Henry James and
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
I. The Importance of Henry
James:
“The main expression of
nineteenth century
consciousness is in
prose…Henry James was the
first person to add anything to
the art of the nineteenth century
novel not already known to the
French.”
- Ezra Pound,
“How to Read,” 1929
Henry James
II. The Gothic Novel and English Tradition
“The Gothic novel or Gothic romance is a type of
fiction inaugurated by Horace Walpole’s The Castle
of Otranto: A Gothic Story (1764) -the subtitle refers
to its setting in the middle ages - and which
flourished in the early 19th century. Following
Walpole’s example, authors of such stories set their
stories in the medieval period, often in a gloomy
castle replete with dungeons, subterranean passages,
and sliding panels, and made bountiful use of ghosts,
mysterious disappearances, and other sensational and
supernatural occurrences…
Henry James
II. The Gothic Novel and English Tradition
“…their principal aim was to evoke chilling terror by
exploiting mystery and a variety of horrors…the best
of them opened up to fiction the realm of the
irrational and perverse impulses and the nightmarish
terrors that lie beneath the orderly surface of the
civilized mind.”
- M. H. Abrams
Henry James
II. The Gothic Novel and English Tradition
Classic Gothic Novels:
Vathek
William Beckford (1786)
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe (1794)
The Monk
Matthew Gregory Lewis
(1797)
Henry James
II. The Gothic Novel and English Tradition
Later Novels with Gothic Elements:
These novels do not necessarily have a medieval
setting, but do have an atmosphere of gloom and
terror, represent events which are uncanny, macabre
or melodramatically violent, and/or deal with
characters with aberrant psychological states.
Henry James
II. The Gothic Novel and English Tradition
Examples:
Caleb Williams, William Godwin (1794)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1817)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Bleak House, Charles Dickens (1852)
Great Expectations, C. Dickens (1860)
Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897)
Henry James
• III. Sigmund Freud
and the Unconscious
1880s: Studies
hysteria in women
1890s: Develops “the
talking cure:”
psychoanalysis
Henry James
•
III. Sigmund Freud and the
Unconscious
° 1890s: Traces many problems in
his patients
to sexual abuse in childhood
° 1895: Publishes Studies in
Hysteria
in which he discusses his findings
about childhood sexuality and
connects hysteria to problems of
sexual abuse in childhood
° Freud’s theories are not well
received by psychiatrists.
Henry James
• III. Sigmund Freud and
the Unconscious
° 1897: Freud abandons
his early theories and
starts to develop the idea
of the Oedipus Complex.
It is well-received by other
psychiatrists. He continues
to develop this theory for
the rest of his life.
Henry James
• IV. William James
Brother of Henry James,
prominent psychologist,
theologian and
philosopher. Known for
his theories of
pragmatism, education,
religion and mysticism.
Professor at Harvard and
important figure of his
time.
Henry James
V. A Definition of Horror:
"Horror defines and redefines, clarifies and obscures
the relationship between the human and the
monstrous, the normal and the aberrant, the sane and
the mad, the natural and the supernatural, the
conscious and the unconscious, the daydream and the
nightmare, the civilized and the primitive."
- Gregory A. Waller, 1987
Henry James
VI. Reviews of The Turn of the
Screw:
“Mr.
James’s
story
is
perhaps…allegorical…but the
allegory is not so clear. We
have
called
it
‘horribly
successful,’ and the phrase
seems to still stand, on second
thought, to express the awful,
almost overpowering sense of
evil that human nature is
subject to derive from it by the
sensitive reader.”
- New York Times Review, 1898
Henry James
VI. Reviews of The
Turn of the Screw:
“This story concerns itself
with the problem of evil,
from which men of
Puritan ancestry seem
never able to entirely
detach themselves.”
- The Outlook, 1898
Henry James
VI. Reviews of The
Turn of the Screw:
“The Turn of the Screw is
the most hopelessly evil
story that we have ever
read in any literature,
ancient or modern.”
- The Independent, 1899
Henry James
VI. Reviews of The
Turn of the Screw:
“The Turn of the Screw is
at once the most horrific
and tender tale of the
nineteenth century. ‘There
is no excellent beauty,’
said Lord Bacon, ‘that
hath not some strangeness
in the proportion.’”
- Oscar Cargill, 1963