Faculty of Arts and Education
David Persson
The Reader as Co-Author
Uses of Indeterminacy in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw
English C-level thesis
Term: Autumn 2009 Supervisor: Magnus Ullén Examiner: Johan Wijkmark
Karlstads universitet 651 88 Karlstad Tfn 054-700 10 00 Fax 054-700 14 60 [email protected] www.kau.se
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Abstract The purpose of this essay is to explore how different means are used to create indeterminate meaning in Henry James‘s novella The Turn of the Screw. It suggests that the indeterminacy creates gaps in the text which the reader is required to fill in during the reading process, and that this indeterminacy is achieved chiefly through the use of an unreliable narrator and of ambiguity in the way the narrator relates the events that take place. The reliability of the narrator is called into question by her personal qualities as well as by narrative factors. Personal qualities that undermine the narrator‘s reliability are youth, inexperience, nervousness, excitability and vanity. Narrative factors that damage the narrator‘s reliability concern the story as manuscript, the narrator‘s role in the story she narrates, and her line of argumentation. The ambiguity in the way events are reported is produced by ambiguous words, dismissed propositions and omissions. The essay demonstrates how the unreliable narrator and the ambiguity combine to make the reader question the narrator‘s account and supply his or her own interpretation of key elements in the story, that is, how they invite the reader to ―co-author‖ the text.
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I. Introduction As the governess and the housekeeper in Henry James‘s The Turn of the Screw go looking for the little girl, Flora, who is missing, the moment finally seems to arrive when there are witnesses present who can confirm the actual existence of the ghosts that the governess claims are haunting the children in her care: ―Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on a proof. She was there, so I was justified; she was there, so I was neither cruel nor mad. She was there for poor scared Mrs. Grose, but she was there most for Flora‖ (James, ―The Turn of the Screw‖ 83). As it turns out, neither Mrs Grose nor Flora admit to seeing the ghost of Miss Jessel, and the alternatives which the governess though denying them yet formulates – that the ghosts could in fact be products of cruelty or madness on the governess‘s part – suggest themselves as possible explanations to the apparitions in the story, undercutting the governess‘s authority as a reliable narrator of the events taking place. On a literal level, Henry James‘s novella The Turn of the Screw can be read as an ordinary ghost story in which a young governess at an estate in the English countryside tries to free the children in her care from the evil influence of ghosts and to explore the nature of this influence. While it is quite possible to read the story in this way, the author employs a range of literary devices that create a great degree of indeterminacy. The indeterminacy requires the reader to fill in the gaps it creates with his or her own interpretations, making him or her an active contributor to the meaning of the story. My paper will examine how different literary devices are used in the story to create indeterminate meaning. This indeterminacy, I suggest, calls the narrator‘s version of events into question and opens the story to alternative readings. In the story at hand, the indeterminacy – that is, the gaps in the narrative that enable multiple interpretations – is created primarily in two ways: firstly, by an unreliable narrator, and secondly, by ambiguity in the way the narrator relates the events of the story. This paper is divided into two sections. In the first section I will explore some of the techniques used in the story to create indeterminacy, and in the second I will look at what effects the indeterminacy has on the interpretation of the text. Before examining the novella, however, I will give an introduction to the critical controversy that James‘s short novel has given rise to and a brief theoretical background to the concept of indeterminacy and explain how it will be used in this paper.
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II. The Critical Controversy The Turn of the Screw has been the center of a critical controversy ever since the publication of Edna Kenton‘s article ―Henry James and the Ruminant Reader‖ in 1924 and Edmund Wilson‘s essay ―The Ambiguity of Henry James‖, first published in 1934 (Heilman 433; Wilson 115). At issue is whether the novella should be read as a ghost story where the children are subjected to the supernatural evil of ghosts, or as a psychological study of insanity, where the ghosts are hallucinations produced by the sexually repressed mind of the narrator-protagonist. In her article, Edna Kenton points to the irony that The Turn of the Screw was received by James‘s contemporary admirers as a return to clarity, that ―for once at least, and during his lifetime, he was understandable and understood‖ (Kenton 103), while at the time no one discovered the meaning that in her view lies beneath the surface story of the children haunted by ghosts; that the ghosts are hallucinations, ―dummy figures‖ made from the ―shades of [the governess‘s] recurring fevers‖, ―figures for the ebb and flow of troubled thought within her mind‖ (Kenton 112f). Kenton describes how her first reading set her on the scent of a non-literal interpretation of the novella as it elicited questions about the ghosts, the governess‘s reactions to what takes place, and the nature of the horror that the story evokes, and how these questions ―blurred any serene certainty […] of what the story was about‖ (Kenton 107). According to her, the interpretation of the ghosts as hallucinations is the reading that James intended. No critic, however, had explored ―any possible story behind the ‗story‘‖ (Kenton 107), a tribute to the success of James‘s intention of writing the story as a challenge for the reader to contribute his or her own meaning to the story and as a ―supreme test‖ to the reader‘s attentiveness (Kenton 108). The interpretation of the story as a ghost story where the children are hounded by ghosts is the ―lazy version‖ of the tale (Kenton 112) arrived at by readers not attentive enough to avoid the ―traps‖ and ―lures‖ set up by the author (Kenton 108). While Kenton was the first to publish a hallucination interpretation of the story, Edmund Wilson provided the ―scholarly foundation‖ (Heilman 434) as he formulates it in Freudian terms. The governess, he argues, ―is a neurotic case of sex repression‖ and the ghosts ―are not real ghosts but hallucinations of the governess‖ (Wilson 115). To support his interpretation, Wilson points to the governess‘s infatuation with her employer, the fact that no one but the governess seems to be able to see the ghosts, and to imagery that quite easily lends itself to a Freudian interpretation (Wilson 116f). He dismisses a major obstacle to a hallucination interpretation – the identification of the masculine ghost as the late valet Peter Quint – in a rather unconvincing recourse to the Freudian censor, an interpretation he regrets Persson 5 and amends in afterwords to subsequent editions of his essay (in 1948 and 1959; Wilson 145, 153). According to Wilson, the hallucination reading was missed for such a long period of time since almost everything in the story can be ―read equally in either of two senses‖ (Wilson 120). It is only a close reading of James‘s preface to the story and the placement of the novella in James‘s collected works that provide the clues to the story as a characterization of the governess rather than a ghost story, which Wilson suggests is its intended meaning (Wilson 120f). In an afterword to his essay written in 1948, in the light of James‘s then recently published notebooks, Wilson retracts this proposition (Wilson 145), a retraction which he however takes back in a second afterword, written in 1959, where he is again convinced that James ―intended the governess to be suffering from delusions‖ (Wilson 153). Kenton‘s and Wilson‘s interpretation of The Turn of the Screw was criticized by Robert B. Heilman in an article in Modern Language Notes, ―The Freudian Reading of The Turn of the Screw‖, in 1947. Heilman takes Kenton to task for not providing much evidence for her hallucination reading; instead she is reveling ―in the conviction that James […] has utterly fooled all the other readers of the story‖ (Heilman 433). Wilson, in Heilman‘s view, misreads the preface. His