Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeymen, and the "Ghosts"

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Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeymen, and the "Ghosts" in The Turn of the Screw Author(s): Stanley Renner Reviewed work(s): Source: Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Sep., 1988), pp. 175-194 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3045173 . Accessed: 27/10/2011 11:48

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http://www.jstor.org Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeymen, and the "Ghosts"in The Turnof theScrew

STANLEY RENNER

R readers and critics for whom the true-and clearly the richer-story of James's The Turn of theScrew is its dramatizationof a woman's psychosexualproblem and the damage it does to the childrenin her charge, the immovablestumbling block has alwaysbeen the governess'sdetailed descriptionof Peter Quint, a man dead and buried whom she has never seen. If James does not mean for readers to take Quint (and subsequentlyMiss Jessel) as a bona fide ghost,so the argumentruns, whydoes he arrange thingsso thatthe only wayto account for her descriptionof him is thatshe has seen a supernaturalmanifestation? Asks A.J.A. Waldock, in the classic formulationof the question,

How did thegoverness succeed in projectingon vacancy,out of her ownsubconscious mind, a perfectlyprecise, point-by-point image of a man,then dead, whomshe had neverseen in herlife and never heardof? Whatpsychology, normal or abnormal,will explain that? And whatis theright word for such a visionbut "ghost"?'

( 1988 by The Regentsof the Universityof California "'Mr. Edmund Wilson and The Turn of theScrew," Modern Language Notes, 62 (1947), 333-34. 175 176 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE Effortsthus far to circumventthis obstacle-Harold C. Goddard's argument that Mrs. Grose makes her identificationbefore and with negligible help from the governess's detailed description, John Silver'sthat the governesshas learned of Quint in the village before she describeshim, and Oscar Cargill's that she has gotten wind of Quint fromlittle Flora, who showsher around Bly "room by room,secret by secret"-have not settledthe issue.2In thispaper I want to show that the storyprovides its own eminentlylogical, quite unsupernatural,indeed, deeply naturalistic,accounting for the manifestationsthe governessdescribes. The logic of this line of developmenthas escaped observation,I believe,because it de- rives from idea structuresthat have since faded from general awareness:the symptomatologyof female sexual hysteriaand the supposed behavioral significanceof human physiognomy.What the governesssees on her firstencounter with the famous"ghosts" of Bly, the experience that sets in motion the story'scentral line of development,is thusnot the ghostof a dead man she has never seen but the projectionof her own sexual hysteriain the formof stereotypesdeeply embedded in the mind of the culture. The story'sspectral figures, colored by the governess'ssexual fear and disgust,symbolize the adult sexualityjust beginningto "possess" Miles and Flora as theyhover on the brinkof puberty.Frantically tryingto block the emergence of their sexuality,the governess does damage to theirnatural development that, in the case of the male child, proves fatal. The firstappearance of an apparition in the storyand the governess'sstate of mind on that occasion are, of course, crucial to understandingthe ghostsand theirplace in James'sdesign. As

2See Goddard, "A Pre-FreudianReading of The Turnof theScrew," Nineteenth- CenturyFiction, 12 (1957), 11-13; Silver,"A Note on the Freudian Reading of 'The Turn of the Screw,' AmericanLiterature, 29 (1957), 210-11; and Cargill,"The Turn of theScrew and Alice James,"PMLA, 78 (1963), 242. A recent exercise of the standard rebuttalto any psychologicalreading of the ghosts is David S. Miall's observationthat "the key passage in The Turnof the Screw in whichthe governess's descriptionof Quint is recognized by Mrs. Grose" is "one of the main pieces of evidence againstthe hallucinationtheory." He elaboratelyattempts to explain the evil in the storyin termsof "what the ghoststhemselves may mean, if theywere intended to be seen as a realityand not just a hallucinationof the governess" ("Designed Horror: James's Vision of Evil in The Turn of theScrew," Nineteenth- CenturyFiction, 39 [1984], 306). THE TURN OF THE SCREW 177 the storyitself asserts, "the factto be in possessionof" is thatthe governessis a parson's daughterleaving the shelterof home for the firsttime, coming up to London in "trepidation,"and en- counteringa young gentlemanpresented in the storyas a girl's romanticdream, from whom she accepts employment.3As the Jamesian narratorof the prologue deduces, and Douglas, who knew the governessand tells her story,does not deny, she "suc- cumbed" to "the seductionexercised by the splendid youngman" (p. 6). Thus James pointedlycalls attentionto a group of char- acterizing details about the governess-her sheltered religious background, inexperience, vulnerability,anxiety and fear, and susceptibilityto romanticemotions-that establishher as a virtual Victorian cliche of sexual ambivalence. With her almost classic conflictbetween idealistic innocence and naive romanticimpulses she is the virginal ingenue encounteringsexual danger in the form of a "handsome," "bold," young gentlemanbachelor with "charmingways with women," enjoying a life of pleasurable self- indulgence (p. 4). This emphasis on the governess'ssusceptibility to romanticemotions is an importantfeature of the buildup to the firstapparition. Withthis preparation the reader comes to the governess'sfirst encounter with the apparitionsthat harrow her throughoutthe story:she sees a frighteningmale ghost that she later describes so particularlythat Mrs. Grose, in astonishmentand consterna- tion,identifies it as PeterQuint, deceased formervalet of the children's uncle and guardian, who, withthe last governess,also deceased, had previouslyshared the charge of the children.When, however,the episode is read closely in the light of the turn-of- the-centuryunderstanding of sexual hysteria,it unfolds as a re- markablyastute dramatizationof an actual hystericalattack. Although she suppresses the erotic component of her impulses, it is clear that the governessis indulgingin romanticfan- tasiesof her dashing young gentlemanemployer as she enjoysan eveningstroll, the children"tucked away" in bed: how "charming" it would be, she fancies,if "someone would appear there at the

