How The Governess In The Turn Of The Screw

The governess in The Turn of the Screw harbors a peculiar perspective on life, particularly when it comes to the children, Flora and Miles. Upon first meeting them, she is struck by their apparent innocence, “Both the children had a gentleness - it was their own fault, and it never made Miles a muff - that kept them (how shall I express it?) almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable” (29). The governess's characterization of the children as "unpunishable" reveals much about her mindset and the dynamics at play within the story. To be “unpunishable” is to be beyond reproach. To the governess, their innocence deems the children too perfect to punish. She finds this purity both endearing and unsettling. It seems to distance them from the realm of normal childhood misbehavior. The children’s extreme

Grose and the governess hot on her tail. Once the women have reached her, the governess insists that Miss Jessel is here and she can now prove to everyone that she exists. Mrs. Grose insists that everything is alright and no one is there. Flora looks at the governess, “holding tight to our friend’s [Mrs. Grose’s] dress her comparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, had quite vanished. I’ve said it already - she was literally, she was hideously hard; she had turned common and almost ugly” (103). The governor proclaims that Flora has in an instant become “common” and “ugly”. Now that the young girl has seen another side to the governess, the ideal perception she had of Flora has vanished and for the first time, they are both seeing each other’s true colors. Flora's disillusionment with the governess reflects a rupture in the idealized facade that the governess had constructed around the child. Likewise, the governess's proclamation of Flora's sudden ugliness highlights the fragility of the perception of innocence and the ease with which it can be