interpretation of the governess‘s ―authority‖ is described by Heilman as an ―emotional spasm‖ by an ―unwary liberal‖ which results in a ―hysterical blindness‖ (Heilman 434), and Wilson is censured for ignoring parts of the preface and parts of James‘s correspondence that conflict with his reading of the story (Heilman 435). As regards the story, Heilman admits that there are ambiguous passages but criticizes Wilson for treating them as if they unambiguously support a Freudian reading (Heilman 436). According to Heilman, Kenton‘s and Wilson‘s Freudian reading ―does violence‖ both to the story and to the author‘s preface to it (Heilman 433). Wilson is turning the story into a ―commonplace clinical record‖, a fate from which the story is worth saving, and the debate raised by the Freudian interpretation points to the danger of a ―facile, doctrinaire application of formulae‖ resulting in a disregard or ―gross distortion‖ of the text (Heilman 443). Some later critics have gone beyond the attempts by earlier critics to disambiguate the story into one interpretation or the other. In Turning the Screw of Interpretation, Shoshana Felman argues that an interpretation which sets out to fixate the meaning of James‘s story by attempting to dissolve its ambiguity is in conflict with the author‘s view of the literal and unambiguous as vulgar, a criticism which though it primarily targets the ―traditional‖ Freudian interpretation also strikes at other interpretations that try to reduce the text‘s multiplicity of meaning. Furthermore, Felman questions whether Freudian interpretations in Wilson‘s manner are indeed to be considered Freudian as they seem to oversimplify the Persson 6
Freudian concept of sexuality. According to Felman, Wilson treats the ambiguity of James‘s text as a question which calls for an answer, ―an analytical response‖ (Felman 104). In Felman‘s view, the novella is ambiguous or questioning through its rhetoric - its erotic imagery - which Wilson answers by providing the ―proper name‖ for its sexual nature (Felman 104), by suggesting sexual interpretations to the tower and lake at which the ghosts appear and the mast and the hole in Flora‘s boat. The text, moreover, is questioning through its thematic content - its ―abnormal happenings‖ and ―strange manifestations‖ (Felman 104) - which Wilson answers with the diagnosis that the ghosts are hallucinations which are symptoms of the governess‘s sexual frustration (Felman 105). Furthermore, the text is questioning through its ―elliptically incomplete‖ narrative structure (Felman 104), Wilson‘s answer to which is to provide ―the riddle‘s missing word‖, that the governess sexually desires her employer (Felman 105). Felman argues that neither James nor his text seem to authorize such an elimination of ambiguity as Wilson‘s reading constitutes. Felman shows how James both in his correspondence and in the preface to the New York edition of his collected works rejects the specific and definite, ―the comparative vulgarity‖ of ―the cited act‖ (James, The Art of the Novel 175). Even the frame story of the novella itself, Felman observes, denounces ―the explicit, the specific, the unequivocal and immediately referential ‗illustration‘‖ (Felman 107):
Mrs. Griffin […] expressed the need for a little more light. ―Who was it [the governess] was in love with?‖ ―The story will tell,‖ I took upon myself to reply. […] ―The story won’t tell,‖ said Douglas; ―not in any literal vulgar way.‖ (James, ―The Turn of the Screw‖ 5)
Felman finds that Wilson‘s Freudian reading does exactly what James and the text oppose; by trying to dissolve the ambiguity of the text, by attempting a ―literalization […] of the sexuality in the text‖, it reduces the rhetoric of the text rendering it vulgar (Felman 107). Felman also poses the question of how Freudian Wilson‘s Freudian reading really is. In her view, Wilson‘s treatment of the governess reduces the psychoanalytical explanation of her repression and resulting hallucinations to ―the simple ‗lack of sexual satisfaction‘‖ (Felman 108). Wilson can be accused of committing the same oversimplification of the Freudian concept of sexuality as Freud himself disavowed in ―‘Wild‘ Psycho-Analysis‖, that is to say, Persson 7 failing to realize that in psychoanalysis the concept of sexuality comprises much more than in the popular sense of the word (Felman 109). In psychoanalysis, nervous disorders are not caused simply by an absence of sexual satisfaction but by the inherent conflict in sexuality between the opposing forces of the libido and ―a rejection of sexuality, or a repression‖ (Felman 110). According to Felman, the meaning of sexuality is ambiguous due to this inherent conflict (Felman 112), since its literal meaning, the libido, is ―subverted and negated‖ by its second meaning, rejection or repression (Felman 110). Thus, Wilson‘s attempt to dissolve the ambiguity of James‘s story is mirrored in his treatment of sexuality as if its meaning were ―univocal or unified‖ (Felman 112). In her Lacanian analysis, Felman avoids producing the same reduction of the meaning of James‘s novella for which she criticizes previous critics; to her, instead, the ―conflict which inhabits meaning‖ is the very subject of The Turn of the Screw (Felman 112). Consequently, Felman‘s reading does not attempt to ―answer the enigmatic question‖ of what the story means, but rather to explore how it means, to examine the story‘s structure in order to understand ―the necessity and the rhetorical functioning‖ of its textual ambiguity (Felman 119). Part of the critical controversy between the Freudian and non-Freudian camps has revolved around James‘s preface to volume XII in the New York edition of his collected stories, The Novels and Tales of Henry James, published in 1922. The ambiguous style which James employed in his stories is present also in the preface, which is evident from the different interpretations it has engendered. Both Kenton and Wilson refer to it to support their Freudian reading, and so, too, does Heilman in his repudiation of their interpretation. In his preface, James describes The Turn of the Screw as ―a piece of ingenuity pure and simple, of cold artistic calculation, an amusette to catch those not easily caught (the ‗fun‘ of the capture of the merely witless being ever but small), the jaded, the disillusioned, the fastidious‖ (James, The Art of the Novel 172). Kenton interprets the passage as one of the ―tips‖ offered by James that the story‘s intended meaning lies beneath the surface-level ghost story (Kenton 105). According to Heilman, however, catching ―those not easily caught‖ has nothing to do with James outwitting his readers by concealing a deeper meaning to the story, but simply that he has attempted and – judging from the reception of the story by his contemporaries – succeeded in evoking ―the willing suspension of disbelief‖ in parts of his audience who may be ―more than ordinarily skeptical‖ (Heilman 433). Wilson takes James‘s qualification of his statement about the governess ―keeping crystalline her record of so many intense anomalies and obscurities‖ (James, The Art of the Novel 173) – that by this he does not refer to her explanation of them – as a dismissal of her explanation of these ―anomalies‖ as ghosts Persson 8
(Wilson 120), whereas Heilman, on the other hand, interprets the passage as James‘s way of distinguishing between the governess‘s relation of the events and her commentary on them (Heilman 434f). Heilman also disagrees with Wilson‘s interpretation of the ―authority‖ that James says that he has given the governess (James, The Art of the Novel 174). Wilson suggests that James is referring to an authority provided her by English class society to ―put over on inferiors even purposes which are totally deluded‖ (Wilson 121), such as her ―ghosts‖, whereas Heilman claims that James is merely referring to the story being told from the governess‘s point of view, through her ―recording and interpreting consciousness‖ (Heilman 434). Besides being referred to as an arbiter between conflicting opinions about what the story means, James‘s preface is also referred to for support of different views on whether the story‘s ambiguity was intended or unintended. Kenton is convinced that the ambiguity of The Turn of the Screw is intentional. She argues that one of James‘s ―minor intentions‖ with the story was to make the reader ―do for once […] his half of the work‖ (Kenton 105), and that the ambiguity concealing the true meaning was used by James as a means to ―protect‖ the character of the governess (Kenton 107). The indeterminacy regarding the nature of the ―evil‖ was a way for the author to avoid the ―vulgarity of ‗the cited