Henry Miller Turn of the Screw
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Henry Miller’s The Turn of the Screw opens with the reading a manuscript left behind by a governess. The manuscript reveals that the governess was hired by a wealthy Englishman who has been saddled with a pair of children -boy and girl - after the death of their parents. He has no interest in raising them so he leaves it to the governess to do so.
Traveling to the man’s country house the governess takes control of the children and, assisted by the house’s staff, begins the process of educating and caring for them. But not long after she arrives she begins to see the dual figures of a man and woman around the estate. What’s more, she’s the only one who can see them: neither the staff nor the children seem to have any awareness of the spirits. The woman slowly comes to the conclusion that they are the spirits of the former governess and her lover.
What’s more, the ghosts seem to be manipulating the children. Both boy and girl start to act oddly, going places they shouldn’t and stealing things that aren’t there. After one particularly frightening episode where the girl rows herself across a small lake in a boat, the governess starts to break down, and she eventually demands the truth of the boy. And he seems ready to give it, almost acknowledging the spirit of the man - but then, on the moment of revelation, his heart stops.
The book is ambiguous on whether or not the governess was actually seeing the supernatural or if she was merely paranoid.