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.