act‘‖, of stating it outright (Kenton 112f). Though Wilson initially claims that James‘s intended meaning of the story was primarily a characterization of the governess, he does not state unequivocally whether James‘s ambiguity was intended or unintended. In discussing another of James‘s novels, The Sacred Fount, Wilson does however reflect that ―[a]lready, with The Turn of the Screw, [James] has carried his ambiguous procedure to a point where we almost feel that the author does not want the reader to get through to the hidden meaning‖ (Wilson 125). As we saw above, Wilson changes his view about James‘s intended meaning of the novella in an afterword to his article written in 1948. In the light of James‘s then recently published notebooks Wilson finds it ―quite plain that James‘s conscious intention […] was to write a bona fide ghost story‖ (Wilson 145), and consequently any ambiguity that could lead in another direction (which is not to say all ambiguity) must be regarded as unintentional. In a second afterword written in 1959, however, Wilson reaffirms his view that James ―intended the governess to be suffering from delusions‖ (Wilson 153), but it is not clear whether Wilson by this also suggests that the story‘s ambiguity was intentional. In Heilman‘s view, most of the ambiguity of the story is a ―by-product‖ of James‘s style of writing, of his ―indirection‖, his ―refusal […] to define the evil‖, his ―rigid adherence to point of view‖, and this Persson 9 unintentional ambiguity has created ―a great deal of unnecessary mystery‖ (Heilman 441), such as, presumably in Heilman‘s eyes, the Freudian interpretation of James‘s novella. The aim of this essay is not to settle the dispute of what the story means, but rather the more modest one of highlighting the technical factors behind the indeterminacy that is the source of the controversy. Consequently, the essay will focus on analyzing some of the methods used to create indeterminacy in the narrative, but will refrain from exploring the different interpretations that the indeterminacy enables. As have been shown above, James‘s preface to the New York edition of his stories has been a much-used source of support for different interpretations of The Turn of the Screw. Although the preface apparently harbors enough indeterminacy to warrant a study of its own, this essay will focus on the narrative. There are two reasons for this: firstly, since what the story means lies beyond the scope of this essay there is no need to turn to the preface for support for one interpretation or the other; secondly, though the preface may shed some light on James‘s intentions, the narrative‘s indeterminacy is a result of factors that are present in it whether or not the author intended or was even aware of them.
III. A Definition of Indeterminacy In The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (1978), Wolfgang Iser describes his reader-response theory, in which the concepts of determinacy and indeterminacy are central. Iser argues that the literary text is realized through the interaction between the text and the reader (Iser 21). The text is ―a set of instructions‖ that the reader must carry out to assemble the meaning of the text (Iser ix). For the reader to carry out this task there need to be ―impulsions‖, that is, something that invites the reader to respond to the text, to spur the reader and text into interaction (Iser ix-x). In order for the text and reader to be able to communicate, a situational context has to be established, that is, there needs to be some common ground between the reader and the unknown fictional world into which the text will be transformed. This ―frame of reference‖ (Iser 212) is provided by the determinacy that the repertoire of the text – its set of norms – supplies by incorporating into the text references to ―extratextual reality‖, for instance to the culture or norms of the society to which the reader belongs (Iser 69f). A work of fiction is not a representation of reality or its readers but instead ―virtualizes the […] concepts of reality […] and the norms and values of its prospective readers‖ (Iser 181), in other words, it uses them in the creation of a fictional world of its own. This ―non-identity‖ with the real world and the real readers creates indeterminacy, since the familiar elements are used in a new, unknown setting (Iser 181). If the determinacy of the text Persson 10 provides the reader with an entry point into the text by establishing the context that makes communication possible, it is its indeterminacy that acts as the ―propellant‖ for the reader‘s realization or constitution of the text (Iser 182). It stimulates ―the reader‘s imagination, making him supply what has been withheld‖ (Iser 194). It is also through its indeterminacy that a work allows different interpretations, that it ―may be concretized in different, equally valid, ways‖ (Iser 178). Iser‘s reader-response theory is severely criticized by Stanley Fish in Doing What Comes Naturally (1987). One of Fish‘s points of criticism concerns Iser‘s distinction between indeterminate and determinate meaning, which is a pivotal point of his theory since the former concept invites the reader‘s subjective response to a literary work while the latter limits the subjectivity to prevent the response ―from being arbitrary‖ (Iser 20). Iser‘s distinction between indeterminacy and determinacy is a distinction ―between a significance which is to be supplied‖ by the reader, ―and a significance which has been supplied‖ by the text (Fish 75). This distinction builds upon a view of the text (as a set of instructions) as part of an external reality which is determinate (Fish 75). Fish, however, argues that what is explicitly manifest in a text (and in reality) is not determinate in the sense that it is ―given‖ and ―is there before interpretation begins‖ since there is no perception that is free of an element of interpretation: ―Perception is never innocent of assumptions, and the assumptions within which it occurs will be responsible for the contours of what is perceived‖ (Fish 78). Since there is no determinacy in terms of unmediated reality free from subjective assumptions there is neither – as a contrast – any indeterminacy as ―a special feature of literary experience‖ (Fish 78); Iser‘s distinction does not hold. The interpretation of a text in terms of determinacies and indeterminacies is based on an assumption, an interpretation, of which elements in the text are determinate and which are indeterminate since they are not given outside the interpretive process (Fish 77); in other words, the concepts which Iser sees as regulating (stimulating and limiting) the interpretation of a work of literature are themselves the products of an act of interpretation. In Iser‘s theory the determinacy of the text acts as a control of ―arbitrary subjectivities‖, and if there is no determinate meaning it would seem that everything is indeterminate and that communication in all of its forms is ―deprived of its ground‖ (Fish 82f). Fish argues, however, that ―the properties of objects, persons, and situations emerge as a consequence of acts of construction that follow […] from a prestructured understanding of the shapes any meaningful item could possibly have‖ (Fish 80f), and that perception always occurs ―within a set of assumptions that preconstrains what could possibly be perceived‖ (Fish 83).What Fish claims limits our subjectivity is not some Persson 11 meaning that lies above or beyond interpretation, but the way society conditions our understanding: our ability to perceive – and hence, to read – is constrained by the ―categories of understanding that are [ours] by virtue of [our] membership in a community of interpretation‖ (Fish 83). Even though it seems that Fish dismisses Iser‘s distinction between indeterminate and determinate meaning altogether, what he in fact rejects is a distinction in absolute terms between a world entirely independent of interpretive activity and a world produced by interpretive activity:
The only thing you can‘t say is that there is a distinction, at least insofar as it is an absolute distinction, between a world that ―lives and functions independently‖ of interpretive activity and a world that is produced by interpretive activity. This is not to say that such a distinction cannot be operative as a consequence of an overarching interpretive assumption. That is, if determinate and indeterminate […] are conventional categories within a system of intelligibility, then those who are implicated in the system will ―see‖ […] determinacies and indeterminacies, but everything they see will be at once constructed […] and constrained […]‖ (Fish 84).
