I need to get a draft paper for my class on The Turn of the Screw. See attached instructions, and outline for my paper. YOU MUST USE THE 6 ARTICLES I ATTACHED ON PDF.

2. Patricia Merivale, "The Esthetics of Perversion: Gothic Artifice in Henry James and Witold Gombrowicz," PMLA, 93 (1978), 992-1002.

3. The Novels and Tales of Henry James, New York Edition, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907-1917), XII, xix [italics mine].

4. I refer to his reference to "the relentless English 'authority' which enables her to put over on inferiors even purposes which are totally deluded" in "The Ambiguity of Henry James," The Triple Thinkers (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1948). I quote from the text as reproduced in Gerald Willen, A Casebook on Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, I960), p. 121. Wilson's misrepresentation was noted by Oliver Evans in "James's Air of Evil: The Turn of the Screw," also included in Willen's Casebook, pp. 204-05. 73 means credibility, that is, sufficient lucidity, perceptiveness, sensitivity, perspective, and judgment for us to accept her deposition. But this authority cannot, of course, simply be conferred on the governess by James; it must be established in the fiction. Let us try to see what James meant in his preface in terms of technique. Part of the problem of the delivery of information in the frame is the profusion of layers of indirect discourse. When Douglas reminisces about the young governess's interview in Harley Street, for example, her prospective employer is described as "such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage."5 This is the implied James's characterization of Douglas's characterization of the governess's characterization of her former self. When Douglas characterizes the man in Harley Street as "a lone man without the right sort of experience or a grain of patience," one begins to hear the voice of the man himself, mediated through the governess, Douglas, and James, and in the sentence "It had all been ... on his own part doubtless, a series of blunders, but he immensely pitied the poor chicks" (p. 20), one hears quite clearly now the sound of his voice, his choice of words. This then becomes the perspective for the characterization of Miss Jessel , the former governess: "She had done for them [the children] quite beautifully—she was a most respectable person" (p. 21). This comment is ironic for James, Douglas, and the governess at the time she related it to Douglas, but not for the man in Harley Street, the implied James, the governess at the time of the interview, or thereader. In the narrative frame, all information on Douglas comes through the implied James. All on the governess comes in addition through Douglas. All on the man in Harley Street comes in addition through the governess. All on Miss Jessel and Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, comes in addition through the man in Harley Street.

Although the "I" of the narrative frame is of course a fictional character, this is only so because of the fictional situation; that is, he (the real James) wrote the governess's story. The "I" is the "real" James in fictional garb: he supplies the title within the frame, is perceptive, etc., and is an uninvolved observer. His judgments and perceptions are accepted by the reader as the real James's judgments and perceptions, though his knowledge is limited, and he can thus legitimately be designated the implied James.6 5. "The Turn of the Screw," in The Complete Tales of Henry James (Philadelphia and New York: Lippincott, 1964) , X^ I9 · Subsequent parenthetic citations are to this edition.

6. Cf. Alexander E. Jones, "Point of View in The Turn of the Screw," PMLA, 74 (1959), 112-22. I quote, again, from Willen's Casebook, pp. 299-300. 74 The establishing of authority within the frame is an elaborate process. The respect accorded Douglas and his story by all of the guests is of course important, but the principal means of trans- ferring authority from the implied James to Douglas consists in the incremental revelation of intimacy and affinity between the two men.

The following statements, made by the implied James, are the constituent elements of this affinity: "it was just his scruples [about reading the manuscript] that charmed me" (p. 16); "He took no notice of her; he looked at me" (p. 16); "It was to me in particular that he appeared to propound this" (p. 16); "He continued to fix me.

'You'll easily judge,' he repeated: 'you will'" (p. 17); "You are acute [said Douglas to me]" (p. 17); "Douglas completed my thought" (p. 21). The thrust of all of these passages is to confer authority upon Douglas, who is presented as discreet, intelligent, and perceptive.

