Theme of Evil in The Turn of the Screw

The evil of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw is a pervasive force which envelops not only the children and the governess but the mind of the reader who surrenders to James' story. The ghosts of the past who take over the children seem to be just as possessed by this generational evil as the children or the governess. No one seems immune from the evil, although, of course, the possession of the children seems most horrifying because children are more innocent---or so we suppose---than adults. The notion of an adult---even an adult ghost---possessing a child through his or her controlling will is the height---or depth---of evil. What makes this notion especially horrifying in the story is that the evil ghosts have no hesitation about their wicked enterprise, and the children seem to be completely vulnerable to the evil takeover. Therefore, the possession seems inevitable---nobody can do anything to stop it. Of course, the fact that the governess may be involved herself adds to the horror. We do not know what is "real" in this story, but it is clear that evil is taking place, even if it is the result of imagination or hallucination. The fact that it may be imagined makes the horror and the evil no less powerful or destructive to those involved. The utterly irrational nature of the evil is what gives it the power to violate a heart---it bypasses the mind which cannot conceive of or fully accept such evil. In addition, the reader is struck by the fact that the governess, in try

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he power of her frightened imagination---she might have weakened the hold evil had on the children and on herself. Another example of this is found in the scene in Chapter XX, in which the governess sees the dead Miss Jessel, Mrs. Grose does not, and Flora apparently does see but pretends, perhaps, not to. Reality is secondary---what counts is perception. The governess is horrified, Mrs. Grose is amazed that the governess sees something she herself does not see, and the little girl fixes the governess with "an expression of hard still gravity" which gives her the bearing of a "figure portentous" (84). Three perceptions produce three different responses, all reflecting the inner lives of the three far more accurately than the "reality" of Miss Jessel's presence. a. Certainly Hawthorne uses all of these literary devices to give greater significance and depth to his fiction. A symbol is simply something, usually something material, such as the letter "A" sewed onto an adulterous woman's dress, which represents something immaterial. An allegory is a larger concept than a symbol, referring as it does to the entire story and the representation it makes of another larger message. Spiritual refers to something immaterial in the world of

Category: Literature - T