In this paper I will use ‗determinacy‘ and ‗indeterminacy‘ as defined in relative terms. I will use the terms to denote the end positions on a scale that represents the extent to which the reader is allowed to contribute his or her own meaning to the text. While determinate and indeterminate meaning both require interpretive activity on the part of the reader, there is a difference in degree as to how much latitude his or her subjective response is allowed. I will use the term ‗indeterminacy‘ to designate the elements in the text that I find require the most contribution by the reader in order for the ―potential effect‖ of the text, in Iser‘s terms, to be ―realized in the reading process‖ (Iser ix).
IV. Techniques Creating Indeterminacy in the Novella A. An Unreliable Narrator One of the ways in which indeterminacy is produced in the story is by the use of an unreliable narrator. The unreliability of the narrator in The Turn of the Screw causes the reader to question her story and stimulates a search for a different interpretation of events than the one presented. The question of narration in The Turn of the Screw is a complex one since the main Persson 12 story is set within a frame story. Differently put, the novella contains what Gérard Genette in his work Narrative Discourse refers to as different narrative or diegetic levels (227f). The frame story (3-9)1 is not contained within another narrative but constitutes the first or extradiegetic level of the narrative (Genette, Narrative Discourse 228). The unnamed narrator of the extradiegetic level – the extradiegetic narrator in Genette‘s terms (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 84) – is purportedly re-telling the reader the content of a copy of a manuscript, which contains the story proper. The manuscript contains a narrative which is embedded in the extradiegetic level and thus constitutes what Genette calls the intradiegetic level of narration (Genette, Narrative Discourse 228). The narrator of the intradiegetic level, the governess, is consequently the intradiegetic narrator of the narrative, since she is also ―a character in a narrative that is not her own‖ (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 84). Incidentally, the governess also happens to be the protagonist of her own story, which in Genette‘s terminology also makes her a homodiegetic narrator (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 97). In the following, I will use the term ‗narrator‘ to refer to the intradiegetic narrator of the novella, the governess. When referring to the narrator of the frame story I will use the term ‗extradiegetic narrator‘. The term ‗unreliable narrator‘ is perhaps most closely associated with Wayne C. Booth. In his work The Rhetoric of Fiction he defines a narrator as ―reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say, the implied author‘s norms), and unreliable when he does not‖ (158f). The reliability or unreliability of a narrator is a question of the existence of a distance in norms between the narrator and the implied author. The ‗implied author‘ is defined by Booth as the author‘s ―official scribe‖ or ―second self‖ (Booth 71). The implied author is a ―superior version‖ of the real author, distinct from the latter but created by him or her as the author creates his or her work (Booth 151). The implied author is subjective, is ―never […] neutral toward all values‖, and the way we as readers react to his or her norms and values determines the way we respond to the work (Booth 71). The implied author is not only different from the real author but also from other implied authors, even those created in other works by the same author: ―Just as one‘s personal letters imply different versions of oneself, depending on the differing relationships with each correspondent and the purpose of each letter, so the writer sets himself out with a different air depending on the needs of particular works‖ (Booth 71).
1 All unspecified page references in the text refer to “The Turn of the Screw” (James, Henry. “The Turn of the
Screw.” The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Fiction by Henry James. New York: Bantam Books, 1981). Persson 13
Booth‘s concept of implied author is criticized by Gérard Genette in Narrative Discourse Revisited (1988). Genette dismisses entirely the concept of implied author as an actual and narrative agent on the grounds that it is unnecessary: ―a narrative fiction is produced fictively by its narrator and actually by its (real) author. No one is toiling away between them, and every type of textual performance can be attributed only to one or the other‖ (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 139f). He also questions the concept as an ideal agent that represents the norms of the text, and gives several examples where the implied author can easily be replaced with the real one. Genette argues that the implied author as an image of the real one is of interest only insofar that it is unfaithful to the real author; if it is not, the concept of the real author will suffice (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 141). Setting aside images of the author that differ from the real one due to readers‘ incompetence, unfaithful images of the author can be produced by the real author either through ―involuntary revelation of a subconscious personality‖ or due to ―deliberate simulation‖ (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 142, 144). In the first case, the image of the author created by the slips in the text is truer than the author‘s conscious image of himself, which makes the concept of the implied author unnecessary since it is in actual fact the real author unmasked (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 143). In the second case, the real author deliberately simulates a personality that is different from his real one. According to Genette, it is impossible to distinguish an implied author in homodiegetic narratives, that is, narratives where the narrator is a character in the story, which makes the concept in this case only relevant to narratives with an extradiegetic narrator, that is, narratives where the narrator is situated outside the story (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 144). Here too, though, the implied author is unnecessary since there is no reason, in Genette‘s view, to assume that the image of the author produced by an ironic distance to the narrator should be an unfaithful representation of the real author (Genette, Narrative Discourse Revisited 144f). In this paper I have chosen to define the concept of unreliable narrator in a way that differs from Booth‘s in that I will not explore the normative distance between the narrator and an implied author in my examination of the indeterminacy of James‘s novella. One of the reasons is Genette‘s criticism of the concept of the implied author and especially the difficulty, if not impossibility, of distinguishing between the narrator and an implied author in a homodiegetic narrative like the governess‘s manuscript; which norms and ideas are the governess‘s and which are those of an ideal Henry James? Another reason for not using Booth‘s definition is that the reliability of the story‘s narrator can be doubted regardless of any distance between the narrator and an implied author of the story. As we shall see below, Persson 14 there are suggestions throughout the story that undermine the narrator‘s reliability. The reader can view these suggestions as either unintended or intended by the implied author he or she envisions, an ideal Henry James. In the first case, the unreliability is not a result of a normative distance between the narrator and the work‘s implied author, but rather of poor craftsmanship that the reader attributes to the latter. In the second case, there is arguably a distancing of implied author from narrator. However, the distance that a reader may experience is not the cause of an unreliable narrator but an effect of an unreliability that has been created by other means. The narrator‘s unreliability is an instrument to create distance, not the other way around. Dismissing Booth‘s definition – not in principle, but for the purposes of this paper – I will define an unreliable narrator as a narrator whose reliability can be questioned by the reader on the basis of how this narrator is portrayed in the narrative and of the method he or she uses to relate the events of the story. A narrator‘s reliability can be damaged by suggestions that