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Postgothic fiction: Joyce Carol Oates turns the screw on Henry James.(Critical Essay)

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From: Studies in Short Fiction
Date: 19980922
Author:Hoeveler, Diane Long

I: "Suffering is infinite and will not diminish."--Oates

Readers of James's classic gothic conundrum, "The Turn of the Screw," have been asking themselves essentially the same questions since the tale appeared in 1898. That is, the central puzzle has been to understand the psyche of the governess, and, if she is insane, as the reader increasingly suspects, then how does one read a text that is completely occluded, inseparable from her self-serving strategies of deception and paranoia? (1) Certainly critical opinion has focused on the governess, or the children, or Douglas and ...

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