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Social Class In The Turn Of The Screw

766 Words4 Pages

Thesis: Amongst the library of supernatural fiction and ghost stories written within the late 1800s, The Turn Of The Screw offers a direct commentary on the suppressed social fears of class change through the embodiment of ghosts. Introduction: Written in 1889, during the rise of supernatural psychical research and supernatural fiction, The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James tells the tale of a governess driven to insanity. The governess claims to have seen ghosts of the late governess, Miss Jessel, and the deceased valet, Peter Quint, on the grounds of castle Bly. The ghosts that she sees throughout the novella are not real and were created by the governess, due to the social pressures that she faced working at Bly. Her repressed desire to belong to a higher social class and her fears of trying to elevate her status were …show more content…

Due to the scientific work of the Society for Psychical Research, the Victorian ghost story had started to take shape. The SPR solicited ghostly encounters to the public, giving authors the access they needed to write effective eye-catching ghost stories for public consumption. In addition to the scientific research being done in London, the class system started to change. Social Classes: During the middle to the end of the 1800s suburban building in London surged, rents lowered and housing became more affordable for those in the lower class. Due to the rapid growth of housing, the middle class started to grow, allowing space to move between the classes. This started to blur the lines of social class and sparked an anxiety in the upper class as well as allowed the middle-class to “define themselves in contrast to other classes” (Whelan). As this shift in social classes occurred, supernatural fiction rose alongside it. Movement and fiction: (movement and its

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