call his or her power of judgement or truthfulness into question. The reliability of the narrator in the main story of the novella – the governess – is undermined by her personal qualities and the conditions of her position, as well as by the way the story is told. Throughout the story the narrator is portrayed as inexperienced, impressionable and mentally unstable. In the frame story she is described as ―young, untried, nervous‖ (8). She is only 20 years old and the daughter of a country parson (6), which implies that she has probably had a sheltered childhood. She is also described as nervous – she is ―fluttered and anxious‖ (7). The governess adds to the picture of herself as somewhat mentally unstable as she refers to her state of mind as ―a succession of flights and drops‖ and describes herself as ―rather easily carried away‖ (9, 12; ch. 1). Moreover, her excitability occasionally leads to insomnia (10, 13; ch. 1, 2), a situation which is not conducive to being a credible witness to the events that take place. Considering her youth and inexperience, her nervousness is likely exacerbated by the conditions of her position: she is to be in charge of the entire household at the country estate, and she is given the position on the condition that she should never trouble her employer with any business about the children and the household (7, 9). Miles‘s dismissal from school and the fact that the governess at the time of her stay at Bly is receiving ―disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well‖ (24; ch. 4) also adds to the pressure on her. What is more, on several occasions in the story it is hinted that the governess is infatuated with her employer and that she is eager to prove herself worthy of the trust that he has put in her (5, 8, 19, 28, 48; frame story, ch. 3, 5, 9): ―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 Persson 15 giving pleasure – if he ever thought of it! – to the person to whose pressure I had yielded‖ (19; ch. 3). Her infatuation with her employer provides a motive for her to invent the ghosts, where the way she handles the situation could be used as a means to impress him: ―Then, with all the marks of deliberation that must have seemed magnificent had there been any one to admire it, I [...] went straight out of the room and [...] noiselessly closed and locked the door‖ (48; ch. 9). The narrator‘s reliability is also called into question by the way the story is told. The narrative factors that undermine the governess‘s reliability as narrator concern three areas: the story as manuscript, the story as a first-person narrative with the narrator as protagonist, and the narrator‘s line of argumentation. The narrative is presented as a manuscript written by the governess some time after the events took place and then sent to the character Douglas in the frame story before she died (4). The manuscript was then handed to the extradiegetic narrator, who in turn presents it to the reader of the novella (6). Taking down the story after it has occurred makes it possible for the narrator to present the events with the benefit of hindsight, rather than objectively (within the fictional framework) reporting them as they unfold. The governess can thus interpret events in a way that will make them fit her version of the story. She reflects herself on how hindsight may affect her interpretation of what took place: ―It may be of course above all that what suddenly broke into this gives the previous time a charm of stillness – that hush in which something gathers or crouches‖ (19; ch. 3). The description of Mrs Grose‘s reaction when the governess arrives at the estate is a good example of how telling the story after all the facts are known may influence the narrative that the governess is presenting: ―The one appearance indeed that in this early outlook might have made me shrink again was that of her being so inordinately glad to see me. I felt within half an hour that she was so glad […] as to be positively on her guard against showing it too much‖ (10; ch. 1). The narrator‘s description suggests that Mrs. Grose was suspiciously relieved that the governess had arrived to take charge, which has the effect of giving the reader a sense of ominous anticipation and the governess a quality of clear-sightedness that she does not necessarily posses. However, since the governess describes Mrs Grose‘s reaction knowing everything that will take place later in the story, the reader may easily come to question whether she reads more into this situation – and others – than what is actually there. In addition to the possibility that hindsight colours the relation of events, the fact that the governess is also the protagonist in the story means that she has a vested interest in telling it in a way that presents a favourable image of her. This is especially so since the intended reader of her manuscript was Douglas, with whom she had a warm and close friendship (5). Persson 16
On several occasions she describes how she overcomes her fears to face the ghosts and protect the children (28, 31, 41, 48; ch. 5, 6, 8, 9). As opposed to Mrs Grose‘s lack of courage to go outside and confront the ghosts, the governess‘s sense of duty makes her disregard her own emotions (28; ch. 5). The appearance of the ghosts awards her the opportunity to play the role of heroine, and, as she puts it, to ―serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquillity of the rest of the household‖ (31; ch. 6). The narrator‘s reliability is also damaged by her use of lines of argumentation that are so obviously unfair or illogical that they are more likely to discredit the governess‘s reliability than support her argument. One type of fallacious argument that she uses is argumentum ad hominem or poisoning the well, which means that she tries to malign a person in order to destroy confidence in anything he or she might say to contradict her story (―Argumentum ad hominem‖). The narrator uses this technique with the children by saying that they would lie if pressed about their alleged business with the ghosts. Anything that they would say that goes contrary to the narrator‘s story could then be dismissed as lies. When Mrs Grose asks the governess how she can be sure that who she saw by the pond was Miss Jessel, the governess suggests that she should ask Flora for corroboration but then immediately regrets it: ―But I had no sooner spoken than I caught myself up. ‗No, for God‘s sake, don’t! She‘ll say she is n‘t – she‘ll lie!‘‖ (37; ch. 7). Similarly, when the governess leads Miles inside in the middle of the night, after what she is convinced has been an encounter between him and Quint‘s ghost, she wonders for what ―plausible and not too grotesque‖ thing he is ―groping about in his dreadful little mind‖ (54; ch. 11). Another type of fallacious argument that the narrator employs is affirming the consequent: from one thing entailing another, the narrator draws the conclusion that the opposite is also true (―Affirming the consequent‖). An example of this fallacy is the way the children‘s silence on the matter of the ghosts is presented as proof of their being in league with them. When asked by Mrs. Grose if Flora actually said that she saw Miss Jessel‘s ghost, the governess replies, ―Not a word – that‘s the horror. She kept it to herself!‖ (36; ch. 7). Thus the narrator is suggesting to the reader that since keeping a secret about something entails keeping quiet about it, then saying nothing on a subject means that there is a secret behind the silence. Consequently, the less the children say about Quint and Miss Jessel and their ghosts, the deeper the conspiracy between them. In a similar way, the governess presents the children‘s innocent activities as a sign of guilt, since they are merely means to divert her attention away from their collusion with the ghosts (41; ch. 8). According to some sort of strange logic the absence of something is presented as evidence of its existence. Persson 17