As Sheldon Sacks says (in a discussion of Fielding), the narrator's "comments control our attitudes toward characters who usurp evaluative tasks which were originally solely his own."7 The assumption of this kind of authority by Douglas is crucial, of course, since it is he who must in turn validate the authority attributed to the governess by James in the preface. The establishment of the governess's authority with Douglas, and hence with the reader, who is now disposed to have confidence in him, begins with the respect that he accords the manuscript. "It's in a locked drawer," he says, written in "the most beautiful hand" (pp. 16, 17). His reticence about the story also contributes to her authority: "He had broken a thickness of ice, the formation of many a winter" (p. 16); he hoped that people would not stay for the reading (p. 18); he does not divulge the governess's name. Although the initial effect of these touches is certainly to enhance the credibility of the subsequent narrative, one might argue that in retrospect they could be considered signs of Douglas's reluctance to expose the neurosis of the governess, of whom he is clearly fond, to public view. But his explicit characterization of her as "'awfully clever and nice'"; "'a most charming person . . . the most agreeable woman I've ever known in her position'" and most particularly his asseveration that "'she would have been worthy of any [position] whatever'" (p. 17), confutes this interpretation, especially if one recalls that she was, at the time Douglas knew her, his own sister's governess. He is "'glad to this day to think she liked me'" (p. 17) One must conclude, then, that Douglas, who now carries the authority of the implied James, takes the governess's story literally. For him the ghosts are real.8 This is explicitly 7. Sheldon Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief (Berkeley: Univ.

of California Press, 1967), p. 70.

8. On Douglas as charcter reference for the governess, see Oliver Evans, "James's Air of Evil," p. 206. 75 reflected in his bringing up the story in the context of super- natural visitations involving a child. Douglas's forty-year silence fosters the assumption that he is reasonably detached and objective about the governess, though he is reticent about the story and remembers her fondly. A great deal of the text of the frame is thus invested in the establishment of the governess's reliability, first indirectly, through the characterization of Douglas, and then directly, in his characterization of the narrator. Reliability is not, of course, infallibility, and some of the text of the frame is devoted to indications of possible fallibility—indications which nevertheless serve to circumscribe that fallibility. She is perceptive in retrospect as to her own limitations. She describes herself (through Douglas) as a "fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage" who was young, inexperienced, romantic and infatuated with the man in Harley Street.9 If we look briefly at the apparent anomalies in her character and situation that the hallucination theorists have seized upon to discredit her testimony, they will all be seen to contribute to the credibility of her behavior. Her infatuation with the man in Harley Street makes her determination to stay and fight in the face of danger credible.10 Her religious background makes her acceptance of a role in the struggle between good and supernatural evil more plausible.11 The reference to "disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well" (p. 41), together with her employer's injunction against ever bothering him, of course puts her entirely on her own and is necessary to forestall the objection that she 9. Cf. Jones, "Point of View": "Obviously, the governess falls short of perfection. But her recording of these flaws only makes her seem more honest" (p. 313).

10. Cf. John Silver, "A Note on the Freudian Reading of 'The Turn of the Screw,'" in Willen's Casebook: "The object of her whole attempt is to make her final triumph ... so resounding that the master could not help noticing her," p. 240; see also Harold G.

Goddard, "A Pre-Freudian Reading of The Turn of the Screw," in the Casebook : "When a young person, especially a young woman, falls in love and circumstances forbid the normal growth and confession of the passion, the emotion, dammed up, overflows in a psychical experience," p. 249.

11. Cf. Edmund Wilson, "The Ambiguity": "the poor country parson's daughter, with her English middle-class class-consciousness, her inability to admit to herself her natural sexual impulses . . . ," p. 121. 76 should have sought outside help in her troubles at BIy.I2 James's restriction of the ghosts' visibility to her reinforces this isolation, is testimony to her spiritual sensitivity (she is not "gross"), and is the logical result of (and index of) her intimacy with the children.13 All of the material referred to in the foregoing adds up to an elaborate corroboration of James's statement from the preface: "She has 'authority.'" It is, indeed, as he says, "a good deal to have given her." The governess as narrator must of course be reliable as to the facts, which is not to say that she is necessarily conscious of what she is revealing. As Jones points out, "if the governess were indeed a liar, her 'authority' would be gone; and the reader would be obliged to disbelieve the tale in toto. For in any story employing the first-person point of view, the narrator must, on the whole, be trustworthy ... he may not deceive the reader permanently" (pp. 316-17). My principal interest here is to examine the last scene in the narration as being in fact "all my proof," as the governess says it is, but I should perhaps first mention the earlier passages from the text which offer serious problems to the hallucination theorists.

