THE TURN OF THE SCREW BY
HENRY JAMES
By Jenna Warren
Submitted to Mr. Young
ENG 3U
THE TURN OF THE SCREW
The author of The Turn of the Screw is Henry
James.
It was published in 1898.
He was born on April 15, 1843 and died
February 28, 1916.
James wrote other major novels such as: The
Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of a Dove, Daisy
Miller, What Maisie Knew, and many others.
He was also one of the major figures of transAtlantic literature.
SUMMARY
The novel starts off with a prologue about a group of teenagers in an
abandoned house in the middle of no where telling ghost stories. One of the
teenagers, Douglas, tells everyone that he has a story that is scarier than the
ones told earlier. The story is about his sisters governess and her experiences in
the past. He starts telling her story and that’s where The Turn of the Screw begins.
The governess is a young women who gets a job taking care of two young
orphans, Miles and Flora, because their uncle doesn’t have time for them. They
live in an old country home in Bly along with many servants and a housekeeper
named Mrs. Grose. The governess soon finds out that the children are being
haunted by their uncles former valet Peter Quint, and their former governess
Miss Jessel who both died mysteriously a long time ago. After many occurrences
of Peter and Miss Jessel terrorizing the governess and trying to possess the
children, Flora suddenly becomes ill and the governess orders Mrs. Grose to
take Flora away to her uncle. The governess and Miles are now alone in the
house until Peter appears and the governess, holding onto Miles for dear life,
orders Peter to leave them. She then looks down to find Miles dead in her arms.
SETTING
The Turn of the Screw takes place in an old isolated country mansion called Bly
in Essex, England. The mansion is very old and eerie, and has a haunted
feeling to it.
When the governess first settles into the house after meeting Mrs. Gorse and
Flora, Flora gives the governess a tour of the mansion and the governess asks
herself if she is in a fairytale or a storybook that she had fallen into and tells
herself “No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a
few features of a building still older, half replaced and half utilized, in which I
had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great
drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm!” (pg. 302). The governess sees
herself as the one in charge at Bly with a great deal of responsibilities. She
describes the mansion she is living in and reminds herself that it isn’t some
sort of fairytale castle.
PLOT
Exposition: The governess arrives at Bly for her new job at taking care of
two young orphans, Miles and Flora.
The exposition is displayed is in Chapter one.
Rising Action: The governess starts seeing the ghosts of Peter Quint and
Miss Jessel and tries to protect Miles and Flora from being possessed by them.
The rising action is displayed in chapters three to nineteen
Climax: Miss Jessel shows up when the governess is with Mrs. Grose and
Flora and the governess tries to show them she’s there but they don’t see her.
Flora then becomes ill in fear of the governesses mental state. The governess
orders Mrs. Grose to take Flora to her uncle.
The climax is displayed in chapter nineteen up to twenty one
Falling Action: Miles and the governess are now alone at Bly until they
encounter Peter Quint. The governess orders him to leave Miles alone. She
finds Miles dead in her arms.
The falling action is displayed in chapters twenty one to twenty four
Resolution: There is no resolution to The Turn of the Screw. Henry James ends
the novel at Miles’ death and there is no real explanation of how he died. He
leaves the ending blank and it’s up to the reader to choose the ending
There is no part in the novel where the resolution is displayed because it does
not exist.
CHARACTERS
Protagonist
The protagonist in The Turn of the Screw is the
governess. She is a hardworking, dedicated,
women who is in charge of taking care of
Miles and Flora.
The governess is 20 years old, she grew up in
a poor country family, and she seems to fall in
love easily because she fell in love with Miles
and Flora’s uncle after only meeting him twice
for the interviews (but that is the only part in
the novel in which she discusses her feelings
for him). She acts out in the good of the
children and is a strong-willed, noble,
intelligent women and is the heroine of this
novel.
