The Turn Of The Screw: A Freudian Analysis

Henry James ' "The Turn of the Screw" has been the subject of a number of critical papers, lectures, scholarly articles, and debates. Such flow of analytical works is suggestive of the success of the story which has become Henry James 's most famous work. It is equally suggestive of the quality the novel has among other pieces of literary works. In fact, there is not much to be invented as far as analysing the story is concerned- throughout the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, the question of whether or not the governess is telling the truth, hence whether or not the apparitions are real, has been the subject of much debate. In this paper, I will examine two interpretations of The Turn of the Screw. The article entitled "The Ambiguity …show more content…
The governess, according to most psychoanalysts, is a neurotic woman. In a bid to show the inconsistencies of psychoanalysis, Heilman takes two representatives of this school- Edna Kenton and Edmund Wilson. Heilman points out that Kenton was the first critic to adopt a Freudian reading of the novella. "The Freudian reading was first given public expression by Edna Kenton in 1924." (1). She believes the governess is neurotic and, thus, the ghosts do not exist in reality; they are but mere instances of the governess 's imagination. Heilman attacks Kenton 's interpretation and questions Kenton 's reading claiming that she seems to have misread the Preface. He argues that James 's prefatory remark "To catch those not easily caught" is- contrary to Kenton 's belief that it alludes to the idea that James, by depicting the ghosts as real, has managed to fool the readers of the story- meant to establish the aim of his tale which consists in James attempting to insinuate for the idea that his piece of work …show more content…
The latter is considered to be the most famous argument for the apparitionist reading. This essay, Wilson sees, is "concerned with patterns of language--including motif, image, symbol and archetypes." (Parkinson) Heilman 's apparitionist reading has its weighting in the history of criticism on The Turn of the Screw. It constitutes along with Wilson 's non-apparition reading a source of inspiration for other critics who have tried to synthesize the two interpretations. The majority of critics have avoided favouring one reading at the expense of the other, for the two readings are well presented as far as argumentation is concerned. Furthermore, these two interpretations are seen as completing one another. The fact that no critical paper written on The Turn of the Screw after the publication of these two essays discarded them is suggestive of their pivotal importance manifested in their invaluable contribution to a fuller understanding of Henry James 's The Turn of the Screw and probably other works of