3HenryJames, The Turnof theScrew, Norton CriticalEdition, ed. Robert Kim- brough (New York: Norton, 1966), p. 4. All furtherreferences are to thisedition and appear in the text. 178 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE turnof a path and would stand beforeme and smileand approve" (p. 15).4And then she does see him. Whateverthe psychicvalidity of the phenomenonJames presentsin this scene, it is clear that the governessis able to conjure up in her fantasysuch a powerful impressionthat she feels she is actuallyseeing someone not pres- ent. And what she sees, at least at first,is her gentleman employer's"handsome face" reflectingthe "kind light"of approval withwhich she has hoped he will notice her. With "the sense that [her] imaginationhad... turned real," she declares unequivo- cally,"he did stand there!" (p. 16). But then as she views this figurefrom her own imagination she experiences an indescribable"bewilderment of vision": the figurenow before her, she explains, "was not the person I had precipitatelysupposed." Readers have customarilyaccepted the governess'sown explanationfor what happens to her vision: that her firstimpression was mistakenand that the figurethat ulti- matelystands before her has been there all along. But the factis thatshe was not mistaken;her identificationof the handsome gen- tlemanis too positive,too emphaticto have been a mistake.What has actuallyhappened is that the attractivemale figureshe first imagines is transformedin her own mind into the frightening male figureshe subsequentlyprojects. That the transformationis broughtabout by fear-specificallyfear of male sexuality-is the clear implicationof the termsin whichthe governessexplains the "shock"to her sensibilitycaused by the figurethat ultimately met her eyes: "an unknownman in a lonelyplace is a permittedobject of fear to a young woman privatelybred" (p. 16). More than twentyyears ago Cargill establishedJames's actual technical knowledge of sexual hysteria,both his almost certain familiaritywith Breuer and Freud's Studienuiber Hysterie and his "personal acquaintance" with an actual case of hysteriain "the illnessof his sister[Alice] and withthe delusions and fantasiesof thatillness."5 Thus it should not be surprisingthat in The Turnof theScrew he could portrayan accurate,virtually textbook case of sexual hysteria.Briefly summarized, sexual hysteria,as it was

4Cargill agrees that"to the end of her tale [the governess's]sudden infatuation is the mainspringof her action" ("Turnof theScrew and Alice James,"p. 243). 5"Turn of theScrew and Alice James,"p. 247. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 179 understoodin the milieuof TheTurn of the Screw, is a psychosexual disorder mainlyafflicting women, particularlywomen with "fine qualities of mind and character,"caused by a profound conflict betweentheir natural sexual impulses and the repressionof sex- ualityrequired by societyand exaggeratedby Victorianidealism- a conflictin the hysterical,Havelock Ellis explains,"between their ideas of right and the bent of their inclinations. The classic symptomof hysteriais thus "'a paradoxical sexual instinct'.. . by which,for instance,sexual frigidityis combined withintense sexual preoccupations"(Ellis, p. 213). The resultingconflict can be of such intensityas to precipitatesome kind of "nervous explosion" (Ellis, p. 231). "Pitresand others,"Ellis notes, "referto the frequentlypainful nature of sexual hallucinationsin the hysterical" (p. 217). In some cases "nausea and vomiting"or an "actual hystericalfit" may occur (pp. 223, 225). Today the term "sexual hysteria"is familiar,but less so is its substance: the actual syndromedesignated by the name. Thus, even thoughthe termhas been applied to the governess,7no one has shown how exactlyshe fitsthe profileof a typicalsexual hysteric.It would be hard to imagine a more classicmanifestation of its symptomatologythan James's governess.Her "superiorityof character"(Ellis, p. 220), revealed in her sense of responsibility for the children,is unquestionable.She exhibits,in classic form, the conflictbetween sexual impulse and inhibitionfound by cli- nicians of the time at the root of the disorder,suffering from "sexual needs ... and in large measure, indeed,... precisely throughthe strugglewith them, through the effortto thrustsex- uality aside" (Ellis, p. 224). A "flutteredanxious girl out of a Hampshirevicarage," the governessis clearlyin a stateof extreme tension of the kind most likelyto triggeran attack of hysteria. And she fitsthe profileof the typicalfemale hystericin several

