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The Turn of the Screw was written in 1898 by Henry James. It is a horror fiction novel.

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James was a shy, book-addicted boy. By his mid-20s James was regarded as one of the most skillful writers of short stories in America.

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Henry James was an American novelist, as well as a naturalized English citizen from 1915. His novels tended to have themes falling in the realm of the innocence and exuberance of the New World in clash with the corruption and wisdom of the Old.
James was not one of the many authors that had a traumatic childhood or such.

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The governess is the protagonist of the novel, who initially starts as an intelligent yet sensitive woman who is given the immense responsibility of caring for two children and an estate. She is fleshed out through her tendency to have emotional outbursts, and is subject to a crush on her employer, which she obtained over the course of two interviews. This novel is the first person perspective from the governess, which allows the audience to see her inner dialogue. Her defining moments would be when she sees the ghost of Peter Quint at the window, thinks only to protect the children and determine what he is doing at the estate, no regard for her own danger. This character resonates with me because I, too, would be curious as to why a ghost haunted my home.

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Mrs. Grose plays the role of companion and confidante to the governess. She is easily overwhelmed by the governess' theories, but remains supportive of her throughout the novel. She is illiterate, making her more realistic for the time period, and respects the governess because of her higher position and literacy. Her character is mostly revealed through her dialogue. Mrs. Grose is intriguing because she remains loyal to the governess even though her theories are wild and supernatural in ways people typically don't subscribe to.

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Miles is the older charge of the governess' two charges, and is a boy. He is depicted as a perfect angel of a child, despite the fact that he was expelled from his school for an unknown reason. Although Miles is seen as perfect, he is fleshed out through his actions of doing whatever he wants just to show the governess he can, particularly when he goes onto the grounds in the dead of night. When the governess finally finds him and asks him why he had done such a thing, he tells her that he wanted to show her he could and would. This character is intriguing particularly because of the way everyone else sees him to be perfect, but he seems to have an evil side to him, not to metion that he is a child.

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The prologue's pacing is much slower than the rest of the book. This makes it very hard to stay invested in the plot, as almost nothing happens. James moves the plot along by using such cues as "the next day" (9). There are no flashbacks, though essentially, the whole rest of the book is a flashback from this moment, using a different perspective.

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The narrator for the entirety of the book, excluding the prologue, is the unnamed governess. This book uses a first person limited point of view, as the governess' perspective is the only one the audience is able to view, thus skewing all perspective to match the governess'. Thus, the audience only gets to read the views of the governess, with no idea what other characters really think and feel, only the governess' guesses as to their thoughts and emotions.

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The believability of the governess is questionable. James uses a limited point of view, so the audience is only able to read what the governess sees, nothing more. Because of this, There is no other viewpoint to compare the governess' to; no way to tell if what the governess sees is real. However, the governess herself gets increasingly erratic as the novel goes forth, making it hard to tell if she truly sees these apparitions, or if she is hallucinating. On the other hand, the when the governess first sees the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, she describes them as such without previously knowing these peoople had existed, died, or what they looked like.

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The governess' perspective drives the novel. As she seems to be the only one who admits to seeing the ghosts, she is driven to protect her pupils and to drive away the awful specters. A different perspective, such as that of Mrs. Grose or that of Miles, would change the path the novel is directed on, since both of those characters either cannot see the ghosts or refuse to admit they can.

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Hamlet in Hamlet has a very similar experience to the governess in The Turn of the Screw, as both are the protagonists in their respective works, believe themselves to be perfectly sane while others see them as unhinged or crazy, and see ghosts. Furthermore, a character the protagonist cares about dies in the conclusion of the story, as a cause of the ghosts the protagonist sees.

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In As I Lay Dying, Darl slowly becomes crazy as he struggles to cope with his much higher intellect, and his family's inadequacies. In this way, Darl is similar to the governess, as she, too, struggles to cope with her ghostly visions, and slowly becomes unhinged. Both characters are unable to cope with their circumstances, and thus, fall from sanity.

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Though it was not a personal experience, I have heard a story of someone seeing a ghost much in a similar way the governess does. This particular ghost was a teacher at an old college, and the woman that saw it said she was walking passed an old room in the older section of the college she worked at. When she looked in, she saw a woman staring out the window into a field of flowers. The window looked out upon parts of the newer college campus though, in reality. Later the woman was able to identify this teacher as a lady who in fact, had worked at the school, and the room was in fact the lady's old office. Just as it was with the governess, no one else saw this ghost, and thus, there was no way to verify if this could possibly be true or not.

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The beginning and middle of the novel were a leisurely pace, that allowed the reader to feel the plot was moving, but also have enough time to digest the events occuring. The governess slowly was able to tell the story over a larger passage of time, as opposed to spending a long time describing mere moments.

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The end of the novel was extremely fast paced, as there was hardly any time to understand what was happening at that moment, before the next plot point had begun. This made the novel feel as if the suspense was mounting, right up until the last sentence when Miles falls down dead. The amount of dramatic tension was nearly palpable, leading to a rush to finish the novel and resolve the plot.

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Miles is first thought to be a troublesome little boy due to being expelled from his school, but as soon as the governess sees him, all thoughts of potential evil in the boy dissipate. However, Miles himself doesn't really change. More of his character is exposed as the governess gets to know him, but he himself remains fairly static. Rather, instead of him changing, the governess' perspective of him changes, creating a different image of Miles at the conclusion to the novel.

