Preview

The Governess In Henry James's The Turn Of The Screw

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
379 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Governess In Henry James's The Turn Of The Screw
In Henry James’s novella The Turn of the Screw, the Governess is thrust into a strange atmosphere. At first, she brings relative stability to the household. Caring for Flora seems like an absolute dream for her and Mrs. Grose proves to be a dear confidante. Problems begin to arise at the return of Miles from school. The Governess begins to see a ghosts and the house is thrown into disarray. Her erratic behavior undoes all her work and destabilizes Bly to the point which Flora no longer feels safe there. This behavior firmly shows that Miles does not die of spectral intervention, but at the hands of sexaully repressed governess.
The Governess is, in the beginning, a force of reason for the household. She takes the place of Miss Jessel, whose

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The character of Margaret is introduced as someone who doesn’t usually follow the rules; she is an outsider and feels alienated from the rest of the children.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Evelyn was a housewive, whos job in the household was to make sure her husbands every need was taken care of.…

    • 344 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    MWDS Turn of the Screw

    • 2368 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In The Turn of the Screw, the new governess of two orphaned children must fight to protect the seemingly innocent children from the appearance of two ghosts hoping to corrupt them.…

    • 2368 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In January 1693, while still in jail, Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor gave birth to a son, John Proctor III. Elizabeth and John III remained in jail until May 1693, when a general release freed all of those prisoners who remained jailed. Unfortunately, even though the general belief of the people was that innocent people had been wrongly convicted, Elizabeth had in fact been convicted and was considered guilty. In the eyes of the law she was considered a "dead woman" and could not claim any of her husband's estate. Elizabeth petitioned the court for a reversal of attainder to restore her legal rights. No action was taken for seven years. In June 1696, Elizabeth filed an appeal to contest her husband's will. At the time John wrote his will, he had assumed that Elizabeth would be executed and had left her nothing. On September 22, 1696 Elizabeth married again to Daniel Richards. In July 1703, several more people filed petitions before any action was taken on Elizabeth’s appeal for reversal of attainder. The Massachusetts House of Representatives finally passed a bill disallowing spectral evidence. However, they only gave reversal of attainder for those who had filed petitions. This basically applied to only two people – Elizabeth Proctor and Rebecca Nurse. In 1705, another petition was filed requesting a more equitable settlement for those wrongly accused. In 1709, the General Court received a request to take action on this proposal. In May 1709, 22 people who had been convicted of witchcraft, or whose parents had been convicted of witchcraft, presented the government with a petition in which they demanded both a reversal of attainder and compensation for financial losses. On October 17, 1711, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against the 22 people listed in the 1709 petition. There were still an additional 7 people who had been convicted, but had not signed the petition. There was no reversal of attainder for them.…

    • 323 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The image of home life in Why I live at the P.O, Eudora Welty depicts the damage to one’s feelings of self worth in response to the sense of belonging in a family. Sister, who is the narrator in Why I live at the P.O.,(Welty) is disturbed when her sister, Stella Rondo returns homes with an adopted child, Shirley-T, after separating from her husband (Welty). Sister has lived in her sister’s, Stella Rondo’s shadow her entire life. Over the years, resentment and jealously has manifested in Sister towards her sister Stella Rondo. The rest of the family is delighted to see Stella Rondo and the child. Sister makes the assumption that Shirley-T is the biological child of Stella and her husband (Welty). The story is told from Sisters twisted point of view seeking sympathy from her readers. As the story begins, she immediately builds her case against her family revealing past hurt, judgment, and jealousy which cause the family to have a communication break down throughout the entire story. In Why I live at the P.O., Eudora Welty uses diction,…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In novels written by Henry James, a current theme is replayed over and over again. James is known for making his narrator seem unreliable throughout the novels, making the reader start to question what is true about the novel and what is not. This is shown all throughout James’ classic, The Turn of the Screw. In this novel, the main character, the governess, in counts numerous ghost sightings at her new job at the Bly. She starts to become spectacle that the children who she is caring for are starting to plan against her to get rid of her. Throughout the novel though, many things are brought forth that make it seem that the governess’ story may be flawed. In reality, the governess is true, but she does over exaggerate some parts…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    James seems to think that this whole scandal could be an interesting thing to explore following the “aftershocks of this cultural ‘earthquake.’” (Matheson). Wilde influenced James’s writing by opening a new social gap in that society’s time. It must have been a frightening time too, “of coming to terms with same-sex sexuality, to invent language for its designation, control, and prosecution”, no wonder James choose to write a novella with “suggestive yet sheltering language of euphemism and denotative, confessional discourse that would expose ‘monstrous’ secrets.” (Matheson). In the beginning of The Turn of the Screw there is a Prologue, which is told by an unnamed narrator, where a character that we meet named Douglass, who has a crush on the governess, whose story he will be telling. The setting is at a party around Christmas time and the guests are telling ghost stories. Douglass says “Nobody but me, till now, has ever heard. It’s quite too horrible.” yet when one reads the story, it is quite stirring, nevertheless is it really “quite too horrible”? (115; ch. 1) Maybe if one looks in-between the lines then one can…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abigail Williams, a teenage girl who started the whole scare about witches in Salem, blamed everyone else for her witchcraft practices and ultimately caused many of her village members to be wrongly executed. She took advantage of the judges trust to frame people for her actions. Abigail Williams was once caught performing a ritual dance in the forest, and to save herself she blamed her so called friends. Abigail began doing witchcraft to fight for John Proctor's love, and she wanted to get rid of Elizabeth who was Proctor’s wife. “You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!”(The Crucible, Act One 13). Abigail is known for being mischievous, and selfish. She was definitely not possessed,…

