tutorial, commentary, study resources, and web links
The Turn of the Screw (1898) is a classic ghost story which has defied conclusive interpretation ever since it was first published. A governess in a remote country house is in charge of two children who appear to be haunted by former employees, who are now supposed to be dead. But are they? The story is drenched in complexities – including the central issue of the reliability of the person who is telling the tale. This can be seen as a subtle, self-conscious exploration of the traditional theme of the haunted house, filled with echoes of sexual and social unease. Or is it simply, “the most hopelessly evil story that we have ever read”?
Henry James – by John Singer Sargeant
The Turn of the Screw – critical commentary
The film versions and the opera are explicit interpretations of the novella – because both of them make physically manifest the figures of Peter Quint and Miss Jessell. The text of the novella offers no such manifestations. These two characters do not appear in the story at all: they are only described by the governess and discussed by her with others.
At no time does anyone else see the figures the governess claims to have observed. She is always alone at such moments as her sightings occur. There is no evidence in the text that anybody else sees the figures the governess claims to see.
The governess ‘discusses’ Peter Quint and Miss Jessel with Mrs Grose, but in an oblique and ambiguous manner whereby she elicits confirmation of her impressions from the housekeeper, who has known Quint and Jessel as former employees and is gullible enough to share the views of the governess.
Because the narrative is delivered entirely from the point of view of the governess, readers only have her opinions and impressions on which to make judgements. She convinces herself for instance that the two children are devoted to her, but a close reading of their rections to her reveal a growing irritation and hostility. She becomes psychologically oppressive to them, and eventually frightens Miles to death.
And because she never reveals the content of the letter which was sent to the house, we never learn why Miles has been expelled from his school.
Narrative structure
The novella appears to be that of a classic ‘framed narrative’ – which is normally a ‘story within a story’. It is introduced as a tale told by one guest (Douglas) to others at a weekend house party. It is one of the others (un-named) who presents the story. However, once the narrative begins, these intermediary narrators never reappear.
The story also comes to the reader via an extraordinarily oblique route. It is introduced by one (outer) narrator who is part of a group assembled for a weekend house party. He describes a fellow guest (Douglas) reading the manuscript of someone else’s story.
The governess has written down her account of events and given the manuscript to Douglas. Some time later Douglas gives the outer narrator the original manuscript, and the narrator makes a copy of it. It is the copy which forms the main part of the narrative. No reason is given why the outer narrator didn’t present the original text.
The Turn of the Screw – study resources
The Turn of the Screw – Oxford Worlds Classics – Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – Oxford Worlds Classics – Amazon US
The Turn of the Screw – Dover Thrift – Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – Dover Thrift – Amazon US
The Turn of the Screw – Penguin Classics – Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – Penguin Classics – Amazon US
The Turn of the Screw – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – Wordsworth Classics – Amazon US
The Turn of the Screw – eBook versions at Project Gutenberg
The Turn of the Screw – the preface to the 1908 New York edition
www.turnofthescrew.com – a history of critical interpretations.
The Turn of the Screw – Text, Contexts, Criticism – at Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – A Reader’s Guide – at Amazon UK
The Turn of the Screw – The Collier’s Weekly Version
Henry James – biographical notes
The Turn of the Screw – a book review
The Turn of the Screw – audioBook version at LibriVox
The Turn of the Screw – unabridged audioBook version
The Cambridge Companion to Henry James – Amazon UK
Henry James at Wikipedia – biographical notes, links
Henry James at Mantex – tutorials, web links, study resources
The Turn of the Screw – plot summary
The plot summary that follows is deliberately brief – because it is difficult to give an account of the narrative without at the same time offering an interpretation of its deeper possible meanings.
An unnamed narrator listens to a male friend reading a manuscript written by a former governess whom the friend claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has found himself responsible for his niece and nephew after the death of their parents. He lives in London and has no interest in raising the children. The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school whilst his sister, Flora, is living at the country home in Essex. She is currently being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The governess’s new employer gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer’s country house and begins her duties.
