Wilson's criticism about TTS - commentary

Wilson’s criticism

The American writer Edmund Wilson's criticism takes place in the 30's in the 20th century (1935). He has a non-apparitionist view, since he states the ghosts are a product of the governess' hallucinations. He employs psychoanalist theories in his work, like the idea of a neurotic case of sex represion in the case of the governess. I don’t agree that her hallucinations are a by-product of a sex repression, but I do believe the ghosts exist only in the protagonist's mind -maybe as a result of any other trouble in her unconscious level.

Wilson also states that the governess shares some characteristics with Amerian characters, some qualities mentioned by the critic being: 'frustrated, sterile, exclusively refined, depressing'.

Wilson tells us that the governess is sexually attracted to the employer and later to Miles (which I don't agree with) and that the ghosts are in some way caused by this attraction. However, the critic does not give a clear explanation as to why the governess sees ghosts sharing the physical characteristics of her employer, for example. However, we see that Wilson takes many of Freud's ideas to describe the characters' behaviour and psyche.

As a conclusion, I can say that Wilson effectively uses some Freudian concepts to analyse some of the most important character's minds and behaviour -which is very important, because understanding the protagonist's deepest feelings and thoughts is what most of us readers want. However, being based on psychoanalysis, he postulates his ideas based too much on sexual aspects, even when he refers to the relationship between the government and one of the children, Miles.

I find Wilson's arguments quite persuasive, even if I do not agree with all of his hypothesis.

Muriel West

  Muriel West

  Muriel West could be lined up in the ranks of the Structuralists since in her analysis he considers literature as a self referential word. She focuses his attention on the elements present in the text without taking into account things outside it (Author’s life or comments on the novel.)
  In her work West doesn’t seek to tip the scale either in favor of apparitionists or nonapparitionists. She takes a step back in order to see a bigger picture; she tries to find out why critics throughout years have interpreted “the turn of the screw” differently. She analyses the way in which the book is written. There he discovers that the book is inherently ambiguous; therefore, different readers – or critics— with different backgrounds will interpret something different. There are many vague passages which, depending on one’s inclination (apparitionists/nonapparitionsts), could be slanted to justify either view. This explanation somehow conciliates all the dissimilar interpretations that the story had.

  In West’s book, “a stormy night with the turn of the screw” she emulates the structure of “the turn of the screw”. Her work is presented as a manuscript written by an anonymous critic and edited by someone (we don’t know anything about her or him) who sign as H.K.Y. She present a narrator who describes a series of events that, at first sight, as supernatural: a storm broke out, ashes spread out of the fire place, his papers scattered down the table and the lamp went out. The narrator comments that he is surprised that all this happened, since the window was closed. No air could have got in, which make us to think about concealed forces; probably dark and mysterious ones due to the atmosphere created. However, then, in a further inspection, the narrator tell us that all those events were caused by a gust of air that came from the rear of the house. What seemed to be supernatural at first, turned out to be something caused by natural reasons. There West shows us – quite didactically— that or view in the story is narrowed by the narrator This shows us that our reading on the text heavily depends on the comments of the narrator (and in the case of the turn of the screw, also the comments made by both, Douglas and Douglas’ friend). Since the descriptions given by the narrator (the governess) are obscure and ambiguous, there is no wonder that several interpretations can be made.

I think that the approach taken by this author is effective, because it focus the attention on the ambiguity of the story. She does not try to force any interpretation, just describes why there are so many. I agree with what he says since I consider that it has no point trying to make sense of something that the author intentionally wanted to be ambiguous or polysemic.

Carvel Collins

Carvel Collins bases his literary analysis of “The Turn of the Screw” on those controversial ambiguities which have generated so many discussions among critics. Collins agrees with Wilson in that the story would be dull without its ambiguities and he suggests an additional one- according to him, Douglas and Miles are the same person. This interpretation strengthens Wilson’s view about Miles’ death- the fact that Miles does not die at the end of the story as the Governess says. Both critics believe that the Governess is an inaccurate witness and a victim of hallucinations.

In order to support his interpretation, Collins states various similarities from the plot: 

•    Only Douglas’ last name appears/ Only Miles’ first name appears.

