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.