Supernatural And Psychology In Turn Of The Screw Essay, Research Paper

The notion of psychology and the supernatural is related in The Turn of the Screw.

Psychology here refers to the governess’s unconscious state of mind in the novel. The supernatural here refers to the apparitions of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Throughout the novel, only the governess and no other characters can see them. The ambiguity of Henry James creates the question of whether the supernatural is real, or are they psychological manifestations of the governess. After examining the novel, there are many signs that the “ghosts” are a manifestation of the governess’s emotional instability and anxiety.

There are many instances where the governess shows signs of instability in her emotions. After all, she comes from simple, cloistered background, “the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson”. And at such a young age of twenty, it is a formidable task to be given so much responsibility of taking charge of the entire household to the “fluttered anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage”. With such overwhelming responsibilities, her emotional instability is seen when she first came to Bly. She remembers it through “flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong”. She also shows her awe at the grand surrounding, showing great pride and anxiety in her new position. As Douglas puts it: “she was young, untried, nervous”.

In the Victorian days, governesses belong to a class that is neither here nor there, giving rise to a lot of anxiety in them. They are supposed to be a lady, but yet they are not of the same position because they are of employment. As Millicent Bell noted:

She had to be a lady to carry out her role but was surely not ladylike in working for her living and no social equal of leisured ladies. Paid at best no more than a housekeeper or a butler, she was often resented by the servants who worked beside her for holding herself above…the world of courtship and marriage was closed to her she was the “tabooed woman” .Loneliness was the common complaint of governesses.

There is no way the governess can rise above her class to marry a gentleman, and is doomed to stay lonely for the rest of her life. Thus the governess in the novel can only desire after the Master but can never have him, which is another cause of the governess’s anxiety.

The governess’s desire for the Master is obvious. She admits to Mrs Grose that she was “carried away in London”. Just before she met Quint, she thought: “I only asked that he should know; and the only way to be sure he would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face.” The anxiety of the governess is that she wanted the Master to see that she is doing a good job so that the Master can appreciate her. However the paradox is that in order for her to do a good job, the Master must not know about it. This paradox becomes an internal emotional conflict within her, and this is just before she sees Quint at the top of the tower.

The moment the governess sees the figure at the tower, she remembered “two distinct gasps of emotion the shock of my first and that of my second surprise.” She also remembered “[her] second was a violent perception of the mistake of [her] first: the man who met [her] eyes was not the person [she] had precipitately supposed.” She is thinking of the Master, and yet when she sees him, she realised that she cannot let him sees her. This emotional conflict of the paradoxical situation that she is in causes her to replace the figure by somebody else. Since “an unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred”, a common anxiety of ladies in the Victorian times, her unconscious mind seems to replace her manifestation of the Master to an unknown stranger. “Was there a ’secret’ at Bly – a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement?” she wondered. This appearance also gives her a sense of adventure, since apparently she is a fan of gothic novels, apparently read The Mystery of Udolpho by Anne Radcliff and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. “The governess’s mind is full of Gothic stereotypes.” Another point to note is that the governess has not slept well for two nights due to her excitement and her anxiety over the letter that tells of Miles’s expulsion. The appearance of the figure can also be induced by fatigue.

The governess sees the figure a second time, and later learned from Mrs Grose that the figure is actually Quint, the Master’s valet that…

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