•  Douglas is ten years younger than the Governess/ Miles is ten when the Governess is twenty.

• The woman is the governess of Miles’ sister when Miles comes home from boarding school/ When Douglas comes home from college he talks with the Governess who has been his sister’s governess.

Moreover, Collins believes that by carefully arranging details, Henry James opens the possibility of considering yet another ambiguity: that the Governess’ manuscript is a clear evidence of her mental illness.

We should bear in mind that Collins’ reading of the story is a possible one. He presents it as a “meaningful ambiguity” . Collins is doing what James expected from critics to do- “filling the blanks from their own imaginations”

Collins is clearly in the non-apparitionist camp, but he acknowledges that no interpretation can be proven to be exclusively correct. In this sense I agree with him. I believe “The Turn of the Screw” allows readers to develop countless of different -and even opposing- readings, all valid.  
The richness of this story is precisely in the understanding of how it works.

Judith Fryer - The Turn of the Screw

According to Judith Fryer, whether the ghosts are real or not is not something relevant. She believes that the governess sees her own psychic projections, not real people. Moreover, she focuses her attention mainly on the governess’ personality. She describes her as a possessive character who leads the children to destruction. According to this author, everything is black and white for the protagonist, which is clearly portrayed in the governess’ conception of the children as beautiful and innocent at first, and ugly and evil in the end. Fryer states that the governess sees herself as the one who will provide direction for the lost children and thus earning for herself the admiration of the master. Mrs. Grose, for her part, seems to be jealous of the governess’ authority and encourages her fantasies so as to drive her mad. Fryer believes that Mrs. Grose opts not to tell her master about Quint and Miss. Jessel’s affair in order to have complete control of the children.

I completely agree with Fryer’s point of view. In my opinion, the governess’ arrival is a stumbling block for Mrs. Grose in her ambition to be the master’s eyes at Byrd. For this reason, and considering the governess’ innocence and inexperience, Mr. Grose decides to embark the young lady on a quest that leads her into madness. I also believe that the master’s flirtatious attitude exacerbates the governess’ innate possessive behaviour, especially towards Flora and Miles.

Cranfill and Clark

Cranfill and Clark focus on the psychopathology of the governess. Cranfill and Clark believe that the governess’s madness comes from a great desire to be a hero in the eyes of the employer. By protecting the kids against supernatural forces, she may conquer the employer’s heart.

Cranfill and Clark also mention the governess’s sexual repression that may come from  Calvinist´principles. She is constantly thinking that everybody is committing sins. She sees perversion everywhere.

Cranfill and Clark also believe that the housekeeper agrees with the governess only because Mrs Grose does not understand what the governess says. She has a very basic vocabulary, and in order not to show she is inferior she may prefer to agree.

Cranfill and Clark also state that the governess’s allusions has to do with lack of sleep, so much reading and the expectation of seeing a ghost.

I find these critics very suitable. I totally agree with Cranfill and Clark´s critics. The governess is mad, and her desires to conquer the employer made her imagine things that had never existed in real life, they had only existed in her mind.

Harold C. GODDARD

Harold C. GODDARD

Goddard's essay is considered the most important criticism before Wilson's famous article. Although his article was not published until 1957, his daughter claims he wrote it in 1920, so he is given the credit for being the first to expound a hallucination theory of the story.

In his interpretation Goddard doesn´t employ psychoanalytic terminology, or refer to psychoanalytic literature, but he makes a thoughtful reading of the text itself, he "reads between the lines" and relies on common sense to make a psychological analysis and discover what the characters thought or how they felt.

Goddard says: "When a young person, especially a young woman, falls in love and circumstances forbid the normal growth and confession of the passion, the emotion, dammed up, overflows in a psychical experience, a daydream, or internal drama which the mind creates in lieu of the thwarted realization in the objective world... “

In his criticism, he tries to explain how the governess gathers incomplete pieces of information (about the children, the former guardians, etc.) and creates a story in which she is the heroine who acts with courage to save the children for the man she loves but cannot possess. The governess’s hallucinations are combined with Mrs. Grose ignorance and superstition, especially in the ambiguous scenes in which the ghosts of Mr. Quint and Ms. Jessel are "identified".

