Do you have ideas about what makes up a conventional ghost story? Is The Turn of the Screw consistent with those conventions or not?
7 thoughts on “The Turn of the Screw”
Abigail Jameson
I agree Susanna that The Turn of the Screw defies the traditional convention of ghosts being at the center of ghost stories. Many of the ghost stories that I’ve been told include a long description of the ghost themselves and what happened to the ghost while they were living. Traditional ghost stories are often scary because of something inherent about the ghost. However, in The Turn of the Screw, the fear elicited by the apparitions at Bly is less due to the characters themselves (although they are often described as demonic and horrible), and more because of the threat they pose to the children. Another key feature of ghost stories is the message they convey. Ghost stories are often used as a warning – the audience walks away from the story understanding that they could meet the same fate as the subjects if they are not careful. I can think of ghost stories that I was told on camping trips that implicitly warned us not to venture too far from the campsite by ourselves. While the warning in this novella is not quite so simple and blunt, it conveys a broader societal warning. As William notes, the Governess’s main concern is preventing the children from seeing the ghosts, which issues a warning about the potential corruption of childhood and innocence.
I agree with most of the other comments, in that this is definitely a ghost story, just not a traditional one. To my mind, a traditional ghost story is one in which the main character(s) are actually scared by the ghosts, and their main concern is trying to get rid of, or away from, the ghosts themselves. In this story, however, the narrator, when she firsts encounters the ghosts, doesn’t seem to be particularly scared by them. Her main concern is not trying to get rid of the ghosts, but making sure the children don’t see them. It was during this original encounter with the ghosts that I first thought the whole thing was just in the narrator’s head. One of the strangest passages in the story comes just after the narrator encounters the ghost of Quint, when the narrator talks about the need to prevent the children from seeing the ghosts. More specifically, the passage is the one in which the narrator talks about how heroic and brave she is in preventing the children from seeing the ghosts. The narrator does not sound like the usual protagonist who encounters ghosts. She seems happy about it, in part because the existence of the ghosts fulfills a need.
Shoot, sorry I accidentally posted before I was finished. What I was going to say is the ghosts fulfill a need of the narrator’s. She is clearly very fond of the children, in an obsessive kind of way. She wants to win their affection and for that affection to be mutual. She loves the idea of being their savior, of protecting them from the ghosts. It is for this reason that I think the ghosts are a manifestation of her imagination. They allow the narrator to feel good about her actions and to justify her closeness and affection for the children.
I agree with Hanna’s point that this story reads almost more like a tragedy than a ghost story in its traditional sense. The ghosts were ambiguous characters: I never felt as though I really understood who they were or where their intentions lay, and, as Meredith pointed out, they leave more questions in their wake than answers. In any case, I did not think that the identities of their characters were the focus of the story. Whereas in traditional ghost stories, I think of the ghosts as central to the stories’ narratives, I did not find this to be the case in Turn of the Screw. I felt more as though the point of the story was the way the living characters reacted to their haunted surroundings, and I got the sense that the ghosts served to highlight underlying instability within the characters’ personalities, and their evolving and bizarre relationships with one another.
I definitely agree with Meredith that the context in which the sub-story in Turn of the Screw is being told makes it a ghost story (friends around the fire on a winter day trying to get a certain reaction from the listeners). However, as was mentioned there are several features which imply that this is not a conventional ghost story. The first indicator of this to me was the purpose with which Douglass is telling the story – this is not merely a story that he has heard of that he is telling to garner a response. This is a story of someone someone close to him which he feels very strongly about sharing and seems to feel a certain responsibility in telling. Furthermore as Maddie and Meredith mentioned the story does not seem to fit in a simple storyline as the reader/listener is left with so many questions. When one begins to think of the fate of the different characters, as well as question the Governess the story seems almost more like a tragedy than a ghost story. The characters are more complex than one would think for a traditional ghost story and therefore the ‘fear’ throughout is linked with a sadness for the characters.
I agree with Meredith’s point that The Turn of Screw leaves the reader with more questions at the end of the tale than at the beginning. What unspeakable thing did Miles do at school? Why did Miles pass so suddenly? Why did Miles crave his uncle’s attention? Why did the apparitions haunt Bly? I feel as though my conception of a ghost story is something much more simplistic and devoid of greater meaning and question than the story that is offered in The Turn of The Screw. While I think that ghost stories may often leave the listeners with a cliff hanger, the cliff hanger usually has little to do with the continuity of the story line itself and more to do with whether or not the ghost is still out there. I think my experience engaging with this story is similar to that which Meredith described as well—I am still left haunted in bewilderment as to what happened in this strange tale. I would not classify The Turn of the Screw as a ghost story in any traditional sense of the classification. I think this novella is much more thought-provoking and too complex to be belittled into what I think of as a ghost story in its most basic sense.
For me, I think of sitting around the campfire listening to long-told, exaggerated stories when I think of the conventional ghost story. The way that The Turn of the Screw begins reminds me of how we would even act today when telling a ghost story. Douglas begins the story by building suspension to a group of friends staying at a cabin sitting around a fire. As for the actual story, I believe it deviates from my idea of conventions. For me, ghost stories are meant to be slightly scary in a way that makes you want to jump at the end, but that do not stick in your mind beyond the night. The Turn of the Screw is a complicated story that goes beyond convention. The story has many underlying meanings and allusions to the culture of the time, of the Victorian gothic era. The reader is left with more questions by the end, than they began with. Ghost stories are meant to be scary, but entertaining; instead, The Turn of the Screw is confusing and thought-provoking. I would still categorize the novella as a ghost story, but not in the conventional sense.
