"The Turn of The Screw"

English > Analysis
Literature > American
Psychology > Freud

An examination of Henry James' novel "The Turn of the Screw" using Freud's theories on sexual repression, dream-work, displacement and rivalry.

2,769 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2000 United Kingdom

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews Henry James' novel "The Turn of the Screw", a pure and simple ghost story in which the depraved pair Quint and Miss Jessel have a passion to possess the souls of the innocent children by returning to their old haunts after death and infecting them with their evil. It shows how by analyzing the novel using different approaches, it can offer the reader other ways of looking at the story, providing alternative explanations for many of the events. It analyzes the structure of the novel and attempts to interpret it using a psychoanalytic approach, focusing on the train of thought associated with Lacan and Freud. It also discusses the concept of male homosocial desire and applies this to the prologue which precedes the story.

From the Paper:

"Letters in The Turn of the Screw become an important dramatic element in the narrative plot and can be related to the unconscious. The narrative written by the governess has to be sent to the narrator. The text is addressed so the story itself is essentially a letter. The first event in the narrative plot is a letter telling of Mile's dismissal from school. It fails to disclose the precise reasons for his expulsion thus the suspense within the narrative arises from what the letter does not include. Other letters within the plot are intercepted; the governess does not allow the children to contact their uncle by writing, she becomes troubled when Mrs Grose wants to send a letter to the Master and finally the governess? letter to the Master is destroyed by Miles. The story then is structured and set in motion by a chain of letters which are unreadable, and like the unconscious, they govern a course of action yet are impenetrable and inaccessible to the reader."