Criticism of the Turn of the Screw by Marcella Holloway

M.H focuses on the following points:

1)  Firstly, she states that there is a close resemblance between Douglas and Miles; she also points out that they are the same person. I agree with her first opinion because both of them have a younger sister who is at home, under the tuition of a governess. Besides, the two are studying away from their home, as boarders. Another similarity is that both returns home in the country, for their summer holidays. Regarding M. Holloway’s second opinion, I don’t think that they are the same person because of the following reasons. In the prologue, we read about Douglas who gathered for the Christmas season with his guests at his country house. One evening he says that he knows about two ghosts that appeared to two children. When the unnamed narrator asks him if such experience had been his own he said: ‘Oh thank God, no’. This means that that he had not gone through such disagreeable experience and had only read about it in a manuscript. Another reason why I believe that Miles is not Douglas is because if we take Miles's death into account, we cannot say that they are the same person.

2)  Secondly, M.H considers that what Douglas read aloud to his guests from the manuscript is the governess’s revelation of her truth for him. Before dying, she had wanted him to learn about her love. I support this point of view. This is because the governess had sent him this manuscript with her experience about ghosts which she had lived through a long time before.

M.H also  talks about the love between Douglas and the governess.Douglas accepts that between him and the governess had existed a strong attraction. But, he says that neither of them talked about it. In the prologue, he tells his guests: ‘neither of us spoke of it’

3)  Thirdly, Holloway also talks about the governess’s love for her employer.In my opinion, it was not real love what she felt for him, it was just a silly infatuation because she had only met him twice when she had her job interviews before working as a governess at Bly.

4)  M.H also claims that the governess loved Miles. I don’t agree with her choice of the word ‘love’. From my point of view, the governess must have felt affection for him as well as responsibility; all this made her rescue the child from what she thought was the possession of Peter Quint’s ghost.

5)   M.H also states that the employer resembles Douglas. I support her opinion. I believe that the employer is like Douglas in three main aspects. On major similarity between them is that they are both single. Another is that they are well-off. They both have a country estate and an apartment in town. They are also similar in the sense that they are both superior to the governess in social status. In my view, marriage would have never taken place because of their different social standing.

6)  Another comment that Marcela makes is about the governess’s sexual repression. I share her opinion with this aspect. I believe that she never had the courage to show her love for him; but by writing the manuscript, she indirectly confessed her love. If she had married Douglas, she would probably have smothered him.