B. Ambiguity In addition to the narrator‘s unreliability, indeterminacy in the narrative is also created by the use of ambiguity. As Ralf Norrman points out in his book Techniques of Ambiguity in the Fiction of Henry James, ―[a]mbiguities […] decrease information while they increase the number of interpretations‖ (7). Norrman distinguishes two basic types of ambiguity, ―complexity ambiguity‖, or ―ambiguity proper‖, and ―vague ambiguity‖, or ―unspecificity‖ (Norrman 6). Complexity ambiguity is defined, quoting the New English Dictionary (NED), as ―[a]dmitting more than one interpretation, or explanation; of double meaning, or several possible meanings: equivocal‖ (Norrman 6). Vague ambiguity is defined, also by quoting the same dictionary, as ―[d]oubtful, questionable; indistinct, obscure, not clearly defined‖ (Norrman 6). As both types do admit more than one interpretation – complexity ambiguity by selecting an alternative meaning, vague ambiguity by filling in details – they perform the same function in the creation of indeterminacy, providing gaps that enable the reader to supply meaning. Hence I will follow Norrman‘s example and use the term ‗ambiguity‘ to refer to both types. There are mainly three types of ambiguity in the story: ambiguity through lack of detail, ambiguity through negated propositions, and ambiguity through omissions. In contrast to the narrator‘s rather detailed description of the first ghost – he has ―very red, close-curling‖ hair, a face that is pale, ―long in shape, with straight good features and little rather queer whiskers‖, arched eyebrows, small eyes and a wide mouth with thin lips (28f; ch. 5) – the second ghost is described in terms that do not provide much detail. She is ―a woman in black, pale and dreadful‖, who is ―handsome‖ and ―infamous‖ (37f; ch. 7). While the detailed description of the first ghost allows Mrs. Grose to identify him as Quint, the description of the second ghost is too vague for Mrs Grose to identify her as Miss Jessel. Likewise, Quint‘s and Miss Jessel‘s characters and the nature of their influence on the children are referred to in undefined terms, which allow the reader much freedom to interpret. Quint is described as having been in some way ―bad‖ (32; ch. 6), as having had ―matters in his life, strange passages an perils, secret disorders, vices more than suspected‖ (33; ch. 6), as having been ―too free‖ with the children and Miss Jessel (32; ch. 6) and having done ―what he wished‖ with them (39; ch. 7). Quint‘s and Miss Jessel‘s influence on the children is that of evil, depraved tempters (57f; ch. 12), who have come to ―get hold of‖ them (38; ch. 7). The reason for Miles‘s misconduct at school is also described in vague words. According to the governess‘s interpretation of the letter from his headmaster, Miles has been expelled from the Persson 18
―horrid unclean school-world‖ (23; ch. 4) because he has been an ―injury‖ to his ―poor little innocent mates‖ (14; ch. 2). Mrs Grose admits that Miles has occasionally been ―bad‖ and ―naughty‖, but not to a degree where he will ―contaminate‖ or ―corrupt‖ others (15; ch. 2). A special type of ambiguity is used when the narrator describes her state of mind and her observations of the ghosts. In this type of ambiguity, which could be termed ―negated or dismissed proposition,‖ an idea is proposed only to be immediately negated or dismissed. Even though the idea is dismissed, by being formulated it is introduced to the reader as an alternative interpretation to the one the narrator explicitly favours. When the governess denies there being any ambiguity in her sensing the presence of Miss Jessel‘s ghost out by the pond – the ―Sea of Azof‖ – she is in fact presenting the opposite as a possibility by formulating it as an alternative: ―There was no ambiguity in anything‖ (35; ch. 6). The possibility of the alternative being true is underscored by her absolute denial being qualified by a concessive clause, saying in effect that, although there was no ambiguity in her anticipation of what she would see, there may indeed have been in her actual observations (or ―sensing‖): ―none whatever at least in the conviction I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes‖ (35; ch. 6). Similarly, when, in an attempt to convince Mrs. Grose that the children are talking about the ghosts on the sly, the governess denies the idea that she should be mad, she effectively points the reader‘s attention to the possibility that the she could in fact be insane: ―I go on, I know, as if I were crazy; and it‘s a wonder I‘m not‖ (57; ch. 12). Norrman classifies this type of ambiguity as a subcategory of incomplete reversals which he terms the dismissed alternative and points to several further examples (Norrman 15). Discussing the ghosts with Mrs Grose, the governess formulates and dismisses the suggestion that she should have made the ghosts up: ―I found that to keep her thoroughly in the grip of this I had only to ask her how, if I had ‗made it up,‘ I came to be able to give, of each of the persons appearing to me, a picture disclosing, to the last detail, their special marks – a portrait on the exhibition of which she had instantly recognised and named them‖ (40; ch. 8). In another example, the governess puts forward but negates the idea that it could in fact be her, not the ghosts, who poses the real threat to the children: ―Miss Jessel stood before us on the opposite bank exactly as she had stood the other time, and I remember, strangely, as the first feeling now produced in me, my thrill of joy at having brought on proof. She was there, so I was justified; she was there, so I was neither cruel nor mad‖ (83; ch. 20). As Norrman observes, by such a statement the governess is ―damning herself‖ since it will later turn out that no one but the governess is able to see the ghosts (Norrman 15). Persson 19
In his article ―Floundering about in Silence: What the Governess Couldn‘t Say‖ (1989), Bruce E. Fleming points to a third type of ambiguity besides lack of detail and negated propositions – the omission of words. Even though the aim of his article is not to investigate indeterminacy or ambiguity in The Turn of the Screw but rather how articulation and inarticulation reflect a view of the world as divided into good and bad, allowed and forbidden (Fleming 135), the subject that he explores nevertheless has bearing on the subject of indeterminacy in the novella. Fleming points out that both the governess and Mrs Grose are ―floundering about in silence‖ as they are constantly breaking off in the middle of phrases, leaving out words and finishing each other‘s sentences (Fleming 135). The exchange between the governess and Mrs Grose the morning after Flora‘s last encounter with Miss Jessel‘s ghost provides a good example of how the omission of words contributes to the indeterminacy of the story:
―No, no: it‘s the place itself. She must leave it.‖ She held me a moment with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. ―Your idea‘s the right one. I myself, Miss—― ―Well?‖ ―I can‘t stay.‖ The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. ―You mean that, since yesterday, you have seen—?‖ She shook her head with dignity. ―I‘ve heard—!‖ ―Heard?‖ ―From that child – horrors! There!‖ she sighed with tragic relief. ―On my honour, Miss, she says things—!‖ But at this evocation she broke down [...].‖ (90; ch. 21)
From the passage it is evident that Mrs Grose has heard Flora say things that make her agree with the governess that it is a good idea for Flora to leave the estate. However, since Mrs Grose cannot bring herself to articulate just what she has heard, it is the reader who has to fill in what sort of ―things‖ Flora has said. Other omissions of this kind occur when, after having received the letter of expulsion from Miles‘s school, the governess tries to find out whether Mrs Grose has ever known Miles to be ―bad‖ (15; ch. 2). According to Fleming, the governess is quite reluctant to use the word ‖bad‖ in a ―substantialist sense‖ and instead omits it, rephrases it into a ―concept of action‖, such as Miles being an ―injury to the others‖, or Persson 20 substitutes it for a word which denotes badness in a more ―trivial sense‖, such as being ―naughty‖ (Fleming 138). These omissions and substitutions are manifestations of a world- view where the world is divided into ―the articulable and good‖ on the one hand and ―the bad and condemned to silence‖ on the other, which according to Fleming informs not just The Turn of the Screw but much of Henry James‘s fiction (Fleming 141). It is reasonable to assume that it is also this view of the world that accounts for the governess‘s interpretation of the children‘s silence on the subject of the ghosts as a sign of their being under their evil spell (36; ch.7). The inarticulation on the part of the governess and Mrs Grose of what they perceive as bad creates gaps in the text as to whether the ghosts are real or not and the nature of their influence, gaps which have to be resolved through interpretation by the reader.
