Final Blog Post

      Henry James’ novel “The Turn of the Screw” leaves a lot up for interpretation at the end, but after I traced and connected all the symbols they all seemed to point towards a theme about repression. I found that James said more in his character’s refusal to talk than in what they actually said.  This is part of the reason that he used eyes as a motif in the story. When no one would tell the governess anything about what was going on, she had to guess by reading people’s eyes. On top of that, James uses light to symbolize knowing, or lack of light to symbolize confusion. I used Fosters advice about not reading with your own eyes in order to understand this story better. I had to think like a Victorian would, because a reader today would have a harder time understanding why the character’s kept so many things repressed.

            The descriptions of eyes, light and silence all helped me come to my conclusion about the real meaning of this story, which I think could be that any society that forces repression of feelings is dangerous and unhealthy. These symbols are most important in the situation with Miles’ expulsion from school. The governess looks into his eyes to determine his innocence, since no one will explain what really happened and she is left to guess. Near the end Miles says,

            After I traced the symbols and motifs that I found most important (eyes/ vision, silence, and light) I found that they were all connected. While light provided answers to the governess’ questions, her eyes seemed to cause more problems for her and add to the confusion, then the silence of other characters created an air of mystery and confused her more. All of these things plus the governess’ own repressed feelings make her go insane. Her repressed feelings about her own sexuality spark the whole situation with the ghosts. The governess “was in love” (James 3) according to the storyteller. She is in love with the children’s uncle, whom she describes as having “placid heavenly eyes,” (James 11).  She also thinks very fondly of Miles, the ten-year old boy that she takes care of, often calling him beautiful and thinking he is not capable of doing any wrong. I found it interesting how much she admired Miles, especially because of the repressed feelings she had for his uncle.

I interpreted the ghosts as a consequence of the governesses repressed desires, and not actual ghosts. Some people who read “The Turn of the Screw” disagree though. The major argument for the ghosts being real is that the governess saw the ghost of Quint before she had even heard that he existed. I thought about this and considered the possibility that the governess was in fact sane, but one situation stuck out in my mind. Before the she sees the ghost for the first time the governess is thinking about running into a man. She writes, “One of the thoughts that [...] used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me,” (James 18). For me, this showed that the governess wanted so badly to run into a man her own age, that she unknowingly created one, Quint’s ghost. She must have heard about him before or seen a picture and not remembered it. 

It was hard to interpret the story, because the whole time I couldn’t tell how reliable the narrator was. On top of having a possibly unreliable narrator, this story was written and then read by another narrator, giving it more opportunity to be changed. In the end, although the reader doesn’t know how much they can believe the governess’ story, James gets his point across better than if he had told the story from a third person point of view, because then there would be no mystery to the story. I think that with “The Turn of the Screw” James was trying to explain that repression of anything leads to problems and danger.

Post #3: Silence Is Golden

I have noticed while reading “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James that there are a lot of references to sound, or lack of it. From characters not wanting to speak of or explain unpleasant topics to actual silences, which usually occur during the governess’ ghost sighting, it is clear that silence plays a major role in this story. 

The first major silence in the story is that of the Headmaster of Miles’ school. He refuses to give a reason for the boy’s expulsion, only saying that they could no longer have him at the school. Mrs. Grose says that “that can only have one meaning” but never explains what that meaning is. So, for the rest of the book the reader, and the governess, are left wondering and trying to guess what Miles could have done. The governess strongly believes that Quint and now his ghost have somehow corrupted Miles. She decides this after Mrs. Grose explain that “Quint was much too free” (James 34). The word “free” doesn’t explain much, but we can guess what it might mean. Quint was apparently romantically involved with Ms. Jessel, who Mrs. Grose says was far above his social standing. Also, the governess comments that “an unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred,” (James 20), suggesting that if she were alone with Quint, he could possibly harm her in some way, a which she doesn’t explain any further. 

Whatever Miles did to get kicked out of school must have been really awful, at least by the standards of someone in the 1890s, when this book was written. While the governess would disagree with this statement, Miles does say “when I am bad I am BAD,” (James 61). Whatever Quint did, and what he did probably had something to do with Ms. Jessel, was also so awful that no one will address it directly. The reader can guess that whatever Miles did at school was probably something sexual in nature. This is because Quint’s of relationship with Ms. Jessel, which Ms. Grose disapproved of; the fact that the governess thinks Quint has corrupted Miles; and because the character’s would avoid the subject of sex, and they do avoid talking about the reason for Miles’ expulsion. 

