A Look At T.S. Eliot's The Turn Of The Screw

The literature of modernity can reflect the emergence of socio-economic and psycho-analytical transitions that affect every day life. Henry James employs the transitions of modern England with haunting results within the context of The Turn of the Screw. The rising upheaval of modern Europe offered James a wealth of inspiration; the falling away of old societal customs and the rise of new scientific and industrial means produced a new way of life. As Peter Childs states: "In fiction, new writers spearheaded a rejection of several of the fundamentals of classic realism, such as: a dependable narrator; the depiction of a fixed stable self; history as a progressive linear process: bourgeois politics, which advocated reform not radical change; the tying up of all narrative strands, or closure" (Childs 22). James abandons the realism of modern England for the illogical ramblings of a haunted governess who is in slow mental decay. Her fantasies color the story with metaphors and hyperboles for the decay of history at the turn of the century.

What makes James' novel unique to modernity is its supernatural and psychological foundation. Touted as a "ghost story," James allows the strained mind of a young woman to enable the haunting of the house by two former lovers. While the competency of the young woman is called into question at every turn, the simple mention of ghosts produces a supernatural level, that is, it brings metaphysical qualities to a seemingly normal situation. The use of metaphysical beliefs and the occult within the novel is distinct to the era. While entertaining, the use of occult is completely opposite of the thought of modern England. Again, Childs offers an explanation: "Above all it is characterized by the attempt to place humanity and in particular human reason at the centre of everything, from religion and nature, to finance and science" (Childs 16). Reason guided most popular thought prior to the modernist movement, so for James to produce a work that was beyond reason created much intrigue and dissonance. Occult behaviors could not be explained away by human reason; they simply were not logical enough to be explained. James introduces the occult into a novel fraught with psychological metaphors, allowing the ghosts to mask the true defiance of the novel.

Psychology was blossoming at the turn of the century, and James' ghost story relies heavily on the psychology of the young governess to perpetuate the story line. At first, the governess seems a reliable narrator: she is attentive to the children and determined to do right by them. Yet, as the story progresses, the governess is thrown into a psychological frenzy with the supposed haunting of the children and the home. Much has been speculated about her mental condition as well as her motives. Theories cogitates from the governess merely seeking the attention of the uncle to an actual haunting of the house; however, the symbolic gesture of the governess' downward spiral is representative of the new avenues which society was exploring after the Victorian era. Childs notes this phenomenon: "An understanding of the nineteenth century shifts from country to city, land to factory, individual to mass production..." (Childs 28) Like the governess' psychosis, Europe was embarking on a new technological adventure, in which history was replaced; inefficient and archaic ways were given way to new, more industrious means. History was literally crumbling around Europe.

First, the introduction of the spiritual into the text goes beyond the social realism that was described in most of the literature up through the nineteenth century. James discards the realism of modern day England for the Moorish setting of the English countryside, which is filled with the forgotten notions of centuries past. "By this he means Modernist writers were interested in the personal, spiritual, or mystical transcendence of their surroundings, and so the social environment in their texts is little more than backdrop" (Childs 32). By bringing the characters in from the city, James attempts to revive the past through their central setting; yet as the story develops, the reader discovers that the history James is reviving through the manor home is decaying just as quickly as the governess's mental state. This allows James to focus on the individual (the governess) and her mental state, while using her as a metaphor for the turmoil and isolation faced within the impending industrial advances.

James uses the ghosts as a metaphor for the old agricultural, communal ways, while juxtaposing the children as the modern history being made, all while the governess suffers between the two. She represents England, straddling reality and fantasy, living and dead. Her mental abandonment is similar to the chaos England faced while transitioning into the nineteenth century. The governess is in crisis, much as England was as Karl Marx theorized during his analysis of the economic and capitalistic movements occurring in the late 1800s. "Modernism has repeatedly been characterized as a literature of crisis and it is Marx who places crisis at the centre of capitalist development" (Childs 28). James places the governess in the middle of Marx's capitalist development (the uncle's well to do life style and manor home) and throws her into chaos with the introduction of her ghostly companions.

The loss of the integrity of the household throws the governess further into decay, as James alludes to an allegory of the loss of integrity within England. Childs points out this loss of integrity: "From a Marxist point of view, Modernist art grew out of a European loss of communal identity, out of alienating capitalism and constant industrial acceleration" (Childs 29). The isolation of the countryside forces the governess to call into question her own identity: was she in fact the modern girl or was she indeed someone who enjoyed the company of her fantasies? When she first appears to Mrs. Grose, the governess discusses her inclination to be swept away: "Well, that, I think, is what I came for-to be carried away. I'm afraid, however,' I remember feeling the impulse to add, 'I'm afraid easily carried away. I was carried away in London!" (James 8). Before she even arrives in the countryside, the governess is calling into question her own reasons for leaving London. Yet, upon arriving in the countryside, a very different portrait of the governess is painted.

Her isolation and loss is reminiscent of the isolation that many felt while in the midst of the industrial revolution. Agricultural homesteads were replaced with factories and mass production, forcing individuals away from the smallness within the local agricultural communities, and into the vastness of the working machine. Individuals who were once noted aspects to a community are reduced to a part within a machine, as the governess was reduced to hysterics and hallucinations. Within a brief period of time, an entire culture was shifted from a close, agricultural society to a faceless, mass production of goods and supplies. Identity was lost in the transition, and for the governess, the shift from city to country, facelessness to familial closeness causes her to lose her identity. While her journey is reverse, she suffers the same chaotic transition as England did within the industrial revolution; she in fact was carried away upon leaving London, as England was carried away while leaving the agricultural civilization behind.

In essence, James was asking the audience to abandon the social mores that were present within the Victorian era literature. "In effect James was asking for a shift from the models of Victorian 'baggy monsters', to concentrated, crafted fiction writing which would fully express the complexity of human character" (Childs 44). By enlisting the governess to be the psychological center of the story, James allows her to fully embody not only the distress of her own emotional problems, but the emotional and mental problems England faced as a nation whose long history was slipping through the proverbial cracks. Her mental decay becomes the cry of a country in chaos and turmoil over its own identity and industrial isolation. Neither the governess, nor England, is in control of their surroundings; instead they are hapless victims of their own downward spiral. As her mind is torn into pieces over hysterical hallucinations, England is torn inside out by the Industrial Revolution, and can do nothing but sit by, watching history unwind itself.

WORKS CITED

Childs, Peter. Modernism. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2000.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. 2^nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.