Melissa Cowley
ENG 511 - Flores
January 31, 2001
Critical Response 1

Intended Ambiguity in James’s The Turn of the Screw

Because there is so much disagreement, among readers and critics, about the meaning of James’s story, it is hard for me to resist the temptation to believe that James wrote his story intending for it to be ambiguous in order to create debate among readers, delighting in the power of the word, or the lack thereof. There is no doubt that James was a brilliant writer and story-teller, so why is it not completely possible that he would purposefully craft a story that could be read in an infinite number of ways, responded to in as many, and explained again and again without consensus? In fact, I think James would have delighted in doing just that.

The Turn of the Screw may well be about ghosts; it may also be about neurosis. But, in all actuality, because of the inability of any reader or critic to truly prove either/any interpretation, I have come to the conclusion that this absence of any truth or reality is the Truth and Reality that James is trying to explore, illustrate, and share with his readers. I agree with Christine Brooke-Rose that “there is no word or incident in the story that cannot be interpreted both ways” (135), and is this not often true in everyday conversation? It appears that James may be examining misunderstanding and the barriers of language. Language enables us to tell other people things. The problem with language is that it is finite; not all things can be “explained” in words. Feelings, smells, sounds, etc. can be likened to other things, explained in a manner that proves they are what they are because they are not something else, or explained in a way that tries to prove they are what they are because they are similar to something else. It is a situation in which true understanding is always skewed, by the inability of a speaker to put into words a wordless thing and by the inability of the listener to ever truly understand reality in the same way as the speaker. The mark is always missed, somewhat or completely.

I once heard a saying: “Music is not the tones heard but the pauses in between.” A master musician makes the most of her music not through the actual music. The music itself is only made beautiful in resonance and in the spaces between each note. I think James is playing with a similar concept, his tones being words, his pauses being words unsaid. There is so much unsaid in this tale – more unsaid than said, really. And it is that quality that makes the story so much fun. It is fairly easy for a responsible reader to realize that the “things unsaid” are what create the possibility for several interpretations of the story. From the beginning, a reader must wrestle with the reality being created by all of the implied meaning in the missing words and should realize that he/she is being “toyed with” in a sense.

In The Turn of the Screw, James creates a story world that is much like the real world, with all its misunderstandings, jumps to conclusions, and personal visions of the “truth.” He seems to be contemplating the fact that we tend to look at a situation the way we want to. We take to it what we have experienced, and that experience colors our version of reality. If we want to believe something badly enough, we will, and our belief can truly alter our reality. Full knowledge of a situation is the only way to avoid misunderstanding. Full knowledge, however, is the one thing James denies us. It is this that leads me to believe that he has crafted his story purposefully in the hopes of confusing, frustrating, and awakening readers to the possibilities of language and the highly useful rhetorical strategy of leaving words, phrases, and pertinent information out. Think political speeches, closing arguments in the courtroom, debate tournaments, etc. Sometimes the lack of a word is what makes a statement its most powerful.