the children is heard as from far away (Woolf, 1921). This silence and distance are considered to be indications of the extreme isolation the governess feels as she takes up her post and which was a common condition of her station. There are many other servants present at Bly, including several maids, a gardener, a stable hand and others, but the only one that has a high enough station in the house to associate even somewhat comfortable with the governess is the housekeeper. Too high class and educated to associate with servants and yet also a servant herself and thus not able to associate with the gentry, the governess existed in a state of perpetual limbo and uncertainty. Within this void, it seems only human nature that the individual would need to assert herself in some way.

Focusing on the psychometric nature of the governess

It is this self-absorption of the character that provides the clue to her inner insanity as she inadvertently, and brilliantly through the pen of the author, exposes her own lies. The exaggeration of her own goodness is seen early on as the governess arrives at home much finer than anything she had yet experienced and describes her welcome as if she were the new mistress of the house. “There immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsey as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor” (James 11). This feeds into her fantasy, started with her meeting with the wealthy bachelor, that she might have a much more glorious and exciting future. Her thoughts are again supported when she is introduced to her new quarters, “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 wonderful things thrown in” (James 11). Within this simple description, the governess reveals not only her own humble upbringing in her assessment of the room and her excitement over the full-length mirrors but also in her exaggeration of the bed size and focus on the draperies. As she meets the other members of the house, she also includes a great deal of self-congratulation and confidence in her ability to charm others, something upon which she must rely if she is to become secure in her new place. She is constantly congratulating herself on the various ways in which she has done well, such as when she describes her behavior upon receiving the expulsion letter from Miles’ school. In determining what to do about the situation, she describes herself with glowingly positive terms – “I was incisive … I was wonderful” (James 22). Through this kind of language, the governess reveals her own deep insecurity and the strong need she feels to make herself essentially important to the working of the house no matter what she needs to do to convince herself this is true.

This false self-confidence is particularly evident in her relationships with others. Upon first meeting the housekeeper, the governess decides that they will have a great friendship marred only by the necessary niceties required as a result of their differences in social position. “I felt within half an hour that [Mrs. Grose] was so glad – stout simple plain clean wholesome woman – as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much. I wondered even then a little why she should wish not to show it” (James 11). This reticence on the part of the housekeeper becomes more troubling to the reader later in the story as it becomes clear that the governess must always seek her out and interrupt Mrs. Grose in her chores, to which Mrs. Grose always seems anxious to return. While the governess seems to think this is simply dedication and prudence on the part of the housekeeper, the reader begins to wonder at this avoidant behavior and to notice how often the housekeeper raises doubts regarding the governess’s assumptions. She never agrees with the governess that the children could have any of the dark deceits the governess sees in them and she never noticed anything out of place regarding the ghosts. This same overconfidence in her behavior is expressed by the governess regarding the children. She discusses how devoted they are to her, how interested they are in anything to do with her life but how they never talked about their own and how, after she started seeing the ghosts, she ensured they were always together as she attempted to place herself, heroically, between the children and the devils that were trying to claim them. However, again there are hints that things are not quite as the governess describes as the children seem constantly contriving to give each other breaks from her attentions for a time. “The children clearly are engaged in humoring the governess, just as she says that she suspects, but for motives entirely explicable by her strangeness, and it is testimony to the completeness of her self-engagement that even as she suspects, she takes comfort in what she insists is the affection Miles and Flora have for her” (Klein, 2007). Rather than believing herself the cause of the problem, the governess turns to the explanation of the ghosts, and the children’s involvement with them, as an explanation for the strangeness in the air.

Understanding these elements of the governess, it seems clear that whether the ghosts are real or not, the governess clearly has a reason to believe in them as they become manifestations of her own repressed desires. Wilson points out that the first time the governess sees Peter Quint, it is as she is taking a solitary walk in the evening and thinking about the bachelor of Harley Street (1948). Miss Jessel easily slides in to become the present governess’s alter ego, free in death to pursue the passions and desires the present governess can only work to suppress. This sexual link is made through innuendo as Mrs. Grose unwillingly divulges the reputation of these two characters while they lived. Mrs. Grose responds to the governess’s accusation that “he was a hound” by suggesting that “he did what he wished” (James 53). Understanding that Quint would often disappear for hours at a time with the boy while Miss Jessel disappeared with the girl, the governess assumes the two of them had been together in a romantic tryst that the children were asked to lie about, thus involving innocents in their depravity. From this conclusion, she then makes the confession that this “must have been also what she wished” (James 53). The danger in making such a statement is made clear in the earlier allusion to Bronte’s Bertha. “Bertha is considered insane because of her intense sensuality. Bertha is represented as a sort of taboo sexuality that is forbidden to the others” (Crookston, 1999). Her sudden and unexplained tendency to grab the children and cover them with kisses as well as her strange obsession to be with them at all times are manifestations of her own sensuality as even the governess begins to recognize that her behavior is crossing over into the realm of insanity.

Conclusion

An examination of the governess’s character thus suggests a number of interesting possibilities for the actions of the other characters and reveals a level of human understanding unsuspected in a gothic story. In many ways, the novella raises more questions than it provides answers as every element is permitted to retain at least two possible interpretations. This aspect of the work has been demonstrated in the literature that has been produced in response to it either falling in support of the real presence of supernatural beings or in support of the concept that the narrator of the story simply hallucinated these beings into existence. While these debates have been carried on ever since the story was first published, they have not been resolved to any definite conclusion yet they continue to highlight the story’s deep gothic roots. As one takes a closer look at the character of the governess herself, the character who tells the story and is thus in complete control over what is told, it is difficult to avoid leaning to the idea that the ghosts were more a figment of this character’s imagination as a means of providing herself with importance and meaning beyond the hollow shell of a life she was permitted to lead as a result of her position in society. This suggests that James had a much deeper understanding of the elements of gothic than most writers of the genre and that the genre had a deeper meaning than the critics would like to admit.

Works Cited

“Ambiguity.” The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899.

Crookston, Beth. “Bertha Mason: The Enigma.” (1999). Kent State University.

Hume, Robert D. “Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel.” PMLA. Vol. 8, N. 2, (1969).

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. New York: Tom Doherty Associates Book, 1993.

Kauffman, Linda S. Discourses of Desire: Gender, Genre, and Epistolary Fictions. Cornell University Press, 1986.

Parkinson, Edward J. The Turn of the Screw: A History of its Critical Interpretations 1898-1979. (2007).

Silver, John. “A Note on the Freudian Reading of the Turn of the Screw.” American Literature. Vol. 29, 1957: 207-211.

Webber, Caroline. “The Mysteries of Udolpho.” The Literary Encyclopedia. (2008). Web.

Willis, Anne. “Book Discussion.” Victoria’s Messenger. Falls Church, VA, (2009). Web.

Wilson, Edmund. “The Ambiguity of Henry James.” The Triple Thinkers. New York: 1948.

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