Miles soon returns from school for the summer just after a letter from the headmaster stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears that there is some horrid secret behind the expulsion, but is too charmed by the adorable young boy to want to press the issue.
Shortly after, the governess begins to see around the grounds of the estate the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural.
She learns from Mrs. Grose that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and Miss Jessel’s illicit lover Peter Quint both died under curious circumstances. Prior to their death, they spent most of their time with Flora and Miles, and this fact takes on grim significance for the governess when she becomes convinced that the two children are secretly aware of the presence of the ghosts.
Later, Flora runs away from the house while Miles plays music for the Governess. They notice and go to find her. The governess and Mrs. Grose find her in a clearing in the wood, and the governess is convinced that she has been talking to Miss Jessel. When Flora is forced to admit this, she demands to never see the governess again. Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles.
That night, they are finally talking of Miles’ expulsion when the governess sees the ghost of Quint at the window. The governess shields Miles, who screams at her as he attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells him that he is no longer under the control of the ghost, and finds that Miles has died in her arms.
Principal characters
| Narrator | an unnamed outer narrator |
| Douglas | possessor of the original manuscript, who introduces the story to fellow guests |
| The uncle | unnamed guardian of two young children |
| The governess | unnamed young woman, who has written the original account of events |
| Mrs Grose | the housekeeper at Bly |
| Miles | a young schoolboy |
| Flora | his sister |
| Peter Quint | a former valet |
| Miss Jessel | a former schoolmistress |
The Turn of the Screw – film version
The Innocents – 1961 adaptation by Jack Clayton (dir)
There are several film versions of the story – of which Jack Clayton’s 1961 version starring Deborah Carr is perhaps the most widely admired. The story was adapted for the screen by William Archibald and Truman Capote, with additional scenes by novelist and playwright John Mortimer, and the version was re-named The Innocents – the title alone of which is a form of ‘interpretation’.
See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database
Literary criticism
Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago University Press, 1983.
Robert Kinbrough, Henry James: ‘The Turn of the Screw’, New York: Norton Critical editions, 1966.
T.J. Lustig, Henry James and the Ghostly, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Shlomith Rimmon, The Concept of Ambiguity: The Example of James, University of Chicago Press, 1977.
John Carlos Rowe, The Theoretical Dimensions of Henry James, University of Wisconsin Press, 1986.
Gerald Willen (ed), A Casebook on Henry James’s ‘The Turn of the Screw’, New York, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969.
Edmund Wilson, The Triple Thinkers, New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1976.
Henry James’s study
Further reading
Biographical
Theodora Bosanquet, Henry James at Work, University of Michigan Press, 2007.
F.W. Dupee, Henry James: Autobiography, Princeton University Press, 1983.
Leon Edel, Henry James: A Life, HarperCollins, 1985.
Philip Horne (ed), Henry James: A Life in Letters, Viking/Allen Lane, 1999.
Henry James, The Letters of Henry James, Adamant Media Corporation, 2001.
Fred Kaplan, Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999
F.O. Matthieson (ed), The Notebooks of Henry James, Oxford University Press, 1988.
Critical commentary
Elizabeth Allen, A Woman’s Place in the Novels of Henry James London: Macmillan Press, 1983.
Ian F.A. Bell, Henry James and the Past, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.
Millicent Bell, Meaning in Henry James, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1993.
Harold Bloom (ed), Modern Critical Views: Henry James, Chelsea House Publishers, 1991.
Kirstin Boudreau, Henry James’s Narrative Technique, Macmillan, 2010.
J. Donald Crowley and Richard A. Hocks (eds), The Wings of the Dove, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1978.
Victoria Coulson, Henry James, Women and Realism, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Daniel Mark Fogel, A Companion to Henry James Studies, Greenwood Press, 1993.
Virginia C. Fowler, Henry James’s American Girl: The Embroidery on the Canvas, Madison (Wis): University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
Jonathan Freedman, The Cambridge Companion to Henry James, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Judith Fryer, The Faces of Eve: Women in the Nineteenth Century American Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976
Roger Gard (ed), Henry James: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge, 1968.
