Playing the Gothic Game: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Silver Burdett Company

Pp. 118

Originally published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw still delights and terrifies readers over 120 years later. The enduring appeal of the novella is due to James’ mastery with form and style as he uses Gothic tropes to exploit deep-seated fears and phobias. An unnamed governess narrates the story of how she takes her first position at Bly, a remote country house, and begins to fear that it is haunted by the previous employees, the valet, Quint, and the governess, Miss Jessel. She fears the spirits intend to harm her young charges and she is determined to keep them safe, with disastrous consequences.

The Gothic conceits are all present in a way that would be familiar to contemporary readers, and suggest that James is playing with them. The possible presence of ghosts in an isolated mansion (Mrs Grose, the kindly but dim-witted servant, is the only other living occupant) with dark corridors and darker secrets is a ruse recognisable to readers of popular fiction from The Castle of Otranto and The Mysteries of Udolpho (mentioned specifically in this novel) to Jane Eyre and Dracula (published the previous year). It also employs the device of a framed narrative, such as in Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in which we are told of a story told to someone else in the words of a manuscript a governess had left behind. This third-hand tale is introduced with chilling and thrilling glee as a typical ghost story; “The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered.”

Angelic children have become a mainstay of modern horror, and eight-year-old Flora and ten-year-old Miles are clearly prototypes as, “Both the children had a gentleness that kept them – how I shall I express it – almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable.” They are almost impossibly delightful with “their more than earthly beauty, their absolutely unnatural goodness”, although this may simply be an inexperienced governess’ interpretation of childhood.

The tension is increased throughout the tale, like the titular turning of the screw, as there are hints of paranoia and madness. For all the elaborate language, nothing is definite and everything remains in shadows. The metaphor is made explicit as the governess suffers from insomnia, stalking the halls with a candle in the middle of the night.

A Freudian interpretation would suggest hysteria and sexual repression: Quint and Miss Jessel were discharged for conducting an illicit affair, from the knowledge of which the children must naturally be protected. There is certainly a suspicion of surveillance, and the governess feels she is being observed, and judged, by the spirits on her performance. The central issue of the story is whether the ghosts are real, and the governess’ efforts in protecting the children are justified, or whether she is going mad, in which case they are at risk from her, and her consideration that they are linked to unspeakable evil is a reflection of her tormented psyche.

At the end of the nineteenth century readers were far more likely to believe in ghosts than they are now, although we are perhaps more understanding of psychoses.  Because James refuses to choose a definitive solution to his mystery, the tale of terror is compelling either way. It continues to be popular because we like a good scare, and this one is a ripper.