Several incidents have been pointed out by previous critics that, in Jones's words, "cannot be dismissed as subjective sensory impressions" (p. 315) and hence as subject to the governess's fallibility: the governess's description of Peter Quint, Flora's shocking language to Mrs. Grose, and Miles's final surrender of Peter Quint's name. The first two of these are quite adequately treated by Jones (pp. 315-17), and the last is the scene I will deal with in a moment. To these I would add the following two: (1) In the scene with Flora and Mrs. Grose by the lake, the first indication Flora has had that there is anything whatever wrong at BIy, the governess says to her, at the close of Chapter 19:

"'Where, my pet, is Miss Jessel?'" (p. 113). This is the first mention of the dead woman to either of the children. The governess points across the lake and says: "'She's there, she's there!'" (p. 113). The governess as narrator tells us that Flora did not "even feign to glance in the direction of the prodigy I announced" (p. 114). Why not?14 12. Cf. Oscar Cargill, "Henry James as Freudian Pioneer," in Willen's Casebook : "She is . . . 'in receipt these days of disturbing letters from home, where things are not going well.*There is a broad hint that her trouble is hereditary—she speaks of 'the eccentric nature of my father,'" p. 230.

13. Cf. Wilson, p. 117.

14. Wilson (p. 119) treats the scene but ignores this detail. 77 (2) In Chapter 17 the governess visits Miles in his room at night. After standing over him with her candle, she stays to talk with him, saying, as narrator: "I had put my candle, designedly, a short way off" (p. 101). Although "the drawn curtains were unstirred and the window tight," there was suddenly "an extraordinary blast and chill, a gust of frozen air and a shake of the room as great as if, in the wild wind, the casement had crashed in." Miles is in bed, and she on her knees beside him. Miles gave a "loud, high shriek" at the gust of frozen air. "'Why, the candle's out!'" the governess cried. "'It was I who blew it, dear!'" said Miles (p. 105). How did Miles blow the candle out?15 Having mentioned the standard objections to the hallucination theory at other points and added my own, I would like now to look at the much-discussed final scene of James's story as verification of the "reality" of the ghosts and hence of the governess's reliability. Mrs. Grose has taken Flora away, and Miles and the governess are alone when she makes a final attempt to save him from the corrupting contact with Peter Quint's ghost. The scene is the downstairs dining room, where Quint had previously appeared to her.

As the boy is standing at the window, the meal concluded, she suddenly has, as she says, "the impression that I was not barred now [from the awareness of the ghost's presence]. This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was positively he [Miles] who was. . . .

Wasn't he looking, through the haunted pane, for something hecouldn't see?—and wasn't it the first time in the whole business that he had known such a lapse?" (pp. 129-30). The boy is barred, of course, because he is moving toward confession, the crucial act that will free him from possession. As he says shortly after:

"'I'll tell you everything .... I mean I'll tell you anything you like .... I will tell you—I will. But not now'" (p. 132). It is then, at the close of Chapter 23, that she asks Miles if he stole her leter. At her question, Peter Quint appears at the window, but she gives no sign to Miles that she has seen him, having subsequently "the positive certitude ... of the child's unconsciousness" (p. 134). Miles then confesses that he stole and burned the letter and that he was expelled from school for saying things to "Those I liked" (pp. 135-36). As the governess presses him ("'What were these things?'" [p. 137], Quint reappears and shestarts : I saw him [Miles], from the midst of my act, meet it with a divination, and on the perception that even now he only guessed, and that the window was still to his own eyes free, I let the impulse flame up to convert the climax of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation. "No 15. Wilson (p. 119), and Goddard (p. 262), both skip this detail. 78 more, no more, no more!" I shrieked, as I tried to presshim against me, to my visitant. "Is she here?" Miles panted as he caught with his sealed eyes the direction of my words. Then as his strange "she" staggered me and, with a gasp, I echoed it, "Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel!" he with a sudden fury gave me back. I seized, stupefied, his supposition—some sequel to what we had done to Flora, but this made me only want toshow him that it was better still than that. "It's not Miss Jessel! But it's at the window—straight before us.