Goddard also points out that, as well as the governess hallucination has got a “creative logic”, James also employs “creative logic" as a strategy to make the story credible to the reader, more credible than most stories of the supernatural because readers, even if not consciously, can perceive the real plot: two children in the care of of an insane woman.

In his own words: " he hypnotizes us into forgetting that it is the governess' version of the story to which we are listening, and lures us, as the governess unconsciously lured Mrs. Grose, into accepting her coloring of the facts for the facts themselves."  James makes readers forget that there are no facts, only the governess’s own assertions, that support the existence of the ghostly visions that are a threat to the children.

Goddard believes the story is “susceptible of various readings”. His essay contains very detailed examples that support the hallucination theory and provides bases for readings which combine psychoanalytic, theological, and sociological considerations. That’s why the essay is one of the most outstanding critical responses to The Turn of the Screw in the period prior to Edmund Wilson's famous essay.

When I first read the story I was “hypnotized” (as Goddard suggested) by Henry James and I bought the “ghost story”. However, I felt something was wrong, I couldn´t understand why the ghosts were a threat to Miles and Flora.  After I read Goddard’s criticism, I agreed with his hallucination theory since he provides several examples to support the non-apparitionist view. What’s more, I realized that I couldn´t see the corruption in the ghosts because they were only in the governess’s mind. In the end,  I felt a bit disappointed by the non-apparitionist view because I’m fond of terror and ghosts stories, but I could see that the true value of the story lies in its ambiguity.

Art in the 19th and early 20th century

The term Impressionism derives from Claude Monet's painting "Impression Sunrise" (1872)

You can read an interesting chronology of this movement and look at some paintings here.

For an overview of French painting in the 19th century, go to the USA National Gallery of Art, where you will also find a discussion of Post-Impressionism.

Post-Impressionism can be exemplified by Georges Seurat's "The Lighthouse at Honfleur" (1886)

Cubism started in Paris in 1908, reached its peak in 1914, and continued into the 20's. Watch this slideshow of works at the London Tate Gallery for an explanation of its features or read this discussion of its features

Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907) forecasts the new style.

Virginia Woolf dates the change in "human nature" to December 1910, when the first exhibition of French Post-Impressionist and Cubist painting took place in London.

Can you suggest what elements in common you can find with modernism?

This is an optional activity.

Muriel G. Shine

Muriel G. Shine attempted to interpret the Turn of the Screw through several perspectives.

One of them is the fact of holding that the story is concerned with how unethical it is for a person to act when he or she is guided by a totally unreliable knowledge about reality. This can be applied when taking into account the governess’ perception in the story. While other authors argue that the apparitions are real and that she makes a great effort to act in the best way she can to deal with them, Shine on the other hand, argues that the governess embodies all the wrong characteristics for a person to gain knowledge from different life circumstances.

Shine claims that a vital part of this quest for knowledge is to firstly gain knowledge about oneself and recognizing one’s flaws and defects. This is in fact the kind of insight that the governess fails to make throughout this story, as she is not aware of the possible danger and the seriousness of her distorted perceptions of reality. This inability to reflect upon the nature of her perceptions has a terrible consequence in both children: that of forcing them to “see” what she sees and to expose them on her perverse knowledge. What children finally get to see are not the perceptions themselves, but the governess’ corrupted personality.

Shine also sees the governess from a psychoanalytic perspective. She argues that the governess is characterized as a manipulative adolescence, and this can be appreciated in her unrealistic idealization of the children’s guardian, whom she only saw twice, and her constant desire to manipulate Miles and to submit him under her control.

Lastly, Shine exposes her reader-response criticism in that she claims that this kind of criticism depends upon the analysis of the text itself as a kind of place where something is missing, inviting readers to retrieve these gaps  from their different psychological perspectives.

I must say that I really enjoyed reading Shine’s analysis of the Turn of the Screw, in that I could see that all the things that she claimed about the story are really accurate and totally proven. I could totally feel identified with her analysis, since from very first moment I started reading the novel, I noticed that the narrator’s perspective, that of the governess, had not be relied on at all.  