6"Auto-Erotism,"Studies in thePsychology of Sex, 2 vols. (New York: Random House, 1936), I, Part One, 220. Furtherreferences to this section of Ellis' work are cited in the text. I make no claims,by the way,for the validityof turn-of-the- centuryassumptions about sexual hysteria,which are presentlybeing challenged. My point is only how faithfullyJames reproduces these assumptionsin his char- acterizationof the governess. 7See Robert H. Huntley,"James's The Turnof the Screw: Its 'Fine Machinery,'" AmericanImago, 34 (1977), 229. 180 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE ways: she is a "single woman.. . whose sexual needs are unsatis- fied"; she appears to be "attractiveto men"; she leads the kind of "small,smothered life" conducive to hysteria;and she is extremely suggestible(Ellis, pp. 218, 229n.). Indeed, in typifyingthe hys- tericalsituation Ellis mentionsthe case of a governessmuch like thatof James'sprotagonist: "in one case," he writes,"a governess, whose traininghas been severelyupright, is, in spite of herself and withoutany encouragement,led to experience for the father of the childrenunder her care an affectionwhich she refusesto acknowledge even to herself" (p. 221).8 James's governess,ac- cordingto all the evidence in The Turnof the Screw, is the product of a training"severely upright," and she feels, "withoutany encouragement,"an attractionto the paternal figure (if not the father) of the household in which she is employed, which she regards as only the desire to please an employerand merit his approval. Not only does James's governessfit the classic profileof the femalesexual hysteric,she also experiencesthe "hystericalfit" ob- served by turn-of-the-centuryclinicians. That her firsthallucina- tion precipitatesa "nervous explosion" of some intensityis clear fromher own account. Like thatof the classichysteric, her "men- tal activity. .. is splitup, and only a part of it is conscious" (Ellis, p. 220). Her initial fantasyof her handsome employer is conscious, but his transformationinto a figureembodying her fear of sexualityis generated by deep-rooted unconsciousinhibitions. The effect-"the shock I had suffered,"as she describesit-is a manifestationof the kind of "shock to the sexual emotions,"that, according to Freud, could "scarcelyfail sometimesto produce such a result"(Ellis, p. 231). "Somethingis introducedinto psychic life which refusesto merge in the general flowof consciousness" (Ellis, p. 222), and that somethingis the governess'sunacknowl- edged sexual attractionto the charminggentleman: it does not fit withher idealized romanticand spiritualizednotions about love. The resulting"collision," as she herselfterms the experience,be- tweenher consciousideals and her unconsciousimpulses triggers

8Ellisis mostlikely alluding to "The Case of Miss Lucy R.," included in Studien uiberHysterne, the case whichCargill convincinglylinks to The Turnof the Screw, pp. 244-46. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 181 in her emotions a profound disturbance."Driven" by her "agi- tation,"as she confesses,and only half conscious, she "must,in circlingabout the place, have walked three miles" (p. 17). As the hystericalshock involves shame and disgust and often "cannot even be talked about" (Ellis, p. 222), so the governess,upon en- counteringMrs. Grose, "somehow measured the importanceof what I had seen by my thus findingmyself hesitate to mentionit" (p. 18). If the figurethe governess"sees" is an example of "the frequentlypainful nature of sexual hallucinationsin the hysterical" (Ellis, p. 217), a manifestationof her deep fear of sexualityen- gendered when her unacknowledged sexual impulses intrude themselvesinto her idealized romanticfantasy of her employer- when,to put it anotherway, the relationshipshe fantasizesbegins to take itsnatural course towarda sexual consummation-the log- ical question to be addressed is "What formwould such a hallu- cinationtake?" Obviously,it would be a male figure,and it would be sexually threatening.The figurethe governesssees is male, and the "fear" she feels is like that stirredin "a young woman privatelybred" by "an unknownman in a lonelyplace." Assuming, then, this generalized embodimentof a threateningsexual male figure,if the governesswere to imaginethe apparitionmore particularly,what particularfeatures might it be expected to have? The answeris thatthere existed in the culturea widelyrecognized stereotypeof the predatorysexual male, a set of typicalfeatures and characteristicsthat such a figurewould be presupposed to manifest.Logically enough, it is thisfigure that the governessde- scribesin The Turnof theScrew.

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Europe in the nineteenthcentury was much intriguedby the theorythat there exists in human nature a de- terminativerelationship between physiognomicalfeatures and character.In a recent book Graeme Tytlerdocuments "the uni- versalityof physiognomyin nineteenth-centuryEurope" and in particularthe immenseinfluence of the physiognomicalspecula- tionsof Johann Caspar Lavater,an eighteenth-centurySwiss cler- gyman,whose PhysiognomischeFragmente in four volumes was cer- 182 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE tainly,Tytler says, known about by "mostnineteenth-century men of letters."9Widely popularized in newspapers and periodicals, physiognomicaltheory exercised a significantinfluence on the novel during the period fromthe early 1770s to about the 1880s as the pseudo-scientificspuriousness of its conclusionscame to be increasinglyrecognized. There is no evidence thatJames knew Lavater's work firsthand.But there is evidence beyond the elaborate physiognomicalportrait the governessdescribes in The Turn of theScrew that he knew somethingof the subject,as when in his descriptionof Caspar Goodwood in A Portraitof a Lady he men- tions "blue eyes of remarkable fixedness,... and a jaw of the somewhat angular mould which is supposed to bespeak resolu- tion."'0And it is certainthat James would have been well versed secondhandin the physiognomiesof fictionalcharacterization: the rosterof writersnamed by Tytleras most influencedby physiognomy-Fielding, Dickens, the Brontes,Thackeray, Balzac, Flau- bert,George Sand-reads like a galleryof novelistsmost familiar to James. To demonstratethe physiognomicalstereotypicality of the fearfulmale figurethe governesshallucinates, whose actual un- realityJames may be implyingin her remarkthat " 'he's like no- body,'" it will be useful to reproduce her descriptionat length:

"He has no hat.... He has redhair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face,long in shape,with straight good featuresand little ratherqueer whiskersthat are as red as his hair.His eyebrowsare somehowdarker; they look particularly arched and as ifthey might movea good deal. His eyesare sharp,strange-awfully; but I only knowclearly that they're rather small and veryfixed. His mouth's wide,and his lips are thin,except for his littlewhiskers he's quite clean-shaven.He givesme a sortof senseof lookinglike an actor. He's tall,active, erect,... but never-no, never!-a gentleman...." [Mrs.Grose] visibly tried to holdherself. "But he is handsome?" I sawthe way to help her."Remarkably!"

9Physiognomyin theEuropean Novel: Faces and Fortunes(Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), pp. 110, 316. Additionalreferences to thiswork appear in the text. I?The Portraitof a Lady,Norton CriticalEdition, ed. Robert D. Bamberg (New York: Norton, 1974), p. 42. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 183 "And dressed-?" "In somebody'sclothes. They're smart,but they'renot his own." She broke into a breathless affirmativegroan. "They're the master's!" (pp. 23-24)

Certain details of this description can be traced to more general assumptionsthan those of physiognomicaltheory. The figure is remarkablyhandsome, and "the handsome man," according to general prejudice, particularlyin men, "is likelyto be a cad." Quite ready "for his own immediateprofit. . . to defythe conventionsthat other men subscribeto," the cad "maydress and adorn himselfin what is commonlycondemned as bad taste" as "a crude and externalmanifestation of his disregard of the con- ventionsof masculinebehaviour." Thus he has no scruplesagainst "takingadvantage of the susceptibilitywhich women exhibitin the presence of good-lookingmen." Usually with"neat and symmet- rical features"and "attractiveto many women," the cad is ham- pered neitherby "a bad reputationnor bad manners... : his aim is not love or even philandering,but amour."" Presumably,the fearfulmale figurethe governesshallucinates, with his "straight good features,"his somehownot quite suitableclothes, his "secret disorders, vices more than suspected," and his success with women- "He did what he wished,"Mrs. Grose says,"with them all" (pp. 24, 28, 33)-emanates fromsome such stereotype. Beyond conveyingthis general aura of sexual danger, however, the governess'sdescription of the threateningmale specter she conjuresup turnsout to be a detailed physiognomicalportrait, the most tellingfeature of which is its "red hair,very red, close curling." "Most nineteenth-centurynovelists," Tytler observes, "are concerned, like their predecessors,almost entirelywith the color of the hair." While red hair,according to Lavater,is said to characterize"a person supremelygood or supremelyevil," the general consensus has alwaysfavored the latterview, a prejudice thatcan be traced as far back as the Bible (Tytler,pp. 213, 215). Indeed, there is a close connection,not at all surprisingin view of Lavater'sclerical vocation, between physiognomical stereotypes and biblicalpersonifications of evil. In the Old Testamentthe as-

"John Brophy,The Human Face (London: George G. Harrap, 1945), pp. 85- 86. 184 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE sociationof red hair withevil would have been reinforcedby the storyof Esau, who yielded to fleshlyappetite, sold his God-given birthrightfor a mess of pottage,and spawned the lineage repu- diated byJehovah. More tellingagainst red hair was the suspicion thatJudas must have been a redhead.'2 But most relevantof all to the governess'shallucinations in The Turn of theScrew is the knowledgethat in ancientlore it was held thatSatan materialized in the formof a red-hairedmale. It would not be surprisingif a parson's daughter,hysterically projecting an image of her sexual fear and revulsion,would envision a figureembodying features of thislong-standing assumption about the human formassumed by the Tempter himself. Indeed, the correspondenceis striking.The threateningmale figureshe projectshas "veryred" hair (emphasis added). In The Devil in Legend and LiteratureMaximilian Rudwin observes that "the Devil's beard as well as his hair is usually of a flamingred color." The figureshe sees is associated with "vices more than suspected"(p. 28); among otherthings, to be sure, "Satan is famed as the greatestgambler ever known upon or under the earth."'13 And other detailsof her portraitwhose place in the design of the storyhas remained obscure are at least traceable to lore about Satan. The odious figuregave the governess"a sort of sense of looking like an actor." "The Devil is likewiseregarded as the in- ventorof the drama," says Rudwin; "indeed, the actors were re- garded by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, and even for manycenturies afterwards, as servantsof Satan" (p. 259). Finally, the penchant of the governess's projected figure to wear the clothesof a gentlemanin order to be taken forwhat he decidedly is not is very much a part of his Satanic aura:

The Devil ... has on clotheswhich any gentlemanmight wear.... It has been his greatestambition to be a gentleman,in outerap- pearanceat least;and to his creditit mustbe said thathe has so wellsucceeded in hisefforts to resemblea gentlemanthat it is now verydifficult to tellthe two apart. (Rudwin,p. 50)

