Sean Rowe, Eng 511, 31 January 2002

All you ever wanted to know about the Turn of the Screw but were afraid to ask

Interpretation of The Turn of the Screw has always hinged upon a reading of possession: of who possesses whom. Peter Beidler's "Critical History" organizes the various scholarship along the lines of those who believe the ghosts are real, those who believe the ghosts are phantasm of the governess' mind, and those who profess both (127). Millicent Bell's critique highlights the problematic nature of that division: "The prolonged debate about the reality or irreality of the ghosts in the story, the principle pivot of controversy, seems finally to have come to a halt in the acceptance of the idleness of such a question" (qtd in Beidler 137). She points to the governess as a figure unable to live with ambiguity: the children are either angels or demons. This credible reading, however, leaves out a significant question: how the characters in the text relate to differing readers; that is, how the text itself works to isolate the reader as a fourth narrator, another character caught in a moment of "possession," and, like Miles at the end, looking about with "convulsed supplication," asking, "Where?" (James 116).

There are two controlling metaphors running through Turn of the Screw: the metaphor of possession and the metaphor of the governess as ship captain. Possession needs to be evaluated as both a subject possessing an object and as an subject possessed by an other--each having an entirely different significance. The subjective experience of possessing another represents a desire for union or complete meaning. In contrast, the experience of being possessed suggests a state of aporia, a lack of control, an absence of meaning. Possession, here, is manifestly tied to the metaphor of reading and misreading; those persons possessed are, ultimately, unable to "see" (or as with Mrs. Grose, possessed by the governess, is also illiterate). When we add the image of the governess at the helm of her ship, or narrative, taking us to that space of complete meaning or transcendental signification, the pieces of the story take on meta-literary significance, becoming a discussion about the possibility of meaning being tied to the text. Who, if anyone, ultimately possesses this text? Can it be possessed? Is it empty gestures around a hall-fire on a wintry afternoon (James 117)?

On first encounter, the governess represents the reader. She is our advocate with the original event. As Bell's essay suggests, the governess cannot exist in ambiguity; her interpretations are exacting, her prose direct. This is, however, problematic for the reader because the governess' precision belies the ambiguity of the original situation. Her interpretations attempt a possession that verges on the impossible. We, the readers, sense this inadequacy and try to read the text through Miles, Flora, or Mrs. Grose. Our view, however, always glances off the governess' journey towards meaning. These other characters (as well as ourselves, possessed by the vagaries of James' Screw) are mere passengers aboard a ship sailing on a heading that has no place. The captain's plausible sanity means little when there is no port where ultimate meaning resides. Our possession results in little else.