Narrative in Henry James' The Turn of the Screw

The idea of narrative in uncanny fiction is very complex. It is the nature of the genre to leave the reader perplexed and unsettled by the events that it unfolds. Often this is done by disturbing the traditional elements of narrative, such as a straightforward, clear chain of events. While it does involve a certain linearity, it is not this beginning-middle-end structure that makes the narrative of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw interesting, but rather the digressions, anachronisms, and intricate framework present throughout the novella. It is these devices, working together with linearity through the complex relationship of story and discourse, that create the uncanny effect in the narrative and which feed the reader's epistemophelia, keeping them eagerly reading.

The chapter on narrative in Bennett and Royle's Introduction to Literary, Criticism, and Theory makes the point that

". . . most of all, perhaps, it is the relation between narrative and 'non-' or 'anti-narrative' elements that fascinate and disturb. Aspects such as description, digression, suspense, aporia, and self-reflection, temporal and causal disorders are often what are most compelling in narrative" (Bennett and Royle 58).

In other words, the straight linearity (beginning-middle-end) of narrative does not have to carry the story on its own, but can instead rely on the digressions and anachronisms to make the narrative compelling. It is these elements rather than the plot alone that make the reader want to keep reading.

This is evident in the following passage from Henry James's uncanny novella The Turn of the Screw:

The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky and the friendly hour lost for the unspeakable minute all its voice. But there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. That's how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, of each person he might have been that he wasn't. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few seconds more became intense (James 24).

If examined on the basis of linear narrative it could be said that this passage is intriguing because it is the moment in which the governess first witnesses the spectral vision of Peter Quint, whose reappearing presence becomes central in the plot of the novella. It is true that this is a pivotal moment plot-wise, however, that is not what causes this passage to "fascinate and disturb". The moment described here takes place in no more than one minute of real time; however, through the use of description and self-reflection James makes it feel as though much more time has passed. Adjectives such as "golden", "friendly", and "unspeakable" - all present in just the first sentence - serve to slow down the silence that the governess is experiencing, almost making it seem as if not only sound, but time, has stopped. This temporal disturbance, the slowing down of time, creates a feