The Turn of the Screw

In his “words of prologue” (6) preceding the governess’s narrative, Douglas introduces Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper at Bly, as an “excellent woman” (7) who cares for the children pending the arrival of a new governess. The character of Mrs. Grose that emerges in the main story is largely a construction of the governess herself, as she furnishes the narrative from her perspective. Reflecting on first meeting the housekeeper, the governess writes, “It was thrown in […], from the first moment, that I should get on with Mrs. Grose” (10). She immediately regards the older woman as a reliable companion and, when trouble brews, solicits her support as a confidante. Mrs. Grose is a respectable woman who shudders at the memory of Quint’s debauchery, and the governess turns to her again and again to share the horrors of the apparitions she encounters.

Despite her reliance on the housekeeper’s sympathy, the governess considers Mrs. Grose her inferior in terms of class and intelligence. When the housekeeper refuses to look at the schoolmaster’s letter, the governess observes, “My counsellor couldn’t read! I winced at my mistake” (14). Mrs. Grose’s slow grasp of situations often exasperates the governess, and she frequently interrupts the older woman to steer her thoughts in the right direction. Perhaps because her sensibilities are less refined, Mrs. Grose never sees the apparitions the governess sees, but she never doubts the governess’s claims about them either. Even after failing to witness Miss Jessel’s figure across the pond, the housekeeper trusts the governess’s judgment and, following her advice, takes Flora away.

Extolling Mrs. Grose’s constancy, the governess writes, “she accepted without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing me […] an awestricken tenderness” (30), but careful readers may question this appraisal. If the governess claims the housekeeper was “inordinately glad” (10) to see her when she arrived at Bly, she also notes that “she was so glad—stout simple plain clean wholesome woman—as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much” (10). In hindsight, the governess sees in this restraint a foreshadowing of the dark mysteries at Bly, but it may be that she overestimates Mrs. Grose’s affection and respect for her. She continually hounds Mrs. Grose with shocking claims, after all, coercing the housekeeper to view the children as corrupt and, by her own admission, making the “clean” (10) woman “a receptacle of lurid things” (54). Although the governess acknowledges, “I began to fancy she rather sought to avoid me” (15), she overlooks the housekeeper’s evasion and concludes, “Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem” (17). The extent to which Mrs. Grose esteems the governess remains uncertain, and in the end, she may be relieved to escape with Flora.

Ten-year-old Miles and his sister Flora are orphans, having lost their parents to undisclosed circumstances in India. They reside at Bly, a country estate in Essex that belongs to their uncle and guardian, who lives in London. As their guardian is “a bachelor in the prime of life” (7), he has no experience or interest in caring for children and hires a young parson’s daughter to be their governess. Upon seeing her small charges, the governess marvels at their exquisite beauty, which she compares to that of “Raphael’s holy infants” (11).

Because the governess narrates the story, her perceptions of Miles shape the reader’s understanding of him. At first, she construes his extraordinary beauty and charm as proof of his purity and dismisses an incriminating letter from his boarding school as a “grotesque” (17) outrage. The housekeeper discloses that Miles had shown “the spirit to be naughty” (15) in the past and eventually admits he kept close company for several months with his uncle’s former valet, Peter Quint, who was “depraved” (39) and “too free with everyone” (32). Upon hearing this, the governess, who has seen the dead valet’s ghost twice, reports a sudden, “portentous clearness” (31) that the ghost is seeking Miles. She is certain Quint corrupted the boy’s purity when they were together, and the demon’s apparition is now intent on possessing his soul. As the governess grows more watchful and protective of the children, Miles stages small acts of rebellion against her surveillance, including a midnight stroll, but she attributes this to the ghost’s evil influence. The governess finally saves Miles’s innocent soul from Quint’s wicked temptations, but once dispossessed of the demon, “his little heart” (103) stops.