The governess cares a lot for Miles and Flora and will do anything to keep
them safe from Peter and Miss Jessel. The governess is talking to Miles about
his feelings and how he wants to be by himself more often, until the
governess asks what happened to him before she came to Bly. Miles wouldn’t
give her the answer she was looking for and then she broke down saying
“Dear little Miles, dear little Miles, if you knew how I want to help you! It's
only that, it's nothing but that, and I'd rather die than give you a pain or do
you a wrong—I'd rather die than hurt a hair of you. Dear little Miles"—oh, I
brought it out now even if I should go too far—"I just want you to help me
to save you!” (pg. 373). All the governess wants to go is keep Miles and Flora
safe from the horrors of Bly but she wanted to know if Miles knew anything
before she would tell him what was going on. The governesses only priority is
to keep them safe and that is why she is the protagonist.
Antagonists
The most obvious antagonists in The Turn of the Screw
are Peter Quint and Miss Jessel because they terrorize
the governess and try to possess the children.
Peter Quint is a red haired, attractive, clever young
man who used to be the children’s uncle’s valet until he
mysteriously died. He now haunts Bly in search of
possessing Miles.
Miss Jessel is a young beautiful women who was the
children’s former governess who also mysteriously died
and had an inappropriate relationship with Peter Quint.
She then became pregnant because of the affair. Miss
Jessel roams Bly to try to possess or “corrupt” Flora.
Throughout the novel the governess seems to think that Peter Quint is after Miles.
On another occurrence of seeing Peter the governess notices “…that it was not for
me he had come there. He had come for someone else.” (pg. 316). The governess
realizes that Peter Quint is wandering the grounds of Bly in search of little Miles
because he wants to corrupt him.
The governess comes in contact with Miss Jessel at a point in the novel and notices
that she was “Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her
unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to
sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I
had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a
wild protest against it that, actually addressing her—"You terrible, miserable
woman!"—I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang through
the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she heard me, but I had
recovered myself and cleared the air.” (pg. 365-366). This is another example of how
Miss Jessel keeps showing up in Bly, terrorizing the governess and another attempt to
get at Flora.
However, if you look at The Turn of the Screw in a different perspective, you could
see that the governess is also the antagonist.
She could be completely insane! She
claims to see the ghosts of Peter and
Miss Jessel but no one else has ever
seen them. Her hidden desires for the
children’s uncle could have made her
and she could be the one who actually
Miles by suffocating him when holding
him for dear life when she “sees” Peter
in the window. These allegations against
her are not proven but it is a theory.
A few days after the governess had moved in, she walked along the grounds
of Bly thinking what it would be like to meet someone and then “…[she]
stopped short on emerging from one of the plantations and coming into view
of the house. What arrested [her] on the spot—and with a shock much greater
than any vision had allowed for—was the sense that my imagination had, in a
flash, turned real. He did stand there!” (pg. 310) This is when the governess
first sees Peter Quint standing on top of one of the towers. She could have
been imagining him because she was thinking how nice it would be to meet
someone, this is a example of how the governess could be completely insane.
CONFLICT
The main types of conflict in The turn of the Screw are mainly man vs. supernatural,
man vs. man, and man vs. self, depending on how you look at the novel.
Man vs. supernatural has to do with the fact that
there are ghosts haunting Bly trying to corrupt
Miles and Flora and the governess is the one
trying to save them from being possessed. The
governess faces many occurrences of Peter and
Miss Jessel around Bly and eventually they get the
best of her.
governess
Man vs. man is the struggle between the
and Mrs. Grose and the children. The governess
tries very hard to prove that Peter Quint and Miss
Jessel are really there and trying to get the children
but they never actually see them which makes the
governesses struggle to save them that more
difficult.
Man vs. self is the other perspective in The
Turn of the Screw because one can argue that
the governess is insane and is imagining Peter
and Miss Jessel. She stresses herself out with
the idea that there are “horrors” at Bly and
how she tries to save the children from
something that might not even be there.
There are theories that she went insane
because of her desires for Miles and Flora’s
uncle, but they haven’t been proven. She is in
a constant battle with herself in “seeing” the
ghosts and trying to grip onto reality.
THEMES
The Supernatural
The supernatural refers to the fact that there are two ghosts in this story and is the
base of the novel. It has an affect on the characters minds and actions and what the
ghosts physically do to the governess and possibly even the children. The
supernatural could be just in the governesses mind, or it could be shockingly real.