12See Wendy Cooper, Hair: Sex SocietySymbolism (New York: Stein and Day, 1971), p. 75. 13(Chicagoand London: Open Court, 1931), p. 48. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 185 Thus, in projectingin human formthe embodimentof her deep, puritanicalfear of evil, which in Victoriantimes tended to mean sexual evil,'4 the governess envisions an attractivemale figure,one to whom she would instinctivelyrespond-a figure projectedin the formof the Tempterhimself, as he was imprinted in the mind of the cultureof whichshe is representative.But her projectiondraws also on stereotypesestablished in the physiognomical lore of the preceding centuries.The importanceof La- vaterin the considerableinfluence of physiognomicaltheories on the nineteenthcentury, and particularlyon importantnovelists, has been mentioned.But there were many other practitionersin the field, and in their writings,as well as in those of novelists influencedby physiognomicallore, can be found most of the detailsof the apparitionthe governessprojects. This is a precarious business at best: the spuriousnessof the science assures that one can find almost as many differentreadings of the same features and expressionsas there are physiognomists.But there is pretty solid agreementsupporting Lavater's suspicion of red hair. The mind of Chaucer's Miller,for example, witha beard red "as any sowe or fox,"runs to "synneand harlotries."Swift equips Gulliver with the prevailingprejudice against red hair. In describingthe Yahoos-"cunning, malicious,treacherous and revengeful"as well as "cowardly... insolent,abject, and cruel"-Gulliver observes "that the Red-Hairedof both Sexes are more libidinousand mis- chievousthan the rest"and findsit curious thatthe femaleYahoo with a lecherous eye for him did not have "Hair.. . of a Red Colour, (which mighthave been some Excuse for an Appetite a littleirregular)."' 5 Among physiognomists,Joseph Simms, after acknowledgingthat "many cases might be cited in which red- haired persons have been very amiable," findsnevertheless that this color, "if curlinessis added [Quint's hair is "veryred, close- curling"],indicates a... dispositionto ardent love," and if it is very coarse "is a sign of propensitiesmuch too animal."' Paolo

14See Mark Spilka, "Turningthe Freudian Screw: How Not to Do It," Literature and Psychology,13 (1963), 108. 15JonathanSwift, Gulliver's Travels, Norton Critical Edition, ed. Robert A. Greenberg(New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 232, 233. 16PhyszognomyIllustrated; or Nature'sRevelations of Character(New York: Murray Hill, 1889), p. 402. 186 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE Mantegazza agrees that "red hair, although rare, is disliked by nearlyall because it is an almost monstroustype.""7 Although, as Tytler points out, physiognomical(as well as phrenological)ex- planationsfor human behavior had lost credibilityfor perceptive people by the end of the century,their assumptions remained in some mindsso ingrainedas to be almosttaken for granted.Thus, in Ann Veronica(1909), as Ann and her fellow suffragettesare arraignedafter their raid on the House of Commons,H. G. Wells describes "a disagreeable young man, with red hair and a loose mouth,seated at the reporter'stable, . . . sketchingher."' 8 If, by general agreement,red hair is a sign of lechery,other featuresof the male sex villainthe governessprojects can also be found withthreatening significance in physiognomicallore. The figure'seyes, for example-"sharp, strange-awfully;... rather small and veryfixed"-which give the governess"such a bold hard stare" (p. 19), have a clear sexual significance.According to Simms,"there is a close connectionbetween the eyes and the sexual organs" (p. 299). To the authoritativeLavater, "small, and deep sunken eyes, [are] bold in opposition; not discouraged,in- triguing,and active in wickedness."'9The significanceof the figure'seyebrows-"particularly arched and as if theymight move a great deal"-is also explained by physiognomy:the arch by Mantegazza,who findsthat the proud and impudent"have arched eyebrowswhich are oftenraised," the movementby Lavater,who explains that "the motion of the eyebrowscontains numerous expressions,especially of ignoble passions; pride, anger and contempt:the superciliousman. . . despises,and is despicable."'20 The wide mouthand thinlips of the governess'sfigure fit Mantegazza's observationthat "no face recallsthe expressionof crueltyso much as a wantonone," and "the expressionof crueltyis almost exclu- sivelyconcentrated round the mouth; ... The mouth is closed, the cornersare drawn back as far as possible,... The eye is clear,

'7Physiognomyand Expression(New York: Scribners,1914), p. 62. 18AnnVeronica (New York: Harpers, 1909), p. 252. 19JohannCaspar Lavater,Essays on Physiognomy;for the Promotion of the Knowledge and theLove of Mankind,trans. Thomas Holcroft,3 vols. (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson,1789), III, 179. 20Mantegazza, Physiognomyand Expression,p. 181; Lavater,Essays on Physiognomy, III, 183. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 187 widely opened, and fixed upon the victim"(p. 178). Even the "habitof going about bareheaded" (the governess'sfigure "has no hat" [p. 23]) attractsphysiognomical attention.2' Indeed, the es- sence (as well as the eyes,eyebrows, mouth, and hair) of the governess's projected figure,embodying her hystericalbut uncon- scious sexual horror,is reflectedclosely in one of a series of descriptionsLavater providesof physiognomicaltypes, clearly an epitome of brutal male power:

Rude,savage, ruffianly, danger-contemning, strength. It is a crime to himto havecommitted small mischief; his stroke, like his aspect, is death.He does not oppress,he destroys.To himmurder is en- joyment,and thepangs of othersa pleasure.The formof hisbones denoteshis strength,his eye a thirstof blood,his eyebrowhabitual cruelty,his mouthderiding contempt, his nose grimcraft, his hair and beardcholeric power. (III, 249-50)

The picture that accompanies this description(see illustration), showingclose-curling hair-pre- sumablyred, the color tradition- ally associated withcholer-may give us an uncannily accurate __t<'wt glimpse of the face that so ter- rifiesthe governess.

