ENG102.Honors
Dr. Silva
The Turn of the Screw
Sannita Lam
November 18, 2005
Ghost vs. Hallucination
It is very difficult to make an argument about most aspects of The Turn of the Screw
without first announcing whether one belongs to the group that views the tale as a ghost story or
to the group that feels the governess’s ghosts are really hallucinations. This essay will take the
latter view as a starting point and discuss the reasons behind the governess’s hallucinations. It is
her master’s curious absence, coupled with the governess’s unrequited love for him that drives
the young woman to her hallucinations.
When the governess applies for the job at Bly, her employer tells her that there is one
binding condition that no other woman has ever been able to meet: “That she should never
trouble him – but never, never: neither appeal nor complain nor write about anything” (28).
Instead the governess is to be totally in charge and should: “meet all questions herself, receive all
moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let him alone” (28). The governess is
unsure at first, especially because she knows the position will entail “really great loneliness.”
Even though she is unsure at first, she is still eager to impress her new master, as she
notes when she takes her walks alone in the garden: “I was giving pleasure – if he ever thought of
it! – to the person whose pressure I had yielded” (38). The governess thinks that she is making
her employer happy since she is the only one who has been able to adhere to his guideline of no
contact. Then she starts to congratulate herself immensely: “What I was doing was what he had
earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I could, after all, do it proved even a greater
1
joy than I had expected” (38). All of this shows that, in this frame of mind, she is starting to have a
romantic daydream.
The governess is imagining that her master will appear so that she can see his approval
“in his handsome face” (39). However, her imagination that appears before the woman on the
tower is not the one she expects – “the man who met my eyes was not the person I had
precipitately supposed” (39). Maybe her conscious mind is asking for the appearance of the
master so that she could show him how good she is and perhaps be rewarded. In her mind, the
governess is creating a challenge for herself, something that is greater than merely following the
master’s orders – her ghostly vision.
It is not her love for her master alone that creates the governess’s hallucinations. When
the children are prying into the governess’s background, she notes that they are trying to dig out
“many particulars of the whimsical1 bent of my father” (79). There, the governess could be saying
that her father is insane. If this is the case, then romantic daydreams about her master may have
taped into some genetic madness that she inherited from her father.
As the story goes on, the governess does start to appear a little crazy. She imagines that
the children – under the influence of the ghosts – are plotting against her: “It was not, I am as sure
to-day as I was sure then, my mere infernal2 imagination: it was absolutely traceable that they
were aware of my predicament” (78). In this instance the governess believes that her tactful but
vague allusions to the ghosts are being ignored by the children. In all reality, the children are
probably confused as to what the governess is referring, or if they do understand her, they may
think her mad, too.
1
Whimsical: acting or behaving in a capricious manner.
2
Infernal: relating to lower world of the dead.
2
Regardless of what the children think, they suffer as a result of the governess’s
delusions. She watches them constantly, and on certain occasions, seems ready to give in to a
mad rage, as when she thinks Flora’s keeping something from her. “At that moment, in the state
of my nerves, I absolutely believed she lied” (69) and the hint of violence is soon made real: “… if
I once more closed my eyes it was before the dazzle of the three or four possible ways in which I
might take this up” (69). The governess mental state then rapidly deteriorating, and she can
barely constrain herself from doing something harmful to the children: “… for a moment tempted
me with such singular force that, to resist it, I must have gripped my little girl with a spasm… why
not break out at her on the spot and have it all over?” (69).
Even if another person were able to verify a ghost sighting, then perhaps, this statement
could be refuted. The governess gets her chance near the end of the story, when she sees the
ghosts of Miss Jessel while she is standing with Mrs. Grose and Flora. Right then, the governess
is happy that somebody else will be able to testify as to the ghosts’ existence. The governess
insists, “She was there, and I was justified; she was there, and I was neither cruel nor mad” (101).
Unfortunately, Mrs. Grose sees nothing.
This essay has shown, the governess is cruel and likely mad. She has been cruel with
the children with her psychological torture, driving one into hysteria and one into the grave. And
she is certainly displaying the signs of one who is mentally deranged and sexually repressed.
Perhaps, when the ghost of Peter Quint disappears at the end of the story, her subconscious
mind has declared herself a winner and claims triumph with her exclamations to Miles – “I have
you… but he has lost you for ever!” (120). In conclusion, The Turn of the Screw is not a “real”
ghost story, but a story about a woman who was having a delusion about seeing ghosts.
3