I agree Susanna that The Turn of the Screw defies the traditional convention of ghosts being at the center of ghost stories. Many of the ghost stories that I’ve been told include a long description of the ghost themselves and what happened to the ghost while they were living. Traditional ghost stories are often scary because of something inherent about the ghost. However, in The Turn of the Screw, the fear elicited by the apparitions at Bly is less due to the characters themselves (although they are often described as demonic and horrible), and more because of the threat they pose to the children. Another key feature of ghost stories is the message they convey. Ghost stories are often used as a warning – the audience walks away from the story understanding that they could meet the same fate as the subjects if they are not careful. I can think of ghost stories that I was told on camping trips that implicitly warned us not to venture too far from the campsite by ourselves. While the warning in this novella is not quite so simple and blunt, it conveys a broader societal warning. As William notes, the Governess’s main concern is preventing the children from seeing the ghosts, which issues a warning about the potential corruption of childhood and innocence.
I agree with most of the other comments, in that this is definitely a ghost story, just not a traditional one. To my mind, a traditional ghost story is one in which the main character(s) are actually scared by the ghosts, and their main concern is trying to get rid of, or away from, the ghosts themselves. In this story, however, the narrator, when she firsts encounters the ghosts, doesn’t seem to be particularly scared by them. Her main concern is not trying to get rid of the ghosts, but making sure the children don’t see them. It was during this original encounter with the ghosts that I first thought the whole thing was just in the narrator’s head. One of the strangest passages in the story comes just after the narrator encounters the ghost of Quint, when the narrator talks about the need to prevent the children from seeing the ghosts. More specifically, the passage is the one in which the narrator talks about how heroic and brave she is in preventing the children from seeing the ghosts. The narrator does not sound like the usual protagonist who encounters ghosts. She seems happy about it, in part because the existence of the ghosts fulfills a need.
Shoot, sorry I accidentally posted before I was finished. What I was going to say is the ghosts fulfill a need of the narrator’s. She is clearly very fond of the children, in an obsessive kind of way. She wants to win their affection and for that affection to be mutual. She loves the idea of being their savior, of protecting them from the ghosts. It is for this reason that I think the ghosts are a manifestation of her imagination. They allow the narrator to feel good about her actions and to justify her closeness and affection for the children.
I agree with Hanna’s point that this story reads almost more like a tragedy than a ghost story in its traditional sense. The ghosts were ambiguous characters: I never felt as though I really understood who they were or where their intentions lay, and, as Meredith pointed out, they leave more questions in their wake than answers. In any case, I did not think that the identities of their characters were the focus of the story. Whereas in traditional ghost stories, I think of the ghosts as central to the stories’ narratives, I did not find this to be the case in Turn of the Screw. I felt more as though the point of the story was the way the living characters reacted to their haunted surroundings, and I got the sense that the ghosts served to highlight underlying instability within the characters’ personalities, and their evolving and bizarre relationships with one another.
I definitely agree with Meredith that the context in which the sub-story in Turn of the Screw is being told makes it a ghost story (friends around the fire on a winter day trying to get a certain reaction from the listeners). However, as was mentioned there are several features which imply that this is not a conventional ghost story. The first indicator of this to me was the purpose with which Douglass is telling the story – this is not merely a story that he has heard of that he is telling to garner a response. This is a story of someone someone close to him which he feels very strongly about sharing and seems to feel a certain responsibility in telling. Furthermore as Maddie and Meredith mentioned the story does not seem to fit in a simple storyline as the reader/listener is left with so many questions. When one begins to think of the fate of the different characters, as well as question the Governess the story seems almost more like a tragedy than a ghost story. The characters are more complex than one would think for a traditional ghost story and therefore the ‘fear’ throughout is linked with a sadness for the characters.
I agree with Meredith’s point that The Turn of Screw leaves the reader with more questions at the end of the tale than at the beginning. What unspeakable thing did Miles do at school? Why did Miles pass so suddenly? Why did Miles crave his uncle’s attention? Why did the apparitions haunt Bly? I feel as though my conception of a ghost story is something much more simplistic and devoid of greater meaning and question than the story that is offered in The Turn of The Screw. While I think that ghost stories may often leave the listeners with a cliff hanger, the cliff hanger usually has little to do with the continuity of the story line itself and more to do with whether or not the ghost is still out there. I think my experience engaging with this story is similar to that which Meredith described as well—I am still left haunted in bewilderment as to what happened in this strange tale. I would not classify The Turn of the Screw as a ghost story in any traditional sense of the classification. I think this novella is much more thought-provoking and too complex to be belittled into what I think of as a ghost story in its most basic sense.
For me, I think of sitting around the campfire listening to long-told, exaggerated stories when I think of the conventional ghost story. The way that The Turn of the Screw begins reminds me of how we would even act today when telling a ghost story. Douglas begins the story by building suspension to a group of friends staying at a cabin sitting around a fire. As for the actual story, I believe it deviates from my idea of conventions. For me, ghost stories are meant to be slightly scary in a way that makes you want to jump at the end, but that do not stick in your mind beyond the night. The Turn of the Screw is a complicated story that goes beyond convention. The story has many underlying meanings and allusions to the culture of the time, of the Victorian gothic era. The reader is left with more questions by the end, than they began with. Ghost stories are meant to be scary, but entertaining; instead, The Turn of the Screw is confusing and thought-provoking. I would still categorize the novella as a ghost story, but not in the conventional sense.