Not only is it reasonably certain that James knew about physiognomicaltheories and the use of such devices by novelists familiarto him, then,but he also creates in his governessa character who fitsthe profileof the typicalsexual hysteric,who has hystericalhallucinations, and whose mind projectsher sexual fear in a form that draws on the very religious and physiognomical stereotypeswith which a mind such as hers would logicallybe

21See Tytler,Physiognomy in theEuropean Novel, p. 294. 188 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE furnished.It remains only to show some strikingprototypes of the governess'sphysiognomically stereotypical redheaded sex villain in popular novels of the era. A link to one such prototype existsin The Turnof the Screw itself: the governessis readingAmelia just beforeher thirdhallucination of the figureidentified as Quint (p. 40), and Ameliacontains a similarfigure, Robinson, who has Quint's long pale face, red hair (actually "a red Beard"), and clothes that call a kind of disreputableattention to themselves.22 AlthoughRobinson is not, to the reader's knowledge,sexually vil- lainous, his life resemblesQuint's, at least the latter'sreputation for"strange passages and perils,secret disorders, vices more than suspected" (p. 28). Robinson is a gambler,cheat, thief,and crim- inal conspirator.The governess,not having finishedthe novel, would not know of his repentancein the end and thus could be expected to regard him with emotions that mightcontribute to her fearfulhallucinations. Even more terrifying,however, in this novel withits undercurrentof sexual danger and ruin are its in- terpolatedhistories of young women betrayedby their naive indulgence in the pleasurable sensationsexcited by the attentions of attractivemen: Miss Mathews,seduced by a soldier under false promisesof marriage,and Mrs. Bennet, seduced by a nobleman afterquaffing only "Half a Pint of Small Punch," whichhad been drugged. The latter'scase would have been especiallyterrible to the governess,for Mrs. Bennet was the naive, sheltereddaughter of a clergymanand got into troubleprecisely by entertainingro- mantic fantasiesof an attractiveman: she intended only to "in- dulge [her] Vanityand Interestat once, withoutbeing guiltyof the least Injury" (Amelia,p. 295). The warningsof both these wretchedfallen women must surelyhave terrifiedthe governess. Miss Mathews offersher fate as a warningto every woman "to deal with Mankind withCare and Caution ... and never to con- fide too much in the Honestyof a Man, nor in her own Strength,

22HenryFielding, Amelia, ed. MartinC. Battestin,The WesleyanEdition of the Complete Works of Henry Fielding (Middletown,Conn.: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1983), p. 29. May L. Ryburnhas called attentionto the resemblancebetween Field- ing's Robinsonand the figurethe governessdescribes. Ryburn observes quite log- icallythat this parallel "would seem to lay the ghoststo restforever, except as they existed in the governess'smind" ("The Turnof theScrew and Amelia:A Source for Quint?," Studiesin ShortFiction, 16 [1979], 237). THE TURN OF THE SCREW 189 where she has so much at Stake; let her remembershe walkson a Precipice,and the bottomlessPit is to receive her, if she slips; nay, if she makes but one false Step." Mrs. Bennet warns "that the Woman who gives up the least Out-workof her Virtue,doth, in that very Moment, betraythe Citadel" (Amelia,pp. 53, 295). Indulging in romanticfantasies of her dashing gentleman employer,the governess,had she read thus far into Amelia,might indeed suddenlydiscover herself on the wayto ruin,the outworks of her virtueundermined by her own susceptibilityto an attractive male. Small wonder, in such a case, that the gentlemanof her fantasyshould metamorphoseinto a villainousprojection of sexual fear.And just as she does not need (and indeed does not have) any knowledgeof Peter Quint to accomplishthe transformation, so her complementaryprojection of the femalecounterpart of her sexual fear does not require knowledge of Miss Jessel and her shame: it is, in an importantsense, the governessherself, the awful projectionof herselfruined by the sexual evil towardwhich her own sexual impulses are urging her.23 Tytler'sdemonstration of the physiognomicalawareness re- flectedin Ameliais corroboratedby Fielding'smention of the term "physiognomist"in the novel,24as well as by the physiognomical descriptionof the villainousRobinson. But Robinson is not a sexual villain.The projectionof the governess'sfear is even more in

