Binaries In The Turn Of The Screw

The way that Henry James opposes several binaries in his work The Turn Of The Screw is intriguing and riveting. James’ novel opposes several binaries throughout the story. These binaries are used to serve as a form of normalcy in most books, but in this novel it is used to confuse the reader and also lay a solid foundation of the setting in this book. There are several
The first of these binaries to oppose each other is the master to servant binary. The master, of course, assumed to be male and the servant generally being female. This is shown in the book throughout a series of dialogue from the Governess. There is power struggle between the Governess and Miles for the ruling of the estate.
Near the beginning of the story the governess’

One of the ways it is represented throughout the story is how the Governess and Miles are talked about from Mrs. Grose. Several times in the story Miles is referred to as “Master Miles” both by Mrs. Grose and the Governess. Such as in this scene where Mrs. Grose is telling the Governess what Miles has told her to do. She states ““No; Master Miles only said, ‘We must do nothing but what she likes’!” (James 101) This goes to further complicate who is the “supreme authority” in the story. Miles has told Mrs. Grose to only do what the Governess likes, which means that Mrs. Grose should listen to the Governess. This means that he is telling Mrs. Grose that the Governess is in charge, but it also means the Governess is only in charge because Miles is allowing her to be. Another way that the power struggle is represented is that every time the Governess asks Miles why he was kicked out of school he does not answer until the very end of the story. The Governess has been granted “Supreme Authority” by Mile’s uncle, but yet when Miles does not listen to her he is not punished at all. Showing how Miles believes he is in charge just as much as the Governess is in charge of the estate. This is breaking the binary but also confusing the reader at the same time because the reader is not sure whether the Governess or Miles is the master. At the same time, Miles and the Governess are both still under the power of

Peter Quint was said to be to “free” with the children and everyone. The Governess says “to free with my boy!”(James 44) in disgust which insinuates sexual behavior between Miles and Quint. Miles is said to still have fond memories of Quint, but was also still friends with Quint after he was “too free” with Miles. Miles is not homosexual but rather bisexual because Miles and the Governess had a brief sexual encounter in the book when the Governess was in Miles's room alone with him. Which means that he is not only attracted to men, but women as well. This is not only breaking the binary, but also mixing together to form its own. Miles was also removed from school for saying things “Those I liked.”(James 146) He was removed from school for being an “That he’s an injury to the others.”(James 19) This hints that Miles was removed from school because of his feelings towards the other boys in his school. In the time this book was written being homosexual was not allowed and this could be entirely why he was removed from the