The Turn of the Screw

Henry James Chapters I-V Evaluation

SETTING

• Bly is overwhelming & depressing – Empty & lonely • Flora happily leads governess through “empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made [her] pause… such a place would take all color out of storybooks and fairytales” pg 14 – Uncomfortable – Foreboding

GOVERNESS

• • • • • How does her new surge of power affect her judgment?

Timid and worried Takes comfort in new friendship with Ms. Grose Overwhelmingly positive opinion of Flora- helps her relax Curious about the last governess – Dark, mysterious, tainted past doesn’t seem to bode well; past governess “went off ” and died

GOVERNESS

• How reliable is she as our narrator?

– Tries to establish a reliable front; thinks she might have heard “faint and far, the cry of a child” and a “light footstep,” during tour but she dismisses these as fanciful, perhaps to gain the reader’s trust in her sensibility • foreshadowing

MS. GROSE

• • • Does she know about the ghosts?

– “She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock that I had received. She turned white… I remained where I was, and while I waited I thought of more things than one. But there’s only one I take space to mention. I wondered why she should be scared .” pg 32 Illiterate: does this give the governess a sense of superiority? What purpose does this character trait serve?

Comforting to the governess and a fairly static character – “like sisters”

FLORA

• Is she simply an angelic, innocent child or is she charmingly devilish?

– “the most beautiful child I had ever seen” – “no uneasiness in… the radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty… made me take in the whole prospect” – She has “the deep sweet serenity indeed of Raphael’s holy infants” pg12 – She and Miles have the governess “under a spell” pg 19

MILES

• • Governess points out that the master likes the governesses “young and pretty.” – “‘Oh he did,’ Ms. Grose assented: ‘it was the way he liked everyone!’ …she caught herself up. ‘I mean that’s his way – the master’s.’ I was struck. ‘But of whom did you speak first?’ She looked blank, but she coloured . ‘Why of him [the master]’” pg 19 Foreboding letter from headmaster - “He’s an injury to others” though this is “unimaginable” to the governess. pg 14

PETER QUINT’S GHOST

• Out for a twilight stroll – on her own, the governess thinks of how charming it might be to “suddenly meet someone” in her path, when she sees a ghost in the tower, “staring” with “both hands on the ledge.” This produces “fear” and a feeling of “death” – Does the preceding passage deplete her reliability somewhat?

– Even if she does believe she sees the ghost, should we also believe it actually exists?

– If the ghost is real, what does he want?

PETER QUINT’S GHOST

• • • He appears for a second time, again while the governess is alone, when she goes to retrieve her gloves- this time through the dining room window – “The person looking straight in was the person who had already appeared to me… but with a [new] nearness” pg. 20 – Quint equally as shocked as she: “He had come for someone else.” Again, is the governess reliable?

She reacts courageously; does this defy expectation?