From the governess’s perspective, Miles is “so clever and beautiful and perfect […] it can only be that” (72)—that his perfection is under assault from supernatural villains. A more natural explanation for Miles’s emerging insubordination is that he is a 10-year-old boy. On the brink of puberty, he is becoming aware of sexuality, gender roles, and “the rights of his sex and situation” (64). He is restless for independence and resents the authority of the governess, whom he increasingly regards, by virtue of her “sex and situation,” as his inferior. The more forceful her efforts become to “fence about and absolutely save” (31) the children, the more Miles defies her control, to prove he can. He aspires to be a man of the world, like his uncle, free from the nursery and domesticity. Thus, just as his uncle instructs the governess to “never trouble him […] and let him alone” (9), Miles, refusing the governess’s expressions of concern for him, tells her, “let me alone” (75). Heedless of Miles’s wishes, the governess finally isolates him at Bly with her, and the moment she claims him as her own, he dies.

Eight-year-old Flora and her brother Miles are orphans for whom responsibility has been assigned to their uncle. “A bachelor in the prime of life” (7), the uncle enjoys his indulgent life in London and has no interest in the children. He dispatches them to his country estate, Bly, where they are cared for by a new governess, following the death of their former governess.

Because the story unfolds from the new governess’s viewpoint, the narrative development of Flora’s character depends largely on how the governess perceives her. Flora initially impresses the governess with her beauty and charm, but when the governess becomes aware of evil apparitions haunting Bly, her idealistic estimation of Flora and Miles gives way to darker views. She discovers that one of the apparitions is her employer’s deceased valet, Peter Quint. According to the housekeeper, Quint was a scoundrel and “did what he wished” (39) with the children and with the former governess, a willing accomplice to his depravity. The other apparition is the “infamous” former governess, Miss Jessel, who first appears at the pond while Flora and the governess are sitting by the water. Because Flora studiously ignores Miss Jessel’s figure, the governess is certain the girl is complicit in the former governess’s scheme, which is, together with Quint, to further contaminate the children.

Although the governess sees both children as victims of the apparitions’ wicked influence, she seemingly considers Flora more susceptible to the temptations of evil than Miles. During their final confrontation with Miss Jessel’s ghost, Flora refuses to acknowledge the horrific vision, driving the governess to accuse her of lying and to observe that the girl “had turned common and almost ugly” (85). Contrast this with the story’s final scene, in which the governess rejoices over Miles’s blindness to Quint, regarding it as a sign of his allegiance to her and to innocence. If the ghosts are products of the governess’s psychic conflict over sexuality, as many readers argue, then she may transfer her subconscious fears of her own degeneracy onto Flora, who represents the innocent girl she once was.

Peter Quint served as valet to the children’s uncle when both lived at Bly during the year prior to the governess’s arrival. According to Mrs. Grose, Quint was a degenerate rogue who was “too free with everyone” (32). She never elaborates on this allusion, but the governess seemingly infers that Quint took sexual liberties with the former governess and the children. After the former governess left Bly for unknown reasons, Quint was in charge of everything, even the children. He spent hours alone with Miles, in particular. This scandalous situation lasted several months, until Quint fell on the ice after leaving the public house and froze to death.

Although the governess never meets Quint the man, she sees a figure with “red hair, very red, close-curling” (28) and an impudent gaze, whom the housekeeper identifies as the dead valet. The governess continues to see Quint’s ghost and grows certain he has returned from the dead to further corrupt the children and tempt their souls into damnation. Her determination to “save” the children fuels her actions for the remainder of the story. Some readers argue, however, that the governess’s perspective is unreliable, and the phantoms are actually hallucinations on her part. Quint is not a supernatural demon but a projection of the subconscious horror the governess experiences in association with her repressed sexual desires. As a parson’s daughter, the governess would know the biblical associations of red hair with evil, so it is unsurprising that her repressed sexual fears would manifest in visions of an impudent man with red hair.