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The unnamed protagonist of The Turn of the Screw shows very little character development as well, though she is the only character the reader gets any depth from, the rest being blank and extremely glossed over. While the governess doesn't necessarily grow over the course of the novel, she does change from a lovestruck young women with a crush on her employer, to a women fiercely trying to protect her charges from a source that may or may not only exist in her head, a fact that makes her sanity debatable. The central conflict, the ghost sightings, are the cause of change in the governess, for without them, she would continue to remain sane and lovestruck instead of borderline insanity.

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"'What I’ve seen would have made YOU so; but it has only made me more lucid, made me get hold of still other things.'” (75).
In this passage, the governess speaks of her horrid encounters with the ghosts of Quint and Mrs.Jessel to Mrs. Grose. This resonated with me because it reminds me of how "Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy" (Nora Ephron), which is something I often heard when I was younger. The governess in this passage is a perfect example of this belief, which made me pause and laugh a bit at her fervent belief that she so desperately clings to.

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The majority of the characters in The Turn of the Screw are simply blank pages with a few small aspects about them. The uncle for example, is simply a rich bachelor with no desire to be caught up in the affairs of his charges. This is his whole character, and it remains the same throughout the work. Flora is a beautiful little girl who is angelic and innocent, while Mrs. Grose is an illiterate maid. The majority of the characters in the novel are extremely static, as even the central conflict has no effect on their characterization.

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James created a conclusion that also happens to be the climax of the novel, giving the audience no sense of what might have happened after. This provokes thoughts in the reader, as with no solution, the reader is forced to wonder why it is so dissatisfying. This creates an impulse to continue to turn the pages, despite the fact that there is nothing afterwards.

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Just as in Crime and Punishment, The Turn of the Screw has a climax that is simultaneously the conclusion of the work. This increases the tension and suspense in a way a normal resolution would never. The Turn of the Screw however, has no epilogue afterwards to resolve the plot leaving the audience on a major character death with no solution. As a reader, it is a very frustrating feeling to not have the feeling of satisfaction at a nicely concluded plot, something James did on purpose to increase the dramatic tension in the novel, as well as provoking thoughts in the reader.

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"I caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped" (139).
This passage resonated with me because it is the resolution to the story. It essentially says that even innocence cannot save one from death, something I find to be extremely truthful. So many people are deluded into thinking that someone who is innocent and naive should be saved from life's harsh realities, but James dispels that belief by ending Miles' short and innocent life.

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The inciting incident in The Turn of the Screw was the first time the governess saw the ghost of Peter Quint at the window. From that point forwards, the governess was determined to find out what the ghosts wanted and protect her charges from the specters. This intrigues the reader because the setting for the story is otherwise normal and uninteresting, and adding ghosts to the plot creates a sense of intrigue, and a desire to know where the story is going.

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Every encounter the governess has with the ghosts thickens the plot, and brings dramatic tension the the story. The ghosts never speak, nor do they ever touch a living person, yet something about them exudes evil and impurity, leaving the governess frightened, yet determined to stop the specters plotting. This tension further increases the reader's desire to know how it all ends

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This book's purpose is to argue that appearances distort thoughts. This is because the governess bases all of her opinions and thoughts on how things look, particularly how Flora and Miles appear to be. They seem to be angelic and perfect, and to the governess, this means that they must be darling children who could never do anything bad. Even when the children do act in a less than innocent way, the governess does not seem to have a problem with it, as they are perfect and can do no wrong.

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"The flash of this knowledge – for it was knowledge in the midst of dread – produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started, as I stood there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage" (34).
This passage resonates because it sounds to be similar to when things just "click;" when intuition takes over and a person just knows something, suddenly, and without any justification. It's thought provoking; the reader has no idea how these sudden thoughts come to be in the governess' mind, they just are, with no rhyme or reason. It is something no one, reader, governess, or other character can explain, but it just happens.

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I read a book called The Summoning, where a girl who can see ghosts was put in an institution for people like her- people who could see ghosts or could move things with their minds. There was of course, a larger plot behind the whole thing, but Chloe the protagonist, is very similar to the governess in that both women can see ghosts, yet are doubted, and in Chloe's case, are institutionalized. The ghosts in both stories also lay a much larger role in the plots of each book, rather than just being a distraction. The ghosts in both stories played the roles of antagonists, though in The Summoning, they were minor antagonists.

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The Turn of the Screw inspired generation of horror movies about children; whether possessed, evil, or just chillingly creepy. Miles and Flora were thought to be completely angelic and innocent, which gave ideas to writers in order to spin that innocence into eerie and disturbing innocence in children like the twin sisters in The Shining, or all the children in The Children of the Corn.

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Four reccuring symbols and motifs were silence, innocence, good versus evil, and appearances. These devices were used primarily to invoke the sense of dramatic tension and suspense in the plot. The unnatural silence for example, was used in order to denote the appearance of the ghost of Peter Quint, while the children were depicted as innocent little souls who could do no wrong. These devices were effective because they gave the story a supernatural feeling, with the innocent appearance of children being a common themes in modern horror movies- an idea based off of The Turn of the Screw. The meaning of the work, appearances distort thought, connects to these, as the children appeared to be innocent and angelic to the governess, thus banishing all her thoughts that they could be anything but perfect and good. The children themselves were overcome by the evil of the ghosts, and even of they appeared to be good, they were not. However, their inner evil did not matter to anyone, as the children looked to be so beautiful and ethereal. Henry James expresses an argument, though it most likely isn’t something he adheres to. I believe that his philosophy is at the very least, something worth looking into, as it is similar to “don’t judge a book by the cover,” though he is more saying that humans do judge based on appearances, and that makes us liable to lies, which I’d say is accurate.