Christmas Reading '09: The Turn of the Screw

[Jozanny]

Dark,

I have no doubt that the governess has an excess of feeling for Miles. One of the prevailing literary interpretations of the story is in fact heavily based in psychoanalytic theory, but since I do not want to sound too pompous, I will let you all dig that up on your own.

Where I disagree with you though, is about what she feels for the uncle. Though we are getting this through the frame of the narrator framing Douglas who in turn frames the governess, the governess is also framing herself--she is a mature woman chronicling herself as nearly a young girl. To use modern language, if you will all excuse me for doing so, the uncle who is a cad turns her on, but she knows full well she ranks well below his caste, and aside from that, is out of his league. She transfers this unmet desire onto his neice and nephew, in a sense, trying to protect them from her own needs, needs unmet, like Douglas's, in fact.

[Dark Muse]

Where I disagree with you though, is about what she feels for the uncle. Though we are getting this through the frame of the narrator framing Douglas who in turn frames the governess, the governess is also framing herself--she is a mature woman chronicling herself as nearly a young girl. To use modern language, if you will all excuse me for doing so, the uncle who is a cad turns her on, but she knows full well she ranks well below his caste, and aside from that, is out of his league. She transfers this unmet desire onto his neice and nephew, in a sense, trying to protect them from her own needs, needs unmet, like Douglas's, in fact.

I just feel that there is nothing to go on regarding her feelings for the Master outside of the fact that Douglas tells us that she was in love with him and we have no way of knowing where he got this information. There is no particular reason to suppose it from the manuscript itself. It seems that the idea of her feelings for the Master come completely from Douglas's interpretation, which in itself makes it suspect. For in a way he could be transferring his own feelings for the governess by imagining that she had this attachment to the Master.

Though the manifestation of Quinn and Jessel and their "evil" nature, and the suggestive things of which the Governess begins to allude to and project onto them, could be a transference of her own desires and her acting out inappropriate feelings towards the children based upon her attraction to the master.

[Jozanny]

Ah, but the opening of the third chapter, before she projects her vision, has a highly sexualized connotation:

It was a pleasure at these moments to feel myself tranquil and justified; doubtless, perhaps, also to reflect that by my discretion, my quiet good sense and general high propriety, I was giving pleasure -- if he ever thought of it! -- to the person to whose pressure I had responded. What I was doing was what he had earnestly hoped and directly asked of me, and that I could, after all, do it proved even a greater joy than I had expected. I daresay I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young woman and took comfort in the faith that this would more publicly appear. Well, I needed to be remarkable to offer a front to the remarkable things that presently gave their first sign.

It was plump, one afternoon, in the middle of my very hour: the children were tucked away, and I had come out for my stroll. One of the thoughts that, as I don't in the least shrink now from noting, used to be with me in these wanderings was that it would be as charming as a charming story suddenly to meet someone. Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn't ask more than that -- I only asked that he should know and the only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face. That was exactly present to me --

If that is not a passionate longing unfulfilled, I do not know what is, because it is shortly after this that she has what could possibly be construed, in modern terms, as a psychotic break.

Though I like, as well, the affinity kasie found to Bronte.

I really might, if possible, go to the ALA conference on James in late spring, and this cheers me up immensely. What I owe to LN after all, eh?

[Dark Muse]

In a way I think that her alleged feelings for the Master is really just another fabrication of her own mind, that is to say, I do not think she genuinely is attracted to the Master, or has real feelings for him, but rather is carried away with the excitement the idea of being in love would bring her.

She alludes to Jane Eyre and makes a direct reference to The Mystery of Uldolpho so we can see she enjoys these Gothic Romance type stories, and clearly she has a very active imagination. She finds herself now in this house which feels so much like one of the stories she enjoys reading and to say the least just being a plain old governess is not all that exciting nor particularly important outside of the realm of the children whom she is in charge of.

I think particularly out of boredom, and perhaps because of the responsibility which has been placed on her because of the Masters complete neglect of the children and leaving everything up to her, she fancies herself as being a Jane Eyre like figure and begins to create this scenario of herself being in one of her stories. So her attraction to the Master does not come so much from the flesh and blood person, but rather from the fairy tale she weaves in her mind to make herself feel more important than she really is.

I think the events that are soon to follow come more from her being a young woman who is board, perhaps lonely, and has an over active imagination than they do from some great unrequited passion.

She expresses that she has these delusions of grandeur when she declares herself the hero of the children and wants to make her role seem all the more significant by creating this great epic battle between good and evil in which she must be the sole defender to goodness against the dangers of the lurking evil.

[Jozanny]

I caught the reference to Ward's Udolpho in section IV. I may not have known its full import in the past because I am not sure I ever looked it up before and never read Ward, although she is now on my kindle and I may get The Italian too, eventually, if I can stomach the former, whenever I get to it; for someone so marginalized in her social structure I have taken on not a few insignificant burdens in recent months, but as always, James refuses not to intrude! . Every reading I give him opens new possibilities, even when I have exclaimed, "Oh so that's it, boy was I stupid..."

I pretty much adhere to the psychoanalytic reading of the story, which is that the governess, by degrees, descends into an hysteric insanity, by which she then terrorizes Flora and possibly frightens Miles to death, though this is not absolutely certain--as must be the case when dealing with James--but he is toying with Gothic conventions too.

