I have to do an essay on the Turn of the Screw!!
The title is: Chapters 19 and 20 of The Turn of the Screw prove that the “Ghosts at Bly are products of the Governess’s imagination”
Discuss this statement with relation to the novel.
If anyone has any ideas on what I should do. Any help is appreciated.
Thx in advance
Lottie
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What it sounds like you need to do is aline your thoughts. Think about what you read. Where there any passages that stirred your imagination? What was revealed about the plot, or about the characters and/or their relationships? Did this effect the way you feel about them? What are the ghosts at Bly, and how do you know this? What does the Governess think they are, and why?
Sometimes it helps to just start writing down statements. Occasionally when I do this I start with a few important or revealing quotes from the novel, but other times I simply start writing, just about whatever comes to mind. These 'statements' may be about the plot or the characters, for example:
Mrs. P hates Mrs. Q. Mrs. Q is beautiful and rich, and always has a flock of admirers. This makes Mrs. P feel jealous. Mrs. P does not know how to deal with her jealously.
The statments may be either fact or personal opinion, but they are always supported by the text. Usually my statements start out being very general surface stuff, and then eventually start digging deeper into the book. (Just be sure you do not digress, and that you can find text in the book to back up the direction you're going in.) If you hit a dead end go back up to the more general begining statements or make a fresh start. It takes some time and thinking, but once you get rolling, you could quite possibly end up with the Blob. Trust me, the hardest part is starting. Once you get started it gets easier as you go--that is, if you've read the book!!
yes I have read the book. I will try that. My teacher was so nice about it and when he heard i had been sobbing all weekend about it he explained it to me and said I could have an extra week. If i need any more help I will be back!!!!! Thanx. xxxxxxxxxx
P.S. anyone else got any input??
I don't think it's really about whether the ghosts exist or not. It's really about ambiguity and expresses James view about that. Is life really ambiguous or not? If not, we should be able to point that out in the story. But, James makes it very difficult to do. So , the reader is the one who ends up confused by ambiguity, when life itself is really not ambiguous. But, it is James himself who is self-deceived by ambiguity and this work is nothing but his self-justification for that. I did not like or appreciate this work for that reason. It's just not honest.Originally Posted by OscarsHutches
Hello - I'm in the middle of writing an essay about 'Turn of the Screw', but my question is about the theme of reading in the novel. I've started to talk about the unreliability of the governess, as she seems to construct her own conclusions even when she is given little or no evidence that could support them.
How have you been getting on? x
Ella
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