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Doesitall
09-01-2007, 01:13 PM
I start school in two days and at the end of my school year last year, I was given a reading assignment to complete. It's on The Turn of the Screw. I have lost my book, yet I still have the assignment that needs to be completed with me. KEEP IN MIND, that this has to be a typed, in 12 point font, and it has to be 2 pages long. I know it seems like a lot but I would HIGHLY appreciate it if you could help. I really need these points (50 points) to start my school year off. I am not intelligent in the field of reading, so I was wondering if someone could help. Help is GREATLY appreciated. I'm desperate.

Ok, there are 4 options that I can pick from, and I will state each option below. You choose which one to do, but just state before your answer which number you will be doing. PLEASE NOTE: The chapters stated below are from the complete text book found at http://www.online-literature.com/henry_james/turn_screw/

(1) In chapter 21, the governess delivers a surprisingly nasty accusation toward Flora: "She resents, for all the world like some high little personage, the imputation, on her truthfulness and, as it were, her respectability.... Ah, she's 'respectable,' the chit!" This sudden revelation of class resentment on the governess's part seems at odds with her other attitudes throughout the text. How does class function in this story? How does it reveal or conceal motives? Think of how different the book would be without it.

(2) In chapter 22, the governess and Miles are described as being like a couple on their "wedding journey." How are we to understand this intrusion of a romantic setting into the relationship of a governess to her 10-yr-old charge? Are there other scenes where a similar suggestion might be found? How does romance work throughout the book, from Douglas onward, to direct or misdirect our view? Why is this ghost story so infected by ghostly loves?

(3) Don't write on this one unless you agree that the children are not actually "evil." They are, in fact to all appearances sweet, kind, intelligent, courteous, generous kids. Let's just say they are real kids. And yet we find the governess repeatedly referring to them as evil, as horrors, although she at first thought them to be perfectly innocent. How do these terms function in the book? That is, what is served by seeing the children as innocent or evil? Be sure to choose several specific scenes and look carefully at the way the governess's use of these categories shapes her perceptions, understandings, motivations, and place in the world. What, by the way, makes the governess "unfit" for church?

(4) In chapter 6, the governess says, "I know, I know, I know! My exaltation grew." The governess seems obsessed with knowing, and yet what she knows remains very obscure. How does this desire to "know" work in the story? Does this desire to know help her to know more, or less? How do questions of what others know - the Master, Miles, Flora, Mrs. Gross play into the governess's interest in knowing? Note: My teacher is not interested in your trying to tell him what anyone knows or doesn't, but only how "knowledge" functions as a sort of coin of character in the book.



Once again I will say that if you help me, I will GREATLY appreciate it. I am in desperate need. 50 points for my school is a lot of points and especially to start the year off with. I really am desperate.

Thanks for your time!

Nightshade
09-01-2007, 02:10 PM
All copies of the book will have differant page numbers as the font is often differant. this is a copy of the complete text. http://www.online-literature.com/henry_james/turn_screw/

Doesitall
09-01-2007, 02:33 PM
Ok, thanks, I will edit my first post now :)