23The view of the female figurethe governesssees, a genteel woman ruined by indulgingher sexual impulses,as a fearfulprojection of the governessherself and also of the adult sexual female Flora will become, also susceptibleto sexual promptings,is supported by Paul N. Siegel. Siegel discussesJames's subtle dramatizationof the governess'spsychosexual ambivalence: she is horrifiedat Miss Jessel's sexualityand its consequences and terrifiedof her own susceptibilityto sexual feeling,of whichshe is subconsciouslyaware; but she is also fascinatedand excited,because of her powerfulattraction to her employer,by identifyingherself withMiss Jessel and her indulgenceof sexual desires.Although he does not pursue its consequences, Siegel also senses James's implicationthat Miss Jessel in some way prefiguresin the governess'smind a Flora grownup and hardened by sexual experience.See " 'Miss Jessel': MirrorImage of the Governess,"Literature and Psy- chology,18 (1968), 36. The story'smost tellinghint of this is in the episode of the girl's second excursionto the lake. With the awful vision of Miss Jessel burning in her mind, the governesssees that Flora's "incomparablechildish beauty had suddenlyfailed, had quite vanished.... she was hideouslyhard; she had turned commonand almostugly." Flora's indignantresponse to her accusationsseems to the governesslike "that of a vulgarlypert littlegirl in the street"(pp. 72-73). 24Fielding,Amelia, p. 47. 190 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE the lineage of numerous red-hairedmale villainsrendered, like her projectedfigure, in detailed physiognomicalportraits in some of the best-knownnovels of the era. Uriah Heep, for example, with his slimydesigns on the saintlyAgnes in David Copperfield, bears a close resemblance to the governess's vision. Although Heep is anythingbut handsome, "thisred-bearded animal," "this detestableRufus," has the hair color, pale face, wide mouth,and piercing eyes of the figure described in The Turn of the Screw. Heep's face is "pale" and "cadaverous,""his mouth [is] widened" like a gargoyle's,and his eyes, "sleepless. . . like two red suns," were a "shadowlessred" and "looked as if theyhad scorchedtheir lashes off."'25An older, aristocraticversion of the same character type is Lord Steyne,the sharkishnobleman who undoes Becky Sharp in VanityFair. Steyne's descriptioncaptures the grotes- querie, as well as severaldetails, of the portraitof Heep. His "shin- ing bald head .., was fringedwith red hair. He had thickbushy eyebrows,with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, . . . His jaw was un- derhung,and when he laughed, two whitebuck-teeth protruded themselvesand glistenedsavagely in the midstof the grin."26In Daniel Deronda Henleigh MallingerGrandcourt, like the governess's figure,is handsome, and, as Gwendolen Harleth discovers, trails,like Quint,a past of secretdisorders and vices,like gambling and keeping a mistress,more than suspected.Grandcourt is "decidedly handsome," has "a mere fringeof reddish-blondhair," a complexion of "a faded fairnessresembling that of an actress," and "long narrow grey eyes" that "looked at Gwendolen persis- tentlywith a slightlyexploring gaze."'27 This listcould be extended considerably. To be sure, the governess,whose ordeal takes place around the 1840s, could not have known the redheaded sexual villains Heep, Steyne,and Grandcourt.My point is, rather,that James, writingin the 1890s, surelydid know them and that in creating the figureshe describes he drew the same typeof character,one

25Charles Dickens, David Copperfield(New York: WashingtonSquare Press, 1958), pp. 213, 210, 226, 362. 26WilliamMakepeace Thackeray, VanityFair, Riverside Edition, ed. Geoffrey and Kathleen Tillotson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1963), p. 366. 27GeorgeEliot, Daniel Deronda(New York: Harper Torchbook, 1961), pp. 79, 80. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 191 whose lineage in literaryhistory, James is careful to imply,she would have been familiarwith. The only book she is shown reading in The Turn of theScrew is Amelia,but throughher remarks about her reading at Bly James implies that,free fromthe strict censorshipof the vicarage,utterly on her own, and with a good deal of time on her hands, the governessfell withavidity on the "roomfulof old books at Bly"-books of a kind that had come into her "sequestered home" only "to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown"-the very categoryof books that could not fail to whet "the unavowed curiosityof [her] youth."No catalog of the libraryat Bly has survived,but one categoryof its holdings was "last-centuryfiction" (p. 40)-fiction, that is, full of the or- deals of virginalingenues pursued by sexual villains.At the time of her first manifestationof hystericalsymptoms when she projects the redheaded sex fiend, she has already been some weeks at Bly. If she is, as is likely,immersed in eighteenth-century fiction full of Gothic terror-fiction, as Tytler demonstrates, steeped in physiognomicallore-the figureshe describesis exactly what mightbe expected. There can be no doubt thatJames could have done what I have proposed. His own upbringingas a boy in proper household, "surroundedby admonishinggovernesses, a permissivefather, an oftenstern ambiguous mother,"28 would have provided,in general outlines,a prototypefor the situationas well as the atmosphere at Bly. (Indeed, thereis good reason to suspect,in viewof James's own well-knownsexual problems and Douglas' pointed hints to theJamesian narrator of the opening framethat when "he looked at me, . . . he saw what he spoke of" [p. 2], thatit is his own story James tells in The Turn of theScrew.) In his familiaritywith the workof his brotherWilliam, coupled withhis knowledgeof sexual hysteria,its supposed causes, and its manifestations,James cer- tainlypossessed the requisite psychologicalacumen to dramatize the psychologyof sexual fear in a maternalfigure and its effect on the childrenin her charge. And, given his artisticseriousness and penchantfor subtlety,as well as the persistentundercurrent, despite his prim distastefor the explicitairing of sexual matters, of sexual implicationin his work,what I have suggestedis, I be-

28See Leon Edel, HenryJames: A Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 22. 192 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE lieve, preciselywhat he woulddo with the story.Indeed, the de- monstrableextent to whichthe governessrepresents a classiccase of sexual hysteriaand the fact that the figureshe projects is a classic example of physiognomicalcliche, deliberatelyelaborated for ironic effect,serve to indicateJames's intentionsin The Turn of theScrew. It is not, except on the surface for the superficial reader, a ghost storybut a psychologicaldrama about the disas- trous effectsof Victoriansexual attitudeson the developmentof children.29 In the lightof the foregoing,a belated, apologetic,perhaps ironic sympathyis due poor Edmund Wilson for his ordeal over The Turnof theScrew: he was on the righttrack but could never get over the obstacleof the ghosts.30Wilson was right:the problem is with the troubled sexualityof the governess,who, the story pointedlyemphasizes, was greatlyattracted to the gentlemanwho employedher but also, in an exaggeratedbut quintessentiallyVic- torianway, deeply fearfulof and hostiletoward sexuality. As she indulgesher romanticfeelings toward her attractiveemployer, she senses subconsciouslythat by thus relaxing her sexual defenses even so innocuouslyshe has set foot on the path to ruin. At that point,the attractivemale projectionof her pleasurable sensations changes to the terrifyingmale projectionof her fear. The figure she projects emerges from her own subconscious imprintingby religiousand culturalstereotypes-an amalgam of religiousper- sonificationsof evil and temptationand well-establishedphysiog- nomical stereotypesof the villainouslylibidinous male, with numerous precedents in the literature of the period, colored, conceivably,by some awarenessof the views of Lavater himself, who had established a reputation throughout Europe as a preacher as well as a physiognomist.3'Thus awakened, the governess's hystericalfear of sexualityis superadded to her sense of