After Mrs. Grose and Flora left, the governess was alone with Miles and Bly. Until
Peter Quint showed up and the governess orders him to leave them. Henry James
writes “But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and seen but
the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he uttered the cry of a
creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him might have
been that of catching him in his fall.
I caught him, yes, I held him – it may be
imagined with what a passion; but at the end
of a minute I began to feel what it truly was
that I held. We were alone with the quiet day,
and his little heart, dispossessed, had
stopped.” (pg. 403) Peter Quint seemed to
have somehow killed Miles by either
dispossessing him or leaving and taking his life
with him. This is just one example of how the
supernatural is a big part of The Turn of the
Screw.
Innocence
The theme of innocence can refer to the children’s child-like innocence that is
fading away because they are being corrupted from Peter and Miss Jessel, or even
innocence in imagination, Mrs. Grose and the children not being able to see the
ghosts because of their lack of imagination. Innocence can also refer to ignorance,
how the children and Mrs. Grose don’t realize the reality of what’s happening
around them.
One night the governess wakes up to see Flora out of her bed looking out the
window at the field. The governess quietly got up and went to another window to
see what she was looking at. She didn’t see anything at first but “Then [she] saw
something more. The moon made the night extraordinarily penetrable and showed
[her] on the lawn a person, diminished by distance, who stood there motionless and
as if fascinated, looking up to where [she] had appeared – looking, that is, not so
much straight at [her] as at something that was apparently above [her].
There was clearly another person above [her] – there was a person on the
tower; but the presence on the lawn was not in the least what [she] had
conceived and had confidently hurried to meet. The presence on the lawn –
[she] felt sick as [she] made it out – was poor little Miles himself.” (pg. 347)
Miles was out on the lawn to prove to the governess that he can be bad
because she sees him as an innocent angel. Even though he was being bad, she
saw it as “poor little Miles” and didn’t punish him. His child-like innocence is
tricking the governess.
Good Vs. Evil
The governess is in a constant battle in keeping the “evil” away from the
children. The governess is essentially the good in this and the ghosts are
obviously the evil. She is trying to defend innocent children from the corruption
of evil spirits. However, the roles of good and evil can vary depending on if you
see the governess as insane or sane.
One day when the governess took Flora over to the lake to play, the governess
notices a women standing across the lake looking at Flora. The governess
thought to herself “Another person – this time; but a figure of quite as
unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful – with such an
air also, and such a face! – on the other side of the lake.
I was there with the child – quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she
came.” (pg. 329) This was the part where the governess first saw Miss Jessel.
The ‘evil’ was on the other side of the lake and the ‘good’ was on the
opposite. The governess was keeping Flora safe as long as the ‘evil’ stayed
away.
POINT OF VIEW
The point of view in The Turn of the Screw is from the first person.
Throughout the novel the governess is the one telling the reader what’s
happening from her perspective. Even in the prologue there is an unknown
first person who listens to Douglas talk about how his story is scarier than
the ones told earlier.
In the very beginning of chapter one, the governess explains how she
remembers her time at Bly and how it all started. The governess says “I
remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little
seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong.” (pg. 298). The governess
explains, from her point of view, that her experience at Bly had its ups and
downs. This is an example of how The Turn of the Screw is wrote from the
first persons point of view because the governess starts off by saying “I”
indicating that she will be telling the story from her point of view.
GOTHIC ELEMENTS
The Turn of the Screw can be placed in several categories such as murder
mystery, an allegory of good vs. evil, or even a romance but it is mainly a
Gothic horror. Here are some key examples of why The Turn of the Screw is a
gothic horror:
• The suspenseful atmosphere
On the first night at Bly, the governess is in a restless mood and she hears
footsteps outside her door and a child crying. When she is walking along the
field she encounters Peter Quint for the first time and the atmosphere changes
from pleasant to dangerous. She then encounters Miss Jessel at the bottom of
the stairs with her head in her hands in the middle of the night. The prologue
and its contents also adds to the suspense where one of the teenagers finished
telling a story about one possessed child and a boy named Douglas brings up
his story and says “If the child gives the effect of another turn of the screw,
what would you say to two children?” (pg. 292). Which foreshadows the
events coming up and creates suspense.
