 | From the beginning, the Turn Of The Screw by Henry James was the ghost story to top all other ghost stories. The reader is able to take many different opinions and thoughts from the novel when it comes to ghosts and if their presence is in fact around us. You are also left to wonder if the ghosts can only be seen to a certain few? Are there true mediums who are able to see ghosts in their true forms while others remain confidence that there is nothing there? Turn Of The Screw is full of ambiguity that leaves the question of ghosts in the readers hands, to ensure there is no bias, and that you have to fight with yourself on what you believe. One of the main questions that runs throughout the novel is whether or not the Governess is really seeing the ghosts, or if she is progressively going insane. Throughout the novel she holds that the ghosts are real and that they are trying to corrupt the children. Although the children or her colleague Mrs. Grose never admit to seeing the ghosts, and on several occasions tell her there is nothing there, the Governess never loses faith that they are there still, "She isn't there, little lady, and nobody's there-and you never see nothing, my sweet! How can poor Miss Jessel-when poor Miss Jessel's dead and buried" (James)? She never seems to feel that the children will be harmed by the ghosts, but only that they will corrupt them as to ruin their future as living human beings. This can be held ironic that the Governess would never fear the ghosts would hurt the children, when in the end she would end up killing Miles. A reader would be able to take this in a couple different ways. The fact that the Governess turned out to be the only real danger could be seen as a sign that the ghosts were never there, and that the Governess fell so much into insanity that she felt that Miles would only be safe in death. Readers could also pull that the ghosts were in fact real, and that they in fact had corrupted Miles and ended up finding a way for the Governess to kill him since they could not, being that they were ghosts. Readers also face the question on whether the ghosts are really there when they see the Governess change her mind throughout the novel. For example, when she first encounters the ghosts, the Governess is set on saving the children from the evil corruption. However, only a couple of chapters later, she seems convinced that children are actually lost and cannot be saved. Some can see this as a way of the governess falling further into insanity. She is losing her grip on what is right and what is wrong, and is changing her mind on such a crucial opinion of whether or not the children she is now responsible for are corrupted with evil or worth saving. She continues the back and forth decision making up until the very end when she decides to send Flora away to her Uncle's house and keep Miles with her. |