In “The Turn of the Screw” it turns out that James is actually saying more with the character’s silence than if he had explained the situation clearly. Maybe what Miles did wasn’t sexual, but it had to be something that the governess would be so horrified to guess that she invented another reality where the boy was a victim of the school and of a ghost set out to corrupt him.

Post #2: Seeing Is Believing

I have about forty pages left in “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, and I have been noticing that eyes and vision are mentioned a lot. The governess, who’s written account of the events at Bly make up most of the story, often notices the eyes those around her. Also, because most of the story is told in her point of view, the only information that the reader gets about the situation is what the governess sees. This causes problems because the reader has no idea if the governess’ eyes deceives her or if what she is seeing is the truth.

There doesn’t seem to be any problem with the governess’ vision until she sees the ghost of Quint for the first time, but her vision and point of view are relevant even before that. In the beginning of the story, she thinks very highly of the children, especially Miles, saying, “they gave me so little trouble-- they were of a gentleness so extraordinary,” (James 18). She thinks of the children as perfect angels, which is why she is so confused over MIles’ expulsion. She describes the children’s eyes as clear, and therefore thinks they can do no wrong. Her perceptions of the children are what I think lead to her seeing ghosts. 

After the governess describes her ghost sighting to Mrs. Grose she says, “it was as if now in my friend’s own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared,” (James 42). The governess often looks into the eyes of other characters to find answers. In this case, she thinks that Mrs. Grose believes her story by the look in her eyes. Previously, when the governess first sees, or thinks she sees, the ghost of Quint, she describes the sighting as “a bewilderment of vision,” (James 19). This description suggests that maybe she didn’t actually see the ghost and in reality her eyes had played a trick on her. This makes sense because she is so confused by Miles expulsion, and doesn’t know what he could’ve done wrong or why. So, she unknowingly invents a ghost in her head, although Quint was once a real person. She makes up a story, and because she thinks she can tell by looking into the ghosts eyes that they intend to harm the children, she decides that the ghost of Quint has set out to corrupt Miles, which is what lead to his expulsion.

Throughout the whole story so far, the governess has looked into the eyes of other characters to find answers to things that no one will explain to her. This is a problem for her though, because although she doesn’t think so, her own eyes are really the things that are deceiving her.

Post #1: Shedding Light on the Situation

For my independent reading book, I chose “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. It’s a story about a woman who accepts a job taking care of two children, Flora and Miles, but soon starts seeing the ghosts of two former employees of the family. After the governess starts seeing the ghosts, she suspects they are out to corrupt the children and she makes it her mission to protect them. However, she is the only one who sees the ghosts, or at least admits to seeing them, so the whole story the reader is left wondering if she is going crazy, or if the ghosts are real. I noticed that a lot of the imagery in the story was related to light and vision. Fire, candles, lights, windows, eyes, and sight are all described often, so I traced these throughout the novel.

An account of what happened at Bly (the home of the children and the governess) is written down and read by a man to his house guests, which is how the story begins. James begins the first chapter by saying, “the story held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless,” (James 1). Fire is used again later in the story when the governess senses “there being something undefinably astir in the house” (James 53) and leaves her room to find the source of the disturbance, taking a candle with her. She finally finds the thing that was disturbing her when “the moon made the night extraordinarily penetrable and showed me on the lawn a person [...] it was poor little Miles himself” (James 58). In all of these cases the light provides the characters with or helps them find answers. Therefore, I think that James uses light as a symbol for knowledge and the truth.

After I realized that James was probably using light to symbolize knowledge, moments when the governess’ candle suddenly went out seemed more significant. One night when the governess gets up with her candle, again looking for the ghosts, she says, “I had left a light burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguished it,” (James 57). The lack of light here not only shows that the situation in unclear, but that the governess’ is not as right about the situation as she thinks she is. There is a turning point here, when the governess first accuses Flora of doing something bad. Previously, although she seemed to adore Miles even more, she thought highly of Flora. She goes from thinking “the children [...] I should thus fence about and absolutely save [from the ghosts]” (James 34) to believing that they are somehow causing the ones trouble for her. The uncertainty of the governess and her constantly changing feelings about the situation and those around her all point to her insanity. I would guess that the ghosts aren’t real at all, but are figments of the governesses imagination, created to explain things that she cannot. I think this all stems from Miles expulsion from school. No one will explain why he was expelled, and the governess can’t imagine him doing anything wrong, so she could have created the ghost of Quint to explain the boy’s misbehavior.