Ghost stories have been around for years and are divided into three distinct categories: traditional ghost stories, psychological ghost stories, antiquarian ghost stories. In psychological ghost stories, the emphasis shifts from the actions of the spectre upon the victim, to the perceiving consciousness of the victim. These tales frequently call into question the reliability and mental stability of the protagonist and are usually highly realistic and ambiguous in their description. Themes of repression and guilt feature frequently. Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” is really the prototypal story within this psychological ghost story tradition1. All along the story, the reader is brought to question himself on whether the governess is a reliable narrator and whether these ghosts she talks about are real or not. I do not think that the governess should be considered as a reliable narrator and I absolutely do not believe the ghosts really exist. First of all, the fact that, until the last part of the novel, the ghosts appear to the governess when she is alone and that the governess was the only one we truly know to have seen the ghosts raised doubts in my mind early on in the reading. Secondly, the governess’s insistence on the idea that the children saw the ghosts, although we are never actually given any solid proof these ghosts’ existence, made me question the narrator’s sanity.

First of all, the very first time the governess sees what we later learn to be Quint’s ghost, she is coming back from an afternoon walk when she suddenly saw the figure of a man, standing at the top of one of the house’s towers, facing her (Page 16).The governess is alone at the time. Then, the second time she sees Quint, he is looking straight at her from outside the dining room’s large window (Page 20). The governess, courageous as she is, “bounded straight out of the door” but just as she reaches the spot where she had seen the ghost standing, he is gone. Mrs. Grose then arrives but too late for her to get the opportunity to see the ghost. Once again, the governess is the only one to have seen the ghost. On the third occasion the governess has to witness one of these supernatural phenomena, finally, she is not alone. Indeed, this time it is not Quint but Miss Jessel’s that the governess sees and for the occasion, she is accompanied by Flora. Unfortunately, we get no clear evidence that Flora sees the ghost although the narrator is persuaded she does and she bases her belief that Flora saw Miss Jessel only on the fact that Flora “had, in her play, turned her back to the water” and “looked with the confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal notice” (Page 29). If you ask me, this means nothing but it did seem enough to convince our narrator… The next few times the governess sees ghostly appearances, she is always alone.

Further on in the story, Mrs. Jessel appears before Flora and the governess once more. Once again, Flora denies seeing anything. This time though, a third person was present on the occasion: Mrs. Grose. “She’s there, you little unhappy thing-there, there, there, and you see her as well as you see me!” (Page 70). Those were the very words the governess employed to address Flora, pointing to Miss Jessel. Mrs. Grose, who witnessed the whole development of the situation, then says: “What a dreadful turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth do you see anything?” So, not only does neither Flora nor Miles see the ghost, Mrs. Grose doesn’t see anything either. If Peter Quint and Mrs. Jessel’s ghosts really haunted Bly, why then do they appear only to the governess? This question appeared to me early on in the story and created serious doubts, in my mind, on the existence of these ghosts.

Secondly the way with which the governess insists on the fact that the children not only see the ghost but are also plotting against her with Quint and Miss Jessel leads me to question her sanity. She has very little proof that the children are actually in contact with the ghosts, but she insists they do to convince herself and people around her that she is not completely crazy. How did this all start? It actually started when, as discussed earlier, she sees Miss Jessel by the water and comes back to Bly persuaded that not only did Flora also see the ghost but that the children don’t want her to know that they see Peter Quint and Miss Jessel for some obscure reason. In chapter X, the governess sees Miles out on the lawn in the middle of the night. Miles explains to her that he had planned this with his sister and that his objective was for the governess to “Think him – for a change – bad” (Page 46). The narrator though, does not believe Miles and the next day, she tells Mrs. Grose that she is persuaded that children have been meeting frequently and that they are plotting against her. Mrs. Grose is left astonished and the story goes on.

Days pass without any incident but instead of rejoicing, the governess believes that the children have been communicating with unseen visitors in her very presence without her noticing it. The governess’s determination to prove that the children see the ghosts will end up hurting them, starting with Flora. In chapter XX, the governess is trying to convince Mrs. Grose and Flora that Miss Jessel is standing right next to them, but in vain. Instead, she ends up terrifying little Flora who, at one point, asks “Take me away, take me away – oh take me away from her”, referring to the governess. We later learn that poor Flora has fallen sick and has to be taken away from Bly.

Then, it’s Miles’s turn. Following the departure of his sister, the governess sees Peter Quint looking at them through the window and she draws Miles close to her. She start interrogating him on the reasons of his expulsion from school which we learn is because he “He said things [...] to those he liked” (page 85). The governess then asks Miles “What were these things” that he said but Miles just averted himself again and the movement made the governess “with a single bound and irrepressible cry, spring right upon him” Miles asks if “she” is here and the governess answers that the “coward horror” is here (Page 86). Miles searches in the direction of the governess’s gaze and cries out “Peter Quint – you devil!” When he is saying “You devil”, I think that Miles is referring to the governess rather than, as many people might think. Peter Quint. Indeed, Miles seems so scared by the governess now obvious insanity that she appears to him now as nothing more than a devil, there to corrupt his poor fragile mind. The governess yells at the “ghost” and points him out and Miles’s heart stops. My interpretation of this part is that the governess, completely out of her mind strangled Miles who was already scared to death. The governess’s insanity will finally have made Flora sick and have killed poor Miles…

Finally, I think that the ghosts were just objects of the imagination of an unreliable, stubborn and insane narrator. By trying to overprotect herself and her pupils against a nonexistent threat, the governess will have led to the death and the sickness of two innocent children. It would be interesting to read a similar text written by someone having an opposite idea to mine and who thought that the ghosts were actually real.

1 Sanger, Larry. “Ghost Story.” Ghost Story. Ed. Jimmy Wales. Wikipedia. 9 Mar. 2009 .