Tessa Hadley, Henry James and the Imagination of Pleasure, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Barbara Hardy, Henry James: The Later Writing (Writers & Their Work), Northcote House Publishers, 1996.
Richard A. Hocks, Henry James: A study of the short fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
Donatella Izzo, Portraying the Lady: Technologies of Gender in the Short Stories of Henry James, University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Colin Meissner, Henry James and the Language of Experience, Cambridge University Press, 2009
John Pearson (ed), The Prefaces of Henry James, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.
Richard Poirer, The Comic Sense of Henry James, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Hugh Stevens, Henry James and Sexuality, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Merle A. Williams, Henry James and the Philosophical Novel, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Judith Woolf, Henry James: The Major Novels, Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Ruth Yeazell (ed), Henry James: A Collection of Critical Essays, Longmans, 1994.
Ghost stories by Henry James
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (1868)
The Ghostly Rental (1876)
Sir Edmund Orme (1891)
The Private Life (1892)
Owen Wingrave (1892)
The Friends of the Friends (1896)
The Turn of the Screw (1898)
The Real Right Thing (1899)
The Third Person (1900)
The Jolly Corner (1908)
Other works by Henry James
The Aspern Papers (1888) is a psychological drama set in Venice which centres on the tussle for control of a great writer’s correspondence. An elderly lady, ex-lover of the writer, seeks a husband for her daughter. But the potential purchaser of the papers is a dedicated bachelor. Money is also at stake – but of course not discussed overtly. There is a refined battle of wills between them. Who will win in the end? As usual, James keeps the reader guessing. The novella is a masterpiece of subtle narration, with an ironic twist in its outcome. This collection of stories also includes three of his accomplished long short stories – The Private Life, The Middle Years, and The Death of the Lion.
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The Spoils of Poynton (1896) is a short novel which centres on the contents of a country house, and the question of who is the most desirable person to inherit it via marriage. The owner Mrs Gereth is being forced to leave her home to make way for her son and his greedy and uncultured fiancee. Mrs Gereth develops a subtle plan to take as many of the house’s priceless furnishings with her as possible. But things do not go quite according to plan. There are some very witty social ironies, and a contest of wills which matches nouveau-riche greed against high principles. There’s also a spectacular finale in which nobody wins out.
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Daisy Miller (1879) is a key story from James’s early phase in which a spirited young American woman travels to Europe with her wealthy but commonplace mother. Daisy’s innocence and her audacity challenge social conventions, and she seems to be compromising her reputation by her independent behaviour. But when she later dies in Rome the reader is invited to see the outcome as a powerful sense of a great lost potential. This novella is a great study in understatement and symbolic power.
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Henry James – web links
Henry James at Mantex
Biographical notes, study guides, tutorials on the Complete Tales, book reviews. bibliographies, and web links.
The Complete Works
Sixty books in one 13.5 MB Kindle eBook download for £1.92 at Amazon.co.uk. The complete novels, stories, travel writing, and prefaces. Also includes his autobiographies, plays, and literary criticism – with illustrations.
The Ladder – a Henry James website
A collection of eTexts of the tales, novels, plays, and prefaces – with links to available free eTexts at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere.
A Hyper-Concordance to the Works
Japanese-based online research tool that locates the use of any word or phrase in context. Find that illusive quotable phrase.
The Henry James Resource Center
A web site with biography, bibliographies, adaptations, archival resources, suggested reading, and recent scholarship.
Online Books Page
A collection of online texts, including novels, stories, travel writing, literary criticism, and letters.
Henry James at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of eTexts, available in a variety of eBook formats.
The Complete Letters
Archive of the complete correspondence (1855-1878) work in progress – published by the University of Nebraska Press.
The Scholar’s Guide to Web Sites
An old-fashioned but major jumpstation – a website of websites and resouces.
Henry James – The Complete Tales
Tutorials on the complete collection of over one hundred tales, novellas, and short stories.
Henry James on the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations of James’s novels and stories for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors and actors, production features, film reviews, box office, and even quizzes.
© Roy Johnson 2010
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