An Almost Freudian Fairy Tale

In reference to his controversial short story, “The Turn of the Screw,” Henry James often called it a mere “fairy tale.” James was also fond of saying that the tale was never meant to be more than the conventional ghost story, the “potboiler,” the common tale of supernatural horror. No matter what his original intentions were, James’ “The Turn of the Screw” has become one of the hottest topics of literary debate, the center of which rests on this question: are the ghosts the governess sees real phantoms or are they figments of her twisted imagination? Critics from both sides cite extensive amounts of evidence from the text of the story, and the basis for either argument is firm. 

In my opinion, the only evil phantoms that inhabit Bly are those that lurk in the depraved mind of the governess. There were no ghosts with malevolent designs on the children, Miles and Flora, only an obsessed governess whose own delusions were far more dangerous to the children than any ghost. The governess is an obsessive, self-righteous, and self-serving character. She creates a supernatural battle in which she will have a chance to show her own worth, both to herself and to her employer, by saving the children’s souls from the evil of Quint and Jessel. Through her obsessed efforts, she causes Flora’s mental breakdown and Miles’ death.

The story is told in the governess’ own words, so her character is clearly shown. She is hardly a sympathetic figure. James portrays her as an arrogant, over-dramatic, vain, snobbish prude, trapped by her sexual obsession with her employer. Upon arriving at Bly, she proceeds to take over the household and after meeting Flora, she arrogantly exclaims, “I felt quite sure she would presently like me. It was part of what I already liked Mrs. Grose herself for, the pleasure I could see her feel in my admiration and wonder” (11). The governess is so sure of her exalted position that to her it seems only natural that she should rule every aspect of the children’s lives. She becomes caught up in the romantic idea that she is to be solely responsible for her little charges. Later, after she imagines evil spirits, the governess believes only she can be the one to save the children’s souls. Indeed, by saving their souls she is affirming the exalted position she has bestowed upon herself. 

The governess is the daughter of a poor country parson. It is safe to assume that she was brought up not only with a knowledge of good and evil, but also knowing that evil seeks to destroy all goodness and innocence. One could also assume that she grew up knowing that overt sexual desire was sinful. The governess tells Mrs. Grose that she was “carried away” in London by the children’s uncle. The term “carried away” has a sexual connotation. The governess, knowing that her sexual desire for the uncle was sinful, suppresses it, and from that frustrated suppression the phantoms emerge.

The governess first sees the apparition of Peter Quint while she is walking through the grounds thinking about the children’s uncle. As she approaches a tower, she vainly hopes that she will see the object of her desire. Her sexual desire at last getting the best of her, her mind conjures up the image of a man in the twilight. Realizing that it cannot be the uncle, she decides that it must be a ghost. Her ghost has red hair and no hat, most likely because she is imagining this ghost in the red outline of the setting sun. The fact that this male ghost is associated with a tower, recognized as a phallic symbol even in the pre-Freudian period that James wrote in, is more evidence that her sexual obsession is causing her to hallucinate.

The governess tells Mrs. Grose that she has seen a red-headed ghost wearing no hat, and on that evidence, Mrs. Grose surmises that it must be Peter Quint, a valet that died - of natural causes - some time before. The man was a womanizer in real life, so the governess assumes that, since he was sinful as a human, he must also be evil as a spirit. The governess then believes she sees a second spirit, this time that of a woman. This female ghost is associated with a lake, again showing overt sexual symbolism. The governess does not describe this spirit at all. Mrs. Grose takes for granted that the ghost must be that of Miss Jessel, the past governess who most likely committed suicide after becoming pregnant with Quint’s child.

That the governess is able to take Mrs. Grose completely into confidence has less to do with the governess than it does Mrs. Grose. The evidence the governess presents to Mrs. Grose is not all that convincing, but Mrs. Grose is a poor, illiterate woman who cares deeply about Miles and Flora. Mrs. Grose respects the governess’ authority and intelligence, and when the governess tells her that she believes there are spirits with evil designs on the children, Mrs. Grose is taken in because she does not have the education to doubt the words of the governess. Mrs. Grose continues believing out of fear that the children might be in some sort of danger, and, through Mrs. Grose’s belief, the governess’ sense of her own “rightness” is confirmed, however weakly.