V. Effects of the Indeterminacy on the Interpretation of the Text The indeterminacy of the narrative affects the interpretation of mainly four aspects of the story: the reality of the ghosts that the narrator-protagonist claims exist, their identity, what type of corruptive influence they allegedly exert on the children, and the nature of Miles‘s misconduct at school. The effect of the indeterminacy is twofold: it makes the reader doubt the reality of the ghosts, and it casts a shadow of guilt over the children while at the same time leaving the nature of the ghosts‘ influence over them open to interpretation. As Norrman points out, through James‘s inclination towards concealment by vagueness in his communication with the reader, he has ―shifted a larger share of the creative process to the reader, thus gaining access to a wide register of aesthetic response as well as incurring the risk of losing control over the process of the reader‘s creative work‖ (Norrman 7). This vagueness together with the unreliability of the narrator are preconditions for the critical controversy over the interpretation of the novella that we have discussed above.
A. The Reality of the Ghosts The reality of the ghosts can be questioned primarily on the basis of the narrator‘s unreliability. As pointed out, there are factors in the governess‘s personality and position that make her an unreliable witness and which also suggest other explanations to the phenomena that she interprets as ghosts. Considering the governess‘s mental instability, an alternative explanation to the ghosts would be to interpret them as some kind of hallucinations. Several factors in the story support such an interpretation. As mentioned before, the conditions of her employment – that she should be in charge of the entire household and that she should never bother her employer with any business of the children – put a great deal of strain on a young, Persson 21 inexperienced and high-strung country girl. Moreover, after the governess has made her first encounter with Quint‘s ghost she makes a reference to Ann Radcliffe‘s novel The Mysteries of Udolpho (21; ch. 4), in which a heroine is haunted by supernatural experiences (Facer). The reference suggests that the governess‘s imagination may be fuelled by the reading of Gothic ghost stories. Furthermore, both the appearance of Quint‘s ghost on top of the tower and Miss Jessel‘s by the ―Sea of Azof‖ are preceded by the governess anticipating their appearance in a way that resembles autosuggestion (19, 35; ch. 3, 6). This interpretation does not, however, hold for her later encounters with the ghosts, which are not preceded by such anticipations. Since the governess is clearly taken with her employer (8), another alternative to the ghosts- as-ghosts interpretation is that the governess simply makes the ghosts up as a way for her to prove herself to him: ―I now saw that I had been asked for a service admirable and difficult; and there would be a greatness in letting it be seen – oh in the right quarter! – that I could succeed where many another girl might have failed‖ (33f; ch. 6). A view of the ghosts as conscious inventions by the governess to attract her employer‘s interest is complicated, however, by her reluctance to contact him to inform him about the goings on at the estate. What is more, both an interpretation of the ghosts as hallucinations and as conscious inventions are complicated by at least two factors. Firstly, the governess is able to present a description of the first ghost that is so detailed that Mrs Grose is able to identify it as Quint, and there is nothing to suggest that the governess has acquired any information about his appearance from any other source than the figure she sees on top of the tower:
He has red hair, very red, close-curling, and a pale face, long in shape, with straight good features and little rather queer whiskers that are as red as his hair. His eyebrows are somehow darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strange – awfully; but I only know clearly that they‘re rather small and very fixed. His mouth‘s wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he‘s quite clean-shaven. (28f; ch. 5)
Secondly, although Mrs Grose is unable to see Miss Jessel‘s ghost, she has nevertheless heard Flora utter things – ―horrors‖ (90; ch. 21) – which seem to justify the governess‘s observations and her ideas about the corruptive influence that the ghosts are exerting on the children.
Persson 22
B. The Identity of the Ghosts The indeterminacy of the story calls into question not only the actual existence of the ghosts but also their identities. As pointed out above, the governess‘s description of the female ghost is made in such ambiguous words that it is the governess herself rather than Mrs Grose who suggests that the ghost is Miss Jessel‘s. Mrs Grose‘s eventual identification of the ghost is left out, so that we only have the governess‘s word that Mrs Grose was in fact able to make the identification based on the governess‘s description: ―Late that night […] she [Mrs Grose] went all the way with me as to its being beyond doubt that I had seen exactly what I had seen‖ (40; ch. 8). The ambiguity in the description of Miss Jessel‘s ghost is contrasted, however, by the description of the male ghost, which is detailed enough to allow Mrs Grose to identify him as Quint. Though the identity of the ghosts is not key to accepting the governess‘s observations as ghosts rather than hallucinations or inventions, it does affect the interpretation of the influence that they are claimed to exert on the children. Both the ghosts‘ authority over the children and the nature of their influence derive from the characters and behaviours of Quint and Miss Jessel when they were alive and to the relationship between themselves and to the children.
