The Delusional World Of A Young Governess

The Delusional World of a Young Governess

In, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw the only conclusion that I can make regarding the sanity of the governess is yes, she is mad. Her fragile mental condition is initially hidden under a horror story heroine faÐ*ade. However, as the story unfolds readers uncover a twisted fairy tale narrated by a mentally unstable young woman. The end result is a story that merges two literary genres to create a haunting psychological thriller that leaves readers with many unanswered questions.

Readers are initially drawn into the story by being lead to believe that they are going to read a horror story, "The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till some... ..."(James 1). This opening statement gives readers an introduction that is dedicated to building up the readers expectations and beliefs that the story's protagonist (the governess) will be able to over come the "ugliness and horror and pain"(2) that awaits her at Bly Manor. Once, the manuscript is read the audience sees as James switches between literary genres to chip away at the governess's credibility that was established in the opening of the novella.

Presenting the protagonist as a young woman who is charged with the care of children that are threatened by a nameless terror allows the author to arouse the audience's sympathy and their protective impulses. Readers begin to see that the governess is portraying herself as the salvation of Miles and Flora from this unnamed evil:

Heaven forbid! The man. He wants to appear to them. That he might was an awful conception, and yet, somehow, I could keep it at bay; which, more over, as we lingered there, was what I succeeded in practically proving. I had an absolute certainty that I should see again what I had already seen, but something within me said that by offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such experience, by accepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I should serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions. The children, in especial, I should thus fence about and absolute save. (25)

Then again a couple of pages later the governess makes similar claims regarding her sole ability to save the children:

I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and difficult; and would be a greatness in letting it be seen-oh in the right quarter! that I could succeed where many other girls might have failed. I was an immense help me-I confess I rather applauded myself as I look back! that I saw my response so strongly and so simply. O was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most loveable, the appeal of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep constant ache of one's own engaged affection. We were cut off, really, together; we were united in our danger. They had nothing but me, and I-well, I had them. It was in short a magnificent chance. The chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was the screen I was to stand before them. The more I saw the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised tension, that might well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. (27)

This sentiment shows that the governess positions herself to fit both the horror legend and the fairy tales heroine with the typical victims and plots. Her self-description allows readers to see a classic example of a literary heroine. The audience then hears a retelling of a series of events and expects the governess to triumph over her circumstances. She is ultimately, depicting herself as the protective mother figure of her two young charges that will protect them until the very end.

Her depiction as a protective mother figure does not guarantee that she possesses the mental faculties required to work as a balanced stand-in mother for the children. There are numerous places within the text that James hints at the possibility that the governess cannot fulfill the requirements of her position. She is continually presented as being emotionally weighed down by the responsibility of taking care of her two charges: "She has 'very bad days' and sleeps little at night-'I was much to excited" (6).

On one occasion she receives a letter and it takes her most of an evening to gather the courage to open the letter and when Miles is expelled from school she is ill prepared and cannot make a decision in the matter, "I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion and perhaps my conceit to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning" (14). She does not respond when young Miles demands to be sent back to school, and threatens to write his uncle and inform him of the current situation at Bly Manor. Her only response to Miles' apparent rebellion against her authority is that she will write her own letter to Mr. Bly, which according to Miles contains nothing of substance (85). Other hints that James imbeds in the story. James shows that the governess is a poor mother figure and is not emotionally stable enough to assume her new responsibilities can be found when she admits that she is taking lessons from the children, "I now feel that for weeks the lessons must have been from them rather than my own" (44).

By slowly chipping away the governess's character James shows reader that the she is an unstable young woman who is tormented by her own sense of anxiety and insecurity. These internal shortcomings enable the governess to create an imaginary evil to haunt Bly Manor and its inhabitants. She herself admits that the ghosts are figments of her own imagination: "I dare say I fancied myself in a short a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear" (14). She also admits that she had fancied about the towers when the first figure appeared (15) and when referring to the figures she says, "the figures I had so often provoked" (15).

The story according to Mary Hallab, "parallels to fairy tales in the Arabian Nights and the Grimms' collection and the resemblance of the activity of the ghosts to fairies of legendary, which traditionally try to posses or to spirit away children" (Hallab 494). There are many elements of this story that support Hallab's fairy tale theory. The Turn of the Screw contains an isolated, mysterious castle (Bly Manor), young children in danger, a would-be heroine (the