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Turn Of The Screw Literary Analysis

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Since its publication in 1898, the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has left its readers divided between whether or not the Governess was seeing actually ghosts or if she was simply delusional. The Governess spent her time at Bly convincing herself that she was in fact seeing ghosts, but, overall failed to give solid proof of her idea. I believe everything that happened to the Governess was all in her head because she was the only one to “see” the ghosts and she was a generally unreliable narrator. There are many times the Governess gives accounts of seeing ghosts at Bly, the first being Peter Quint in the tower (15), the second time she saw Quint looking in the window (20), the third time she saw Miss Jessel across the lake …show more content…

Because she was alone the first six times she had encounters with the ghosts, it is not possible to tell if she is reliable or not. The last two encounters are what really show that these ghosts are in her head. The first of the last encounters is by the lake with Mrs. Grose and Flora. The Governess sees Miss Jessel and tries to get Flora to admit to seeing her too. But Flora does not say Miss Jessel’s name, instead, she goes into hysterics begging Mrs. Grose to take her away (James 70,71). Flora is very distressed during and after the interaction with the Governess, showing that she really does not know of these ghosts the Governess speaks of. If Flora truly saw Miss Jessel as a ghost, she would not have been so upset when the Governess asked her about it; her reaction was too raw to be an act. Mrs. Grose was also at the lake at the time and she did not see the ghost either. While Mrs. Grose did not react the way Flora did, she knew Flora was telling the truth about not seeing Miss Jessel. Mrs. Grose was someone Flora knew and trusted; if she had

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