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Comparing Beidler's The Governess And The Ghosts

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Along with accepting her job from the her beloved bachelor, the young governess must agree to take full responsibility of his niece and nephew and promise to never contact their uncle for anything. His kin were left to him after not only the death of their biological parents, but also the death of their caretaking grandparents. It is never made clear why the uncle chooses to cut off communications with them given the children’s unfortunate upbringing; however, as anyone might assume, the uncle simply just does not care for anyone but himself. He did leave them in possession of Bly and cater financially to their needs, but he choose not to involve himself in their upbringing. Perhaps because being a young, wealthy bachelor is a life all too …show more content…

In an essay titled, “The Governess and the Ghosts”, authors Peter G. Beidler and Alexander E. Jones agree that “scholars who think Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are not really ghosts but the wild imaginings of a sexually repressed neurotic or a pathological liar and that the real evil at Bly is the governess, not the ghosts.” A psychoanalytic reading of Turn of the Screw, would lead to the same conclusions, as for the governess’ realities. Mental Health America, a foundation for mental health awareness, defines psychosis as, “a general term to describe a set of symptoms of mental illnesses that result in strange or bizarre thinking, perceptions (sight, sound), behaviors, and emotions. Psychosis is a brain-based condition that is made better or worse by environmental factors - like drug use and stress.” (Mental Health America) In the case of the governess her condition is worsened by her environment, she learns facts about the new place she is living and uses them to create hallucinations. Being that Peter Quint and Miss Jessel (the persons of her delusions) had passed before the governess’ time at Bly so it is perplexing that those are the people she claims to see. It is possible then that the governess is seeing aspirations who are not Peter Quint and Miss Jessel but she is seeing strangers and associating them with the people that she knows those around her could relate to. And so forth, she starts her first description of her delusions of seeing a man in the window with, "I haven't the least idea [who he is]." (James

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This distancing shows a level of unfamiliarly that she feels towards her uncles, in that they are able to go out and

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From her experience with “madness,” she concluded that psychiatry was a naive field. Early in the book, she explains how society viewed mental illness in the past, saying it was demonic possession, where the treatment was to drill a hole in the patient’s skull. As the book advances, the author turns to David Rosenhan, a noted psychologist, and his study that included 8 normal people going undercover in different psychiatric facilities and claiming they heard empty, hollow voices in their heads, all of them were admitted, and most were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study showed how psychiatry did not know how to differentiate between the sane from the insane, it also uncovered the mistreatment that patients received when they were admitted and the conditions that the patients lived in. Rosenhan’s study created mistrust in the field of psychiatry with some people saying that patients are more likely to recover if they are not admitted to a facility.

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The narrator states, "I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there." (Gilman). Since her husband John is very controlling, he won't let her stay with her family, or even visit them. The female protagonist in this story is also very anxious at the beginning of the

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The governess’s sanity in Henry James’s Turn of the Screw is often disputed over in literature. Because the governess sees ghosts in the novel, she is often argued as insane. The definition of sanity proves otherwise, stating that it is the “state of being sound of mind or having appropriate judgment skills” (Psychology Dictionary). The governess is sane because she behaves rationally, protects the children above all costs, and is not the only character witnessing a supernatural presence.

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His father wasn’t around to show him his city and how to rule it, he was forced to sit back, powerless, in the palace with his mother. Children with single parents also miss out on quality time that they should be able to spend with them. Martha Medina, another single mother with two boys, stated,”’There was no time for a movie in the evening or bowling. I kept having to give up things I wanted to so with the boys’”(Foerstner 2). Even though she cares about her children, Martha was too busy dealing with her own problems to spend time with her boys.

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In the book, The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, the mental state of the main character, the governess is questionable and often argued by the audience. The governess reports several sighting of two ghosts, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, however, the strange events degrade the credibility of the governess and readers must decide if they were real or fake. The governess is insane because she imagines the ghosts, displays excessive fear and anxiety and is extremely paranoid over the safety of her charges. All of this reasons are symptoms of insanity which lead us to logically believe she has a mental illness.

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How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers? The Turn of the screw is a novella written by Henry James in 1898. This short ghost story is like no other; as it can be interpreted in more than one way. The main character is the governess.

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This grandmother is proven to be unsympathetic with the use of manipulation, sneakiness, dishonesty, and unconcerned with her family’s well-being. Throughout the beginning of the short story, the grandmother begins to show manipulation and sneakiness. She wants everything to be her way and to achieve that,

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In Henry James’s novella, The Turn of the Screw, the topics of sanity and insanity are commonly argued among the readers. Insanity is the state of madness or being irrational while sanity is reasonable behavior. It is up to the audience to decide on whether the author intended for the governess to be sane or insane. Despite this dissension, the governess is insane throughout the whole story because she possesses all the symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic, has an obsessive personality, and is the only one who claims she sees the apparitions.

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All of the governess mental episodes is all just a lead up to prove that she is mentally insane. The governess believes she can see people that have passed away, and she views them as very dark and evil. There have been past caretakers involved with the uncle and children that were at the house frequently before her, and some have even passed away. The governess then had claimed to see some of the past workers, that have passed away.

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She begins to slip away from reality and into her dreamlike world. The woman seen in the wallpaper mirrors the narrator 's plight for freedom. While she is free from the restraints of marriage and motherhood, she has been consumed by madness. John dominates the relationship, both as doctor and husband.

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