The children’s behavior could not be called out of the ordinary, given the terrible strain and fear they experience at the hands of the governess. The terrible catch is that while the children’s strange behavior can be justified, it serves only to strengthen the governess’ belief in their corruption. Miles is about ten, and Flora seven. They are impressionable young children, and are not above childish mischief. They may look like angels, but no child is perfect. The governess, of course, expects them to be completely innocent. She, in her efforts to “save” them, increasingly limits their actions. She follows them everywhere, and when she speaks to them, her words are calculated to make them admit to having seen the ghosts. To the children, the governess’ behavior is bizarre.  They know that she wants something from them, but they have no idea what. They are too young to understand her strange behavior, and it frightens them. When the governess sees Flora playing with a boat at the lake, she infers a sexual meaning into Flora's action of placing a stick in a hole in the boat, instead of taking it for the innocent action of a‚ child making a sailboat. With this as proof, the governess’ behavior becomes even more erratic.

Flora, confused, calls the governess names. Mrs. Grose hears her and runs to tell the governess. Now the governess is positive that Jessel has gotten to Flora. She and Mrs. Grose find Flora at the lake, and the governess demands that Flora see the ghost of Jessel across the water. Flora falls into hysteria, not because she sees a ghost, but because her governess has terrified her by insisting that her dead governess is there. What seven-year-old child wouldn’t be terrified?  After Mrs. Grose leaves for London with Flora, the governess is left alone with Miles. For some time before this tragedy with Flora, Miles has been asking to return to school. He feels confined in the house and wishes to be once again with children his own age. The governess, of course, does not let him go, but instead keeps him at Bly as if he is a prisoner.

At their final confrontation, it seems as if Miles has given up hope of escaping his mad governess. She has told him that notifying his uncle would do no good, as his uncle does not care about him at all. The crushing news that his only living relation wants nothing to do with him sends Miles into a depression. In the final scene, James’ description of Miles at the window alludes to a man in prison. “The frames and squares of the great window were a kind of image, for him, a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, in any case, shut in and shut out” (96). Miles is shut out from the world outside, and shut into the world of the mad governess. He now knows that there will be no way to escape from her. She tells him of the letter from the headmaster of his school, and coerces his confession that it was he that took her own letter, a letter that, incidentally, had nothing to do with him.

Finally, caught up in what she believes is her victory over evil, the governess, as she did with Flora, presses him to see the phantom of Quint at the window. Miles can see nothing, except that his governess has now slipped completely into insanity. When she grabs for him, the terror he feels toward her, his depression over his sister’s fall into dementia, the shame of his dismissal from school and his theft of the letter, and his despair that his uncle does not love him, explode all at once inside him. Not able to handle it, he has a heart attack, and dies. The governess’ description of Miles’ death is, “and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped” (103). The governess, believing herself to have saved his soul, uses “dispossessed” to mean his heart was no longer possessed by the evil of Quint. The readers, however, can see that Miles was not dispossessed by an evil spirit, but of his will to live. The governess killed Miles with her obsession and her hysteria as sure as if she had shot him with a gun.

In one of James’ notebooks, he wrote that the premise of the “Turn of the Screw” was to be the story of two young children who are haunted by the ghosts of wicked servants who tempted the children to wrong-doing in real life. In this entry, there is none of the ambiguity that seems to inhabit the final version of the story. Here, it is very cut and dried: the ghosts are real and are there to bring about the death and damnation of the children. But what James planned to write and what he actually wrote may not necessarily be the same thing. In the course of the story, James’ original intentions may have been lost as he saw a new twist that would be more effective. We will never know, for all we have now is the story and a few comments from James. It seems impossible, though, that all the pre-Freudian allegories were completely unintentional. They are too clear and obvious to have just been an accident on James’ part. Also, it is not definite from the story that the apparitions are real. The evidence is strongest when considering the phantoms to be products of the governess’ depravity. James’ “fairy tale” is not the innocent, fantastic tale of old.  It is a new kind of tale, one in which there are no definites, where ambiguity replaces fact, where the readers must decide for themselves what has happened.