It's there—the coward horror, there for the last time!" (pp. 137-38) What the governess and Mrs. Grose "had done to Flora" was of course what happened in the scene at the lake that I mentioned earlier. The only contact between the children after that time was a breakfast "in the presence of a couple of the maids" and Mrs.Grose. The hallucination theorists contend that Miles comes out with Miss Jessel's name to identify an appariton that he does not see, as a result of an exchange of information at breakfast or insome unobserved clandestine interview in which he learned that the governess had alleged the previous afternoon that the woman's ghost had appeared. Mrs. Grose herself says that she prevented any other contact between the two children. This hypothesis is of course rather flimsy—Flora did not believe the governess and would have told Miles that she herself had seen nothing, and the boy could hardly have been in the mood he is in with the governess after having heard such a tale—but in any event the continuation of the final scene contains the element that the governess quite rightly recognizes as "all [her] proof." Upon her revelation that the apparition at the window is not Miss Jessel, Miles reacts violently: At this, after a second in which his head made the movement of a baffled dog's on a scent and then gave a frantic little shake for air and light, he was at me in a white rage, bewildered, glaring vainly over the place and missing wholly, though it now, to my sense, filled the room like the taste of poison, the wide, overwhelming presence. "It's he?" I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge him. "Whom do you mean by 'he'?" "Peter Quint—you devil!" This moment is the climax of the story and the crucial resolution of any remaining ambiguity. In her recent debunking of previous criticism, Brooke-Rose cites Glenn Reed's affirmation that surrender of the name constitutes "conclusive proof" for the 79 governess of the reality of the ghosts (Reed, p. 198), and demurs, saying : "This final scene is interpretable and has been interpreted differently (Goddard, 1957: 265; Jones, 1959: 316), and remains inexorably ambiguous" (p. 281). Brooke-Rose's allusion to Jones as representative of a "different" interpretation is a mystery to me since his reading, on page 316, is exactly that of Reed. Her second reference, Goddard, is spectacularly unconvincing on this point: Bear in mind that, all through, it is Miss Jessel, according to the governess, who has been visiting Flora, while it is Quint who has been holding communication with Miles. Why, if the boy has been in the habit of consorting with the spirit of Quint and if he senses now the nearness of a ghostly visitant, why, I say, does he not ask if he? is here? (Goddard, p. 265) Miles does not, of course, "sense the nearness of a ghostly visitant," as we have seen, and that is exactly the point. Goddard makes the same mistake as the governess, that Miles's naming of Miss Jessel is "some sequel to what we had done to Flora." That, incidentally, is precisely the sort of damaging inference the hallucinating governess of our theorists could not make. Goddard asks why James should hint at the possibility of contact between the children after the scene with Flora at the lake if not to allow for Flora to pass the crucial information to Miles. The hint was introduced to allow the governess her brief moment of uncertainty, so that the full weight of revelation would fall on the surrender of Quint's name, which was not a plausible consequence of any supposed communication between the children. Miles assumes the apparition to be Miss Jessel precisely because he does not see or sense it. His only contact throughout the events at BIy has been, as Goddard points out, Peter Quint.

There is no indication that he ever sees Miss Jessel, and both ghosts appear to some people and not to others, as is traditional in the genre. Only when he is told that it is not Miss Jessel, that it is, in fact, "better still than that," does he realize what the governess has sensed earlier, "that it was positively he who was [barred from seeing Quint] . . . looking through the haunted pane, for something he couldn't see." The hallucination theorists offer no reasonable explanation for what is for them his next "guess," with increased agitation, of Peter Quint. The reading I have offered here explains her consciousness of triumph, his rage and frustration, and her final, key adjective in the phrase: "his little heart, dispossessed [italics mine], had stopped." 80