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The Governess Insanity In Turn Of The Screw By Henry James

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The Governess’ Insanity “Does believing you’re the last sane man on the planet make you crazy?” -Del Spooner, I, Robot. In the story Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the main character, the Governess has gone completely insane due to paranoia caused by the ghosts she is seeing around Bly household. According to Mrs. Grose, one of the maids who worked at Bly, the Governess described the ghosts as being Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. Miss Jessel was the former Governess and Peter Quint was a part of the help at Bly. Mrs. Grose also saw the Governess slip quickly away into insanity caused by the ghosts, and Mrs. Grose and the children wanted to escape from the Governess by leaving Bly household. There are several indicators that the children and Mrs. Grose wanted to escape from the Governess as a result of her mental instability and possibly even the ghosts. Miles says “Then when am I going back(to school)?” (James 54). He asks the Governess this saying his reason being is …show more content…

For example, the Governess explained the male apparition to Mrs. Grose who said that it was the exact description of Peter Quint. She said that the man had red hair and wore clothes that looked as though they did not belong to him. The Governess also said that he seemed like a musical fellow, but he was never a gentleman. Mrs. Grose says “Quint was much too free(with Miles).” This statement is openly left for interpretation. This statement may mean that Quint molested Miles which was the reason as to why he wanted to go back to school, so he can be away from Bly and where the incident had happened. The Governess also explains Miss Jessel as wearing black garments and she gave off a depressing vibe because she had committed suicide. Since it is apparent that the ghosts could have actually existed, they can be the reason that the Governess was losing her

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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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At first, Mrs. Grose goes along with the idea of ghost sightings, but soon after, she says that “she herself has seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house

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The governess is insane because she is the only person at Bly to witness the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. During her employment, the Governess claims to experience several ghostly interactions, however no one else could relate to her sightings. For example, after claiming to see two ghosts, the Governess confides in Mrs. Grose and later says “she herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess’s plight,” (James 24). Mrs. Grose is eliminated as a witness and cannot argue if the paranormal activity at Bly was real. Since no one can support the governess’s claims, then presumably, they were hallucinated by

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The Governess was beginning to figure out that she is the only one that can see the ghosts and starts to question her sanity more than before. Her sanity slowly starts to crumble. This was the proof she needed. She needed to know if Miss Grose sees the ghosts too and it turns out that she

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The protagonist from “The Turn of the Screw”, is perceived to be despearate as she tries to achieve her dream but her personal pride leads her to an unstable condition. The author depicts the Governess believing that to attain her goal of gaining attentionby her employer, she must be a hero. Therefore, she invents lies about seeing her predessors haunting her pupils. Nonetheless, the more times James makes the Governess mention the ghosts the more she believes they are real and they, “want to get them (the children)” (82). The Governess is blinded by making it appear she sees the ghosts that she looses herself in her own lies leading her to an unstable condition of not knowing what is real or not.

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The governess progressively believes in things around her that are pseudo and assumed. Nobody else at Bly can see the ghosts that she claims even when the children tried to believe her, they just could not see the ghosts she could see. Things slowly but surely fell apart at Bly, and it seemed to start right when the governess made assumptions about the ghosts she had met. The governess had done many things at Bly, but proving her insanity is something she could not

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The governess thinks that the kids can see the ghost too, they are just too afraid to admit it. Miles who is persuaded most by the apparition won’t admit that he see’s Peter Quint. By him not admitting that he can see the apparition the people in the household start to think that the governess is going mad. The governess tries to get everyone out of the house, so she can get Miles alone, along with the governess “was already, at the door, hurrying [Mrs. Grose] off. ‘I’ll get it out of him.

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