The Turn Of The Screw Literary Analysis

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, is ghost story that focuses on a young governess that encounters a pair of ghosts. She becomes convinced that the ghosts are somehow corrupting the two children she is charged with caring for. The new governess is enamored with the two children, and when she first meets them, she comes to the conclusion that they are perfect children (and can do no wrong). Her changing emotional states cause her to later suspect that the children are not necessarily perfect after all. She decides they are somehow involved with the ghosts, and brusquely confronts the girl. The young girl denies having seen the ghost, and gets very upset, causing her to leave the estate. The young boy remains with the governess and ends …show more content…
Even though the governess is the one that tells us that Flora’s back was turned at that moment the ghost appeared, she now comes to the mysterious conclusion that Flora also witnessed the ghost, and is pretending she had not. When the governess learns that Peter Quint (the first ghost), and Miss Jessel (the second ghost), were former lovers, the governess concludes that the ghosts are up to treachery with the children: "Quint's and that woman's. They want to get to them" (56). In addition to this, she also believes that the children (the same children she had originally considered “perfect”) get up at night and meet the ghosts, even though the children provide a reasonable explanation for their late night …show more content…
The governess and her affection for the children can be very intense. When she first meets the children, she thinks they are perfect and adorable, and she wants to hug and kiss them repeatedly. For example, the governess says of Miles and Flora: "There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I found myself catching them up, and pressing them to her heart" (45). She directs much of her affection towards Miles, through embraces or kisses. One time, after being caught listening outside Miles’s door, he invites the governess in, and after talking, she embraces him impulsively. She says, "It overwhelmed me now that I should never be able to bear that, and it made me let myself go. I threw myself upon him and in the tenderness of my pity I embraced him" (75). The governess recognizes (in the letter) how bad her obsessive behaviors had become, admitting that, in hindsight: "I ought to have left it there. But I was infatuated” (101). These repeated affectionate actions foreshadow the end of the