JAMESF-L

JamesF-L is the on-line discussion group concerning Henry James.

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Here is a sample posting by Casey Abell to JamesF-L about "The Turn of the Screw." He is replying to a posting by Adrian Cox, quoted in part between the slash // marks. For the Adrian Cox posting and Vanessa VanGilson's reply to it, use the following links:

  • Vanessa VanGilson, "The Turn of the Screw"
  • Adrian Cox, "The Turn of the Screw"

    Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998
    From: Casey Abell (CaseyAbell@COMPUSERVE.COM)
    Subject: Re: The Screw of The Innocents

    //I gather there is a widespread view that The Turn of The Screw was written to be intentionally ambiguous about whether the children were evil or the governess was mad.//

    I'm one of the intentional ambiguity folks, but I wouldn't say it's the most widespread view of The Turn. Basically, the endless arguments about the governess and the ghosts seem to fall into an interesting spectrum of views...

    1) The ghosts are real and evil; the governess is heroic and good; Miles' death and Flora's illness are proof of the ghosts' malignant effect and no responsibility of the governess, who did everything possible to save the children from perdition.

    This seems to have been the traditionally accepted view from the story's publication through the 1930s. A few dissenters spoke up but only in a muted fashion - most notably, Edna Kenton and Harold Goddard.

    After less flattering views of the governess became commonplace, the defenders of this opinion got their backs up in a hurry. They pointed to James' original notebook entry and several passages in his correspondence which seemed to indicate that The Turn was a bona fide ghost story and the governess was intended as heroic.

    Above all they hammered on the governess' point-by-point description of Quint as unanswerable proof that she couldn't be imagining the ghosts. For a while that argument did seem unanswerable, but then something funny happened. We'll get to it in a minute.

    To this day the governess fans continue to rally round their heroine. The traditional view maintains a firm place in critical discussion.

    2) The ghosts are sort of real but not really that awful; the governess isn't totally bonkers but sometimes insufferable; the children's fate is at least partially her responsibility.

    This is an attempt to admit that the governess can be less than perfect without going overboard on condemning her. Leon Edel seems to edge into this camp, insofar as he'll commit himself at all on the issue.

    Like most compromises this view tends to have limited appeal. People seem to think that either the ghosts are evil or the governess is nuts or...maybe both were intended, which is where we'll go now.

    3) The story is intentionally ambiguous; the true horror is that we can't be sure whether the governess is heroic or villainous; this essential uncertainty raises the story far above the usual run of ghost tales.

    As I said, this is where I land. It's not a real comfortable place because you get shot at from both sides. But it's fun returning fire in two directions at once .

    4) The ghosts have no objective existence but we can't be too tough on the governess; all is not right with the children and the governess is trying her best to raise them in the ways of virtue.

    The mirror image of option two. Its proponents don't want to believe in ghosts but they can't bring themselves to denounce the governess entirely. This has the same limited appeal as its opposite number for the same reasons.

    5) The ghosts don't exist at all; the governess is nuts, sexually repressed, a pathological liar, and maybe even a White House intern; she is completely responsible for destroying two perfectly innocent lives.

    The opposite extreme from option one, and you could hear the explosion when Edmund Wilson gave this opinion its most uncompromising expression in his 1934 essay, The Ambiguity of Henry James. The supporters of option one bore down as if the fate of Western civilization were at stake. The description of Peter Quint was exhibit A in the anti-Wilson tirades.

    The abuse got so bad that, as many Jamesians know, Wilson caved in the late 1940s and sort of went back to option 2. He seemed to think that James may have intended a real ghost story but was somewhat self- deceived about his less than perfect governess.

    Then in 1957 another critic spotted several interesting hints in the story that the governess could have known about Quint's appearance before her description of the "ghost" to Mrs. Grose. The problem is that these hints require us to accept occurrences outside the scope of the narrative.

    But Wilson didn't mind. He hopped back to option 5 and apparently went to his grave in the belief that James meant to write about a loony, lying governess.

    Wilson was probably aware of the passage in James' New York Edition preface which asserted that The Turn was intended to "catch those not easily caught...the jaded, the disillusioned, the fastidious." Such was Edmund Wilson, and he certainly got caught.

    As some critics have pointed out, this spectrum of views tends to reflect the beholders' opinions on many matters, large and small. It's as if the ink blot of the story reveals much about any reader.

    In fact, options one through five arrange themselves nicely from the socio-political right to left. Since I'm a timid, no-account middle- of-the-roader on most such questions, I guess it's no surprise that I land in option three.

    //I've just watched Jack Clayton's film, THE INNOCENTS, which was shown the other night on Channel 4 here in the UK. This interpretation leaves the viewer in little doubt that Deborah Kerr is not quite the full shilling.//

    I agree. In the movie Deborah Kerr sees a likeness of Quint before her description to Mrs. Grose, which immediately tends to yank the interpretation towards option four or even five. But this is a tough call, since it's difficult to *hint* on-screen that the governess may have acquired information about Quint's appearance in other than a supernatural manner.

    Finally, bored with the whole governess controversy, some critics have indulged in fantasy or comic interpretations, or have avoided committing themselves on the key question at all and instead concentrated on side issues.

    //Would any list member care to comment on the argument that tale was not only a portrayal of a progressive mental disorder culminating in a full-blown psychosis, but also a deliberate satire on Victorian morals?//

    An option-four-or-fiver, with the expected left-leaning view of traditional authority. Oh well, you're certainly in respectable company. Just watch for irate option-one folks, as Edmund Wilson learned.

    Casey Abell