Miss Jessel was the governess at Bly during the year preceding the events of the story. She left her position on the pretext of visiting her family but died before returning. Although Mrs. Grose describes Miss Jessel as “handsome” (38) and “a lady” (39), she also reveals that the former governess allowed Peter Quint to debase her. Mrs. Grose leaves to speculation the nature of this “abasement” but implies it is sexual and that the pair’s promiscuous activities included the children. While at the pond with Flora, the governess sees the apparition of “a woman in black—pale and dreadful” (37) and immediately concludes that the figure is Miss Jessel. She realizes with horror that the former governess wants “to get hold of” (38) Flora to continue her campaign of corruption, and that Flora knows it. Confiding in Mrs. Grose, the governess expresses fear that Flora welcomes Miss Jessel’s attention and that the girl, along with her brother, may be lost. When Miss Jessel’s figure appears at the pond again, the governess demands that Flora acknowledge the ghastly vision. The girl refuses, thus confirming her complicity in the apparition’s evil designs.

From the governess’s viewpoint, Miss Jessel is “a figure of […] unmistakable horror and evil” (37) who, together with Quint, aims to destroy the children’s souls. From another perspective, Miss Jessel’s ghost is a specter that rises not from the dead but from the governess’s subconscious. Having reacted with horror to her sexual attraction to her employer, the governess repressed her feelings. Revelations concerning Miss Jessel’s abasement—and the suggestion that it was “what she wished” (39)—trigger the subconscious guilt and self-loathing the governess feels with respect to her own desires. Indeed, the governess inadvertently identifies with her predecessor when she finds herself sitting on the stairs where, in her words, “a month before, in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the spectre of the most horrible of women” (69). If Miss Jessel’s apparition is a projection of the governess’s own sexual anxieties, then the governess subconsciously considers herself the “most horrible” woman.

In the Prologue a genteel group is gathered in an old house telling ghost stories, and Douglas is among them. He is dissatisfied with the effect produced by the stories told thus far, and following a tale featuring a child, he asks, “If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children—?” (3). His small audience clamors to hear more, but he will only reveal that his story surpasses all others “[f]or general uncanny ugliness and horror and pain” (4). Knowing he has excited the group’s curiosity, he leaves them in suspense while he sends for the manuscript of the story, which is locked away at his London home.

Douglas seems to relish the thrill of anticipation he provokes in his listeners, and to heighten their expectations, he divulges a few more tantalizing details. The manuscript was written by a woman who gave it to Douglas before she died, 20 years ago. Years before that, when the woman was the governess of Douglas’s sister, he and she became close friends, and she confided in him the story she later wrote down. Noting the woman’s modesty and refinement, Douglas is certain she had never before shared her shocking account. While Douglas dispenses these scraps of information, he stares intently at the Prologue’s unknown narrator, who infers from Douglas’s remarks that the woman “was in love” (5). Douglas concurs but demurely refuses to say with whom or whether he was in love with her. The manuscript arrives, and Douglas recites it. Years later, before Douglas dies, he gives the manuscript to the unknown narrator.

The narrator of the Prologue numbers among those who have gathered in an old house to share ghost stories. The narrator, whose name is never revealed, takes a particular interest in Douglas, another member of the group, and observes that Douglas “was not following” (3) the stories with much interest. Douglas announces he knows a story that surpasses all the others but declines to say much more until he secures the manuscript, which is presently locked up in his London house. Although the group reproaches him for rousing their curiosity without gratifying it, the narrator reflects, “it was just his scruples that charmed me” (4). If Douglas charms the narrator, the narrator intrigues Douglas too. While explaining how he knew the woman who wrote the manuscript, Douglas fixes his eyes on the narrator, who guesses aloud that the woman never confided her story to anyone but Douglas because “she was in love” (5). Douglas agrees but warns that “the story won’t tell” (7) with whom. Years later, and shortly before he dies, Douglas gives the narrator the manuscript, suggesting the endurance of a mutual bond between them. The narrator notes that the manuscript’s narrative, which immediately follows the Prologue, is “from an exact transcript of my own which I made much later” (6). While literary scholars have debated whether the narrator is a man or a woman, the traditional view is that he is male.