C. The Character of the Ghosts’ Corruptive Influence Given that the reader accepts the phenomena that the governess observes as ghosts and their identities as Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, there remains a great deal of indeterminacy as to the nature of the influence they are supposed to exercise over the children. As shown above, Quint‘s character and his way towards the children when he was alive are described in vague words. The description of him as ―bad‖ (32; ch. 6) could be interpreted either as him being bad in the way he acts, in a failure to comply with the norms of the society in which he lives, or being bad in essence or nature, that is, being evil in some substantialist and metaphysical sense of the word. The former interpretation is suggested by statements that Quint was much ―too free‖ with the children and Miss Jessel (32; ch. 6), that he did ―what he wished‖ with them (39; ch. 7) and that Quint and Miles were ―great friends‖ (31; ch. 6), which imply that he – to Mrs Grose‘s dismay – did not observe the class boundaries that existed between him and them: Mrs Grose ―liked to see young gentlemen‖ like Miles ―not forget their station‖ (42; ch. 8). The fact that Quint‘s ghost appears on top of a tower and Miss Jessel‘s at the bottom of the stairs can be seen as a symbolic representation of the result of this disregard for class: Miss Jessel‘s association with a man from a lower class leads to her ―abasement‖ (39; ch. 7), whereas Quint‘s association with a woman from a higher class leads to a raising (though not a Persson 23 complete one, as he is not a gentleman and borrows his master‘s clothes (29; ch. 5)). A substantialist interpretation of Quint‘s ―badness‖ is suggested by the description of him and Miss Jessel as evil, depraved and tempters (57f; ch. 12), and by the reference to vices in Quint‘s life (33; ch. 6). Also, Mrs Grose‘s answer to the governess‘s question about what has happened to Quint suggests that at least in Mrs Grose‘s eyes the former valet was not bound for heaven:
―And what became of him [Quint]?‖ She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. ―He went too,‖ she brought out at last. ―Went where?‖ Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. ―God knows where! He died.‖ (29; ch. 5)
It is mostly Quint‘s character that is described in negative terms, whereas Miss Jessel‘s badness, evil or depravity is more of a guilt by association. There are, however, intimations that Quint and Miss Jessel were lovers, that she had to leave the estate because she became pregnant, and that her death was associated with her pregnancy: there ―was everything‖ between Quint and Miss Jessel, which led to her ―abasement‖, she ―paid for‖ her relationship with Quint, she could not have stayed on at the estate, and her cause of death was ―dreadful‖ and apparently unmentionable (39; ch. 7). Furthermore, there are other suggestions that the ghosts‘ influence may be of a non-substantialist sexual nature, in the form of Freudian dream symbols, which occur in relation to the ghosts and the children. As mentioned before, Quint‘s ghost first appears on top of a tower (20; ch. 3), which, like other ―elongated objects‖ in dreams, represents ―the male member‖ (Freud 230). While the governess is working up her courage to face the ghost of Miss Jessel by the ―Sea of Azof‖, Flora is sticking a fragment of wood into a hole in another piece of wood (36; ch. 6), which could be interpreted as a symbol of the sexual act, the joining of the ―elongated object‖ representing the phallus and the ―cavit[y]‖ representing the woman (Freud 230). Considering the allusions to Miss Jessel and Quint being lovers and to Miss Jessel becoming pregnant, Miss Jessel‘s appearance at the bottom of a set of stairs can also be given a sexual interpretation, as ―[s]teep inclines, ladders and stairs, and going up or down them, are symbolic representations of the sexual act‖ (Freud 230). Persson 24
D. The Nature of Miles’s Misconduct The same vagueness that occurs in the description of the ghosts‘ influence over the children also distinguishes the description of Miles misconduct in school and at the estate. The words used to describe him as ―bad‖, ―naughty‖, an ―injury‖, contaminating and corrupting, and the school as ―horrid‖ and ―unclean‖ (15, 14, 23; ch. 2, 4), are sufficiently indeterminate as to be given a wide variety of interpretations. Since Miles is closely tied to Quint – they were ―great friends‖ (31; ch. 6), they had been ―perpetually together‖ for a couple of months (42; ch.8) – the kind of interpretation the reader gives to the ghosts‘ influence is naturally extended to the interpretation of Miles‘s behaviour.
VI. Conclusion To conclude, The Turn of the Screw contains indeterminacies that are achieved chiefly through the use of an unreliable narrator and of ambiguity in the way the narrator relates the events that take place. The narrator‘s credibility is compromised by her personal qualities as well as by narrative factors. The personal qualities that are detrimental to her credibility are her youth, inexperience, nervousness, excitability and – to some extent – vanity. The narrative factors that damage her reliability concern the story as manuscript, her role in the story she narrates, and her line of argumentation. The presentation of the text as a manuscript taken down by the governess after all the events have been played out, puts her in a position where she is able to re-interpret the events to suit her own needs, and her role as the story‘s protagonist, her infatuation with her employer, and her relationship to the manuscript‘s intended reader provide her with a strong motive to do so. In addition, the reasoning she uses in arguing for her version of the story is occasionally so obviously flawed that it discredits her reliability. The ambiguity in the way events are reported is achieved by the use of ambiguous words, negated propositions and omission of words. While the narrator‘s unreliability acts as a cue for the reader not to take her version of events at face value but to look for other interpretations, the ambiguity creates gaps in the narrative that enable the reader to supply meaning in order to arrive at an interpretation of the text, to ―realize‖ the text (Iser ix). The effect of the indeterminacy is primarily that the reality of the ghosts is called into question and that the nature of their influence is left open to interpretation. The story suggests other explanations to the governess‘s observations than that they should be ghosts, for instance that they are hallucinations or conscious inventions to attract interest. These explanations are, however, complicated by other aspects of the story, in Persson 25 the same way as the governess‘s explanation of the observations is complicated by her own unreliability. Also, a possible sexual interpretation of the ghosts‘ influence over the children is suggested in the form of imagery that appears in relation to the ghosts and the children. The indeterminacies in the story do not necessarily result in a definite dismissal of the governess‘s version of events; it remains one of several possibilities. The reader may, however, find him- or herself in an ―impasse‖ between different interpretations ―as contrary evidence is encountered‖ (Booth 426), that is, in a situation ―where we cannot decide whether the subject is two evil children as seen by a naïve but well-meaning governess or two innocent children as seen by a hysterical, destructive governess‖ (Booth 346).
Persson 26
Works Cited ―Affirming the consequent.‖ The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. Ed. Thomas Mautner. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997. ―Argumentum ad hominem.‖ The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. Ed. Thomas Mautner. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1997. Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. London: Penguin, 1991. Facer, Ruth. ―Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823).‖ Chawton House Library. 26 August 2009.
Wilson, Edmund. ―The Ambiguity of Henry James.‖ A Casebook on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Gerald Willen. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1960.