Homelessness In The Turn Of The Screw

In this essay, the author starts his argument with the focus on the term “homelessness” with relation to the “treatment of property” in the text (Davidson, 455). A seemingly rootless life of Henry James is projected on the description of the governess in the The Turn of the Screw; that is, he intends to reflect his own experience of homelessness in the light of metaphorical aspect through the book. Then, he further discusses about how “homelessness” can also be interpreted in terms of cultural uncertainty in the late nineteenth-century commodity culture (Davidson, 464). The focal point lies on the notion that a lack of sense of belonging in a particular place or group can result in an anxiety, which arouses obsession towards a property. At the same time, Davidson (471) stresses the point that James purposely leaves a room for the readers to find out the answer to the questionable issues, rather than revealing all the details of the story.
According to the author, uncertainty lies in various parts of the book in terms of gender identification and the condition of “homelessness” (Davidson, 459). After the governess notices the
In addition, the author emphasizes on the “peculiar” relation between the governess’s “homelessness” and “a sense of property” (Davidson, 459). To be specific, the governess can be a self-portrait of Henry James himself and homelessness triggers the governess’s desire to possession of the country house at Bly, which later leads to serious obsession about the ghost. However, in the book, every aspect remains as an unsolved mystery; James intentionally comes to an ambiguous ending so that the readers make their own judgment on the true meaning of all the enigmatic phenomenon like the presence of the