• Gothic (gloomy) setting
The Turn of the Screw takes place at an isolated country home in Bly where all of the
horrific events happen. It’s where Peter Quint and Miss Jessel appear several times
to terrorize the governess and attempt to corrupt the children, its where Miss Jessel
and Peter had their inappropriate affair, leading in Miss Jessel’s pregnancy, where
Peter Quint could have molested Miles. Bly is the place where little Miles died.
When the governess first arrives at Bly she sees
the mansion as beautiful but then realizes that
“it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient
house, embodying a few features of a building
still older, half replaced and half utilized” (pg.
302). The governess sees the house as it really is
after taking a closer look. The mansion is
actually old, ugly, eerie, and isolated where
horrors roam.
• Supernatural events
Throughout the novel the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel appear, seeming to
want to corrupt Miles and Flora. They show up several times, in windows, at the
bottom of the staircase, sitting at the governesses desk, across the lake, in one of the
towers, and even possibly in the children.
When the governess first encounters Peter Quint
she goes straight to Mrs. Grose and tells her what
happened. When the governess describes the man
she saw, Mrs. Grose realizes that it is Peter Quint
and tells the governess that he died. Terrified, the
governess asks Mrs. Grose if she is being serious
and she says “Yes. Mr. Quint is dead.” (pg. 321).
This is the first distinction that there are
supernatural beings at Bly and sets up the rest of
the novel with the ghosts presence.
• Insanity
It’s unclear whether or not the governess actually saw Peter and Miss Jessel or that
she was just insane. She was the only one to ever see the ghosts and she was
basically loosing her mind over the fact that she can’t expose the horrors of Bly to
anyone else.
Flora
lake
It’s debatable if she was insane or not but when
the governess and Mrs. Grose go out to find
when she went missing, they find her by the
with Miss Jessel a few feet away from her. The
governess tries to expose her but when she does
Flora reacts by saying:
“I don't know what you mean. I see nobody. I see nothing. I never have. I think
you're cruel. I don't like you! … Take me away, take me away—oh, take me away
from her!” (pg. 382-383). Flora claims to see nothing and become frightened of the
governess because she thinks she’s insane, which could possibly be the case.
OTHER ELEMENTS
• Romance
Even though The Turn of the Screw is mainly a gothic novel, it does have some
elements of romance. When the governess first meets the children’s uncle
during the interview, she immediately falls in love with him. As well in the
prologue Douglas admits that he had feelings for the governess. This has
features of a gothic novel because it is partly a murder, and it is heavily
scripted with the supernatural.
• Victorian
The novel was published near the end of the Victorian era (1898) and The
Turn of the Screw is based in a Victorian society. The novel includes an
omniscient narrator (the governess) who shows her bias opinion of what
actually happened at Bly, along with an unexplained death in the end.
WORKS CITED
n.p. “The Turn of the Screw, The Turn of the Screw Setting”. Shmoop. n.p. Electronic
source. May 23rd 2014. http://www.shmoop.com/turn-of-the-screw/setting.html
n.p. “The Turn of the Screw, The governess”. Shmoop. 2014. n.p. Electronic soucre. May
26th 2014. http://www.shmoop.com/turn-of-the-screw/governess.html
n.p. “The Turn of the Screw, Character List”. Sparknotes. n.p. Electronic source. May 26 th
2014. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/screw/characters.html
n.p. “The Turn of the Screw, The Turn of the Screw Themes”. Shmoop. n.p. Electronic
source. May 26th 2014. http://www.shmoop.com/turn-of-the-screw/themes.html
Lawanda Sheilds. “Literary Analysis Gothic Elements in Turn of the Screw by Henry
James”. Humanities. 2002-2014. May 25 2012. Electronic source. May 27 2014.
http://www.humanities360.com/index.php/literary-analysis-gothic-elements-in-turn-ofthe-screw-by-henry-james-7243/