I may finish tonight as I had intended, as I have more than one motive for taking some furious notes.

I am on my own for this part of the holiday, not on scrupple but because travel is too difficult for me this year, given what I have been through and the age of my old power chair, so I may actually finish up early Christmas Day.

********
To be honest, I bought a mah jong solitaire program for myself, and after 15 minutes of writing, blew it off and played some formats. I like GameHouse versions the best, but the Quests aren't really that much worse for being cheaper, -- really, I should wrap up my review by tonight...

[Jozanny]

Okay, I am now back to *unblowing* as it were, and I am almost finished this reread, and wanted to qualify that psychoanalytic plotting points are not the beginning and the end of plugging in to the ambiguity of the text. One can also look at a homoerotic coda, very subtlely immersed within the text, that, to use a Jamesian clause not my own, "subverts the normal Victorian bonds"; it may be slightly less obvious in TOS than in other of James's works, but it is there.

Since I am falling asleep in my Quickie and have to transfer to bed yet, my last observation in relation to my progress this morning is--if one doesn't want this woman to be crazy when she starts seeing Quint, by the time she suspects 10 and 8 year old children to be in collusion with spirits--it is time to call William James and get lithium in caplet form. Even in the text itself, she starts to lose Mrs. Grose's sympathy at this point, meaning the housekeeper cannot follow where the governess is going. I will add a bit more later.

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12/30: I also would have missed the importance, in earlier readings, of the reading material the governess has busied herself with on the night of Flora's so called cavorting. Has anyone read Fielding's Amelia? I have just downloaded it, as I just realized I confused Joseph Andrews with Tom Jones and own the former as opposed to the latter.

But as you can see, James is having a lot of fun in TOS playing upon cultural references: the art of Raphael, the various literary tropes, even fantasy, which is rare for James.

I will feel badly if my passion for the Master has deterred anyone from making further comments; I hope not, but I will have more to add on the by and by. I may extend my posts into the New Year.

[Quark]

I will feel badly if my passion for the Master has deterred anyone from making further comments

Well it made me a little hesitant, but, no, it hasn't completely deterred me. Really, I've just been away from LitNet so much that I haven't had time to get into a book club discussion. I'd like to, though. Is the conversation still going on? Give me a couple of days and I think I can start posting.

[Dark Muse]

I will feel badly if my passion for the Master has deterred anyone from making further comments; I hope not, but I will have more to add on the by and by. I may extend my posts into the New Year.

As for me, I just fell behind on my reading of the story over the holidays.

[Virgil]

I will feel badly if my passion for the Master has deterred anyone from making further comments; I hope not, but I will have more to add on the by and by. I may extend my posts into the New Year.

Absolutely not. I've had a break in my reading, but I will get back to this tomorrow.

[Jozanny]

Well it made me a little hesitant, but, no, it hasn't completely deterred me. Really, I've just been away from LitNet so much that I haven't had time to get into a book club discussion. I'd like to, though. Is the conversation still going on? Give me a couple of days and I think I can start posting.

Cool Quark, I am a bit overwhelmed myself, and this is all a fault of my own making, so I will ease up for at least a few days and give you a chance to catch up.

I guess it is okay if we extend the discussion into January--since I do not intend to earn any money on it, I may post my abstract here, I will think about it, as I do not want to be laughed at by James scholars who write these proposals for a living. The gent in charge was perfectly polite to me, however, and said he'd be happy to read it, and told me I can attend the conference either way--though I could envision making a buck or two on a James article for an education periodical.

Happy New Year to all! (Virgil, Dark, kasie, Neely...)

[motherhubbard]

I finished today. I must admit that I had to read and reread a lot of it. I would just get lost in the sentence. I was on the edge for the entire story. It doesn't take much to spook me ( I failed to tend my animals until after dark and there is a fog in the fields so it was horridly frightening out there after this) I'm still not sure what I think about it. One moment I the children are trying to drive her mad. The next I think of Flaubert's Madam Bovary being carried away by her own desire for romance and excitement. I was somewhat disappointed in the ending because it leaves me still undecided.

[Virgil]

I have to admit I'm a little confused. What is the problem with Miles and his being expelled and why is it important? I've got about 30 pages to go and I can't piece the significance of it together.

[Jozanny]

Virgil, I was not ready to post yet, as I was going to make a heady summation, with the precaution of putting it onto my word processor first--but James is playing on exaggerated irony here, with Miles and school. The governess assumes, and assumes is a key word here--that the masters decline to have the boy back because he did something bad--that he contaminated others, corrupted. Mrs. Grose makes equally exaggerated protests against this--and when the governess actually sees Miles, what does she say? That he had more of the *divine* in him than any other child she ever knew.

James is deliberately trying to frustrate the reader's expectations, and he does, because anyone would want to know why their child was expelled, but the uncle doesn't care, and the governess declines to investigate because she gives way to what she sees as divine beauty within the boy.

[Virgil]

Hehe, he's suceeded in frustrating mine. I'll be looking forward to your summary. I hope to finish the story by tomorrow.

[motherhubbard]

Jozanny, I'm also looking forward to it. I've thought about the story several times today and the more I think about it the more I think that it was the imagination of the governess. But, how did she so accurately imagine the two deceased people?