The turn of the screw

What can I write by way of introduction to The turn of the screw that hasn’t been written already? Not very much, although with such a well-discussed piece the important things are bound to have been said before. Whether the governess narrating the main body of the tale is seeing ‘genuine’ ghosts – whatever one means by that – or merely hallucinating, through whatever cause, has been continually argued over since the 1930s, whilst the post-modern view that James is being deliberately ambigous throughout the text has made it a three-way contest over the last twenty-five years. The nature and purpose of the opening ‘frame’ section have also generated much comment.

Well, one point which I believe is often lost in the acres of critical work relates to the specific appearance of references in the text to the resonant phrase which is James’s title. In fact the ‘turn of the screw’ appears but twice: once in the introductiory section and once in the governess’s narrative. In the former the ‘turn of the screw’ is the addition of one child to the usual Christmas-time ghost story. The addition of another child gives ‘two turns’. We note however that the phrase is uttered by Douglas, the then owner of the manuscript, although it is suggested that its use as the title of the tale is the idea of the un-named narrator of the frame. The governess’s use of the phrase hardly relates to the children at all, occurring while she is considering her situation, near the end of the narrative, and is deciding that it ‘demand[s], after all ... only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue.’ (chapter 22) for its resolution. She is screwing herself up for what she hopes will be a final confrontation with the apparition.

Having mentioned the anonymous narrator of the introductory section, I must also point out something which only occurred to me on editing the text for this edition: among the many ambiguities of the tale, we learn very little about this person, not even their sex. While we might assume that this narrator is ‘Henry James’, we know that he sometimes assumes a female persona for a first person narrative, for example in The impressions of a cousin (1883), The path of duty (1884); and, especially, in Master Eustace (1871, revised 1885), where he writes as a governess, witness to violent events. While we have few clues in this text, observations by the character such as ‘in her [the previous governess] successor’s place’ hint at the narrator’s identification with a female occupation. And whilst some phrases might sit oddly with just any female narrator (‘cried one of the women’, ‘the departing ladies who had said they would stay didn’t, of course, thank heaven, stay.’) these anomalies disappear if we assume that the female in question is the hostess of the country-house in which the introductory scene is set. (The sex of the frame-narrator has been discussed by Michael J. H. Taylor, but my point about the possibility that this narrator is the host or hostess may just be an original one!)

For details of the text sources and subsequent critical discussion see the bibliography. You may be interested in details of any problems I encountered while editing the source text for its presentation here, which can be found on a separate page, otherwise just start reading.