    • 259 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abigail In The Crucible

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Abigail is the main catalyst of Millers play The Crucible. She is presented by Milller in a powerful, "strikingly beautiful girl" yet malicious with an "endless capacity for dissembling" which is stated in Act 1 when she is first introduced to the play. This portrays and gives the reader an indication immediately, that Abigail has an everchanging personality and can manipulate people in such a way that they "fall apart". As the play progresses this is brought to light, especially with characters such as John Proctor and Danforth.…

    • 1275 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, is a well written ghost story detailing the fictional events at an estate in the town of Bly, England. This story is captivating and a thriller to read. Henry James has written over 75 works, varying in style from plays to novels. There are very few characters in this story which allowed for detailed characterization, and leaves the reader with a mental image of how they would view each character such as when the narrator, The Governess, tells the reader, “ I felt ... that I had seen him, on the instant ... the same … in which I had ... seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful.” This kind of characterization makes the discussion of the Governess as a heroine, rather than being…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Turn of the Screw

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Henry James’s Turn of the Screw is the eerie tale of a governess sent to care for two mischievous young children, Flora and Miles. Many people mistake it for a ghost story, but the story actually focuses more on the governess’s relationship with the children. Her thirst for acceptance gradually grows as the story progresses, and she becomes especially fascinated with Miles.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conflict arises when Reverend Parris, the local minister, discovers the girls in the forest being led by a black slave named Tituba. Two girls out of the group, including Reverend Parris’s daughter, Betty, fall into a coma-like state after they have been caught in the forest. This causes the town to start to question if witchcraft plays a factor in their sicknesses. Reverend Parris’s niece, Abigail, who is the main character of the story, denies that anything more than dancing happened in the woods, and threatens the girls that were involved to be silent about the situation.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    She struggles watching Sophie grow up in a culture so distant from the way she raised her daughter, and even further from how she was raised herself. She does not fit into the western culture, and seems to find flaws and lack of moral everywhere, especially in her daughter’s husband John, who is between jobs and seem to suffer from depression, an illness she does not recognize. The mother and grandmother drift further away from each other as a result of the grandmother trying to teach Sophie discipline and respect the way she was taught it. Eventually the daughter decides that they would be better off without the help of her mother. The grandmother moves in at a friend’s house, and seem to be getting along pretty well, even though she still seems to be complaining over American culture…

    • 514 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is a play that takes place during the witch-trials in Salem. People are being falsely accused for witchcraft and put to trial; innocent people are being harmed. In the play Elizabeth Proctor is married to a man named John Proctor. The audience finds out in the play John Proctor cheats on his wife with a teenage girl named Abigail Williams before the play takes place. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible Elizabeth Proctor develops from a powerless woman, to a protective wife, to supportive wife.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Rose For Emily

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    the readers to understand how she feels about the town. She is not very pleased…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays