The Turn of the Screw

An early horror classic that's both ghoulish and engrossing.

Author: Henry James

‘It’s very scary, that one,’ said the bookseller behind the forbidding plexiglass panel that muffled her voice inside the crowded bookstore.

‘Sorry?’ I said.

‘I said it’s very scary, that book,’ she said gravely, rapidly scanning the book’s barcode and pressing it into my possession as though it were a Samizdat manuscript.

‘Oh, good,’ I responded hesitantly.

I smiled politely and then hurried from the store under the fearful gaze of the old woman, who no doubt foresaw the horrors that awaited me inside the trim tome.

Such was the beginning of my anticipation for a novella written by Henry James, a favourite of academics who wrote the tale of a haunted house in 1898, and for which it turns out I grossly overpaid[1].

The story

The story begins at Christmas with a circle of friends attempting to scare each other silly with ghost stories before one of the party – Douglas – decides to take it to the next level with a story that he teases is outstandingly ‘dreadful’. The audience is intrigued enough to indulge Douglas, and, after a bit of backstory, we’re provided with a first-hand account of events purportedly written by the main character herself.

The protagonist is a young woman who travels to London to respond to a job advertised by a bachelor who lives in the city’s famous Harley Street. The bachelor is of the eligible variety – a handsome rich gentleman with plentiful possessions and a mysteriously aloof manner - who seeks to renounce any responsibility for his niece and nephew by shipping them off to the countryside. Our heroine is suitably charmed, and, despite learning that the previous governess had died on the job (or near enough), decides the offer is too good to refuse and heads to a country home in Essex where the action begins.

She arrives at the impressive abode nervous and keen to impress and is put at ease by the agreeable Mrs Grose and young Flora, with whom she is immediately smitten. Mrs Grose assures her that the other orphan, a young boy named Miles, is an even more impressive specimen. A discordant note is struck, however, when news comes that Miles is not so perfect after all; in fact, he has been dismissed from school for bad behaviour. The idea of such a sweet child performing such evil deeds is incomprehensible to the two damsels and they dismiss the charges pre-emptively. We also hear of the mysterious death of Miss Jessel, the former governess, the cause of which is unknown.

At first, life proceeds swimmingly, and the children appear the perfect products of good breeding and an aristocratic upbringing. The recounted tale alludes to a sudden change in affairs which occurs when a strange man appears to the governess at the end of a summer’s day. She is startled and shaken by the vision. Days later and the hostile intruder is seen leering in from a window into the house, his searching eyes scanning the room for…the children? This is our first introduction to the ghoulish figure of Peter Quint (the master’s former valet), who is positively identified Mrs Grose after she helps fill in the blanks from the governess’ vague ramblings as though she’s just picked the man out of a police lineup.

In the absence of a moderating influence, the pair are bonded in their breathless fear of the dead man who has, presumably, returned to wreak his terrible revenge upon the earth. We learn that Quint was a little loose with affections, and had had his way with Miss Jessel and possibly others in the master’s service. Mrs Grose also recalls him – as a member of the lower classes – being ‘too free’ with young Miles. What this means exactly we can only guess.

Shortly after, the reader is introduced to Miss Jessel herself, who rudely intrudes on the governesses’ excursion with Flora to the lake. After this episode, the young governess becomes increasingly resolved in her affections for the children and attempts to shield them from the spooky spectres. If not for her love for the children (combined with her employer’s apathy toward them and the predicament of hiding Miles’ expulsion from her uncle), one might assume she would have high-tailed it from Bly at the first opportunity. But she remains, unable to abandon her angelic cherubs.

She becomes increasingly agitated by the situation and even begins to suspect the children are allied - and colluding - with the ghosts against her in some kind of deranged plot. Unable to simply ask the children whether they, too, perceive Quint and Jessel, she ties herself in knots and suffers from a kind of internal combustion due to the repression of her fears.

An incident then occurs where young Flora has somehow managed to row a boat across the lake, and the strain of her bottled-up emotions causes the governess to blurt out the accusation to the child that she is, indeed, aware of the ghost of Miss Jessel. On cue, the dead woman appears, but apparently only to unsettled narrator. It’s the beginning of the end for the governess when the little girl denies her accusation and begs Mrs Grose to rescue her from the situation.

In the final stanza, the governess calls on her alliance with Mrs Grose one more time and the servant woman flees with to London with the child. A final showdown with Miles over the mystery of the school expulsion looms, which was apparently the result of a bit of innuendo by the young Lothario. Quint appears one final time and we witness a perplexed Miles struggle with the frenzied hallucinations of the unhinged governess before dying in the woman’s smothering arms.

Well? What did you think?

The book has been repeatedly, and overly, analysed throughout the years since its publication in attempts to pick apart the mystery of whether the governess is a delusional crazy person, or a victim of haunted by vindictive spirits; such enduring appeal demonstrates the alluring power of ambiguity employed by James in the text. The appeal of story’s simple premise depends upon the riddle of whether the narrator is for real, or simply paranoid and delusional. There is a disturbing feel to the book at times, not caused by images of the supernatural, but by the feeling of observing the deterioration of a woman’s mind.

Are the ghosts real? Did the governess really witness the apparitions, and are the former servants of Bly really on the loose and spending their afterlife trying to capture and corrupt small, innocent children? No one else seems to be able to see Jessel or Quint, but Mrs Grose nonetheless is convinced by the governess’s descriptions of the two recently deceased. It’s only the youngest – Flora – who has the sense to reject the (likely) madwoman’s fantasies and refuse to see her again.

The ending is ambiguous and it seems that the crazed governess has either scared young Miles to death, or crushed the life out of him in a bear hug. It’s an unexpected and chilling resolution that leaves no room for redemption.

As far as the writing goes, I found it overly verbose at times (especially in the later chapters), and several times had to re-read sentences. Having said that, it’s a quick read, and the prose doesn’t significantly deter from the book’s enjoyment, which is good introduction to a well-known and acclaimed author.

It’s not the masterpiece suggested by its frequent academic dissection, but if, unlike me, you can pay a reasonable price for it (or get it for free online), it’s certainly worth your time.

[1] The price tag sticker pasted over the Penguin copy was a full 50% above the recommended retail!