Wilson, 1934

                                  Apparitionists vs Non-apparitionists
Wilson, 1934
Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) was an American writer, literary and social critic.
In his essay "The Ambiguity of Henry James"Wilson favours the non-apparitionist perspective. He states that the ghosts are not real ghosts, but just the governess's hallucinations.
 He finds significance in the fact that only the governess sees the ghosts. Anybody but the governess admits seeing the ghosts. The governess thinks that the children also see the ghosts  but there is no proof that they actually do. The housekeeper, Mrs Grose, insists that she doesn't see them.
One of the arguments for an apparitionist interpretation is that when the governess gives a decription of what she saw to Mrs Grose, the housekeeper says that the description coincides with the appearance of Quint. Wilson's answer to this argumentation is that Mrs Grose has been inatentive to the governess's description and that she rapidely arrives at the conclusion that the apparition was Quint. Wilson suggests that the master and Quint may have been similar in appearance (in fact, Quint wore the master's clothes), so that the governess, in describing her daydream turned real, she might have described Quint.

To the Lighthouse: getting started

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Christine Brooke-Rose

Christine Brooke-Rose is a structuralist critic who attempted to understand the “The Turn of the Screw” through a detailed study of the ambiguity embedded in the linguistic structures, which for her is the essence of this text.

Christine distinguishes between “STORY” – the events as they occurred- and “DISCOURSE” – how the events are presented. This concepts are equivalents to the Russian Formalists’ distinction between fabula (histoire) and Sjuzvet (discours) (Lodge, Modern Literary Theory, Ch 9). Brooke-Rose states that there is ambiguity since within the story or sjuzvet , there are two “fabulas”, one taking the apparitionist and the other taking the non-apparirionist interpretation.

Christine distinguishes between BARE (basic structure)and MIRROR (reflections of the basic structure) STRUCTURES. The two fabulas belong to the bare structure, which is the basic structure of the text. The mirror structure refers to “a set of reflecting dichotomies suggestive of reflections in a mirror”. What we see in a mirror depends on our emotional and physical state. This leads us to think that ghosts are portrayed depending on the governess’ emotional states. Brooke-Rose also calls it mirror because mirrors have a four- sided frame and the story can be particularly analysed taking into account six groups of four elements:

·         4 main living characters at Bly: the governess, Mrs. Grose, Miles, Flora.

·         4 ex-guardians: the uncle, Mrs Grose, Peter Quint, Miss Jessel

·         4 presently concerned with the children: the governess, Mrs Grose, Peter Quint, Miss Jessel.

·         4 in a supposed evil relationship: Peter Quint, Miss Jessel, Miles, Flora

·         4 narrators: Griffin, Douglas, the I-narrator, the governess

·         4 readers or receptors: Douglas, the I-narrator, the listeners at Douglas’s country home, the readers of the novella

 Brooke-Rose based her studies, mainly, on the language used by the Governess.

She claims that the governess’ language is “contagious”. This means that she is constantly trying to convince the reader to perceive what she herself perceives, which is also achieved by the governess’ exteriorization of her feelings. The story confronts the reader with a whole special world, which at first he/she is an external spectator but to which he/she later becomes internal through perception.

The use of verbs like “give, offer, take, have” together with the frequent use of the possessive pronoun “my” and the occasional use of “we” or “our” suggests that the governess speaks as if she was the owner and possessor of information. Examples of the use of pronouns and verbs are:  “my children”; “my document”; “my boy”.

This critic’s weakness is to assume that there are only two fabulas in the sjuzvet.

To sum up, I must admit that although it was not easy for me to easily understand Brooke-Rose’s point of view at first, after giving her interpretation various readings, I agree with her because if we pay attention to the governess’ language we can easily be persuaded or, at least, influenced by her way of seeing things, especially the ghosts. She is very successful at making us – readers- perceive what she herself perceives. 

literature 3

http://www.diigo.com/list/sofiapio/literature-3 I think this article is worth reading since it shows people’s perspective on Conrad’s writings nowadays. Hope you find it interesting!