29Thisconclusion is also reached byJane Nardin, who assertsthat The Turnof theScrew "is neitherabout evil metaphysicallyconceived, nor about madness clin- icallyconceived, but rather[about] a particularsocial milieuand the wayit affects people livingin it." See "TheTurn of the Screw: The VictorianBackground," Mosaic, 12, no. 1 (1978), 142. 30Fora reviewof Wilson'sordeal see MartinaSlaughter, "Edmund Wilsonand The Turnof theScrew," in the Norton CriticalEdition, pp. 211-14. 31See Tytler,Physzognomy zn the European Novel, p. 24. THE TURN OF THE SCREW 193 her duty as governessof two childrenapproaching puberty.She takes upon herselfthe role of angel in the house-guardian of idealized, spiritualizedlove and sexual purity.Along the same line she is, as James seems to have realized, a manifestationof the Great Governess of the era, representingmaternal control over the sexual moresof the household and thusof the cultureat large. Through the figuresthe governessprojects-one represent- ing her fear and revulsionat male sexuality,the other her fear and disgustat female reciprocationof male lust (she realizes with a spasm of ambivalence that what went on between Quint and Jessel"must have been also whatshe wished!" [p. 33])-James con- trivesto objectifyher sexual state of mind. But the main line of developmentin the storyis the effectsuch a deep aversion to sexual phenomena has on the developmentof children.But how does one dramatizeso psychologicala drama?James's solution to the problemis masterful.The "ghosts,"which work well enough on the literallevel (where even manylearned criticshave enjoyed them),become, on the figurativelevel, a means of objectifyingthe psychologyof both the governessand the childrenand also the psychologicalmeaning and consequences of her behavior toward them: they representboth her fear and revulsionand the children's naturalsexual development.For, of course,the sexual male and female figuresso fearfullyon the governess'smind are pos- sessing Miles and Flora: theyare merelythe adult sexual beings the childrenwill become when the sexualitylatent in childhood emerges throughadolescence and establishesitself in adulthood. This possession, however,is not evil; it is merely natural. The many elaborate explicationsof the evil in The Turn of theScrew notwithstanding,the only evil the storypresents is thatQuint and Jessel were sexually active. The powerfulaura of evil that per- vades the storyemanates fromthe psycheof the governess,who, afterall, tells the story:it is her hystericalVictorian aversion to sexuality,heightened for satiricaleffect by James's subtle irony. In her compulsionto keep the childrenfrom being possessedwith this evil, then, she is actuallyblocking their normal sexual development. Naturally,when she looks so anxiously at Miles and Flora, children enteringpuberty, she sees signs of their sexual maturation-the adult male withan attractionto youngand pretty women in Miles and the adult female witha reciprocalattraction 194 NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE to handsome young men in Flora. In tryingto suppress all man- ifestationsof theirnatural sexual developmentshe inflictsgrievous damage on their psyches. With apt Oedipal implications,James allows Flora to escape to the protectionof the fatherfigure; but the male child, trapped in the psychosexual undertow of the mother-sonrelationship, is destroyed. One question remains.If the redheaded sexual male does, as I have demonstrated,well up hystericallyin the governess'smind from physiognomicalstereotypes, how does it happen that this figureso closelyresembles the real person Peter Quint? The answeris not, certainly,that James gave credence to physiognomical science. For, as he was undoubtedlyaware, the physiognomical stereotype,as well as the evil ascribed to Quint and Jessel,was a purely subjective phenomenon, an attitude of mind. In an at- mosphereof increasingrationality, Tytler explains, there emerged as the nineteenthcentury wore on a "subtlertreatment of physiognomy,"which tended to treatit "as a problematicsign of the observer'sown moral character"(p. 319). Thus in The Turnof the Screwthe governess'sphysiognomical imprinting, like her sense of sexual evil, is a part of her characterizationas an upright and idealistic person, but one with dangerously unhealthyattitudes towardsexuality. James needed the real Quint and Jessel also, as has been suggested,both to objectifythe psychologicaldrama and to have it both ways,as he surelyintended: that is, to produce, on the surface,a ghost storythat would materializeinterestingly on the figurativelevel as one of the mostremarkable psychological dramas in literature. For that,ultimately, is the storyof The Turn of theScrew-a more significantstory, I maintain,than eithera ghost storyor a parable of some amorphousgood and evil. If thatis stilldebatable, the assertionthat the psychologicaldrama is more humanlyrel- evant both to James's time and to our own is surelynot. At least a storyabout the damage done to the sexual developmentof children by Victoriansexual fear and disgust would satisfyJames's own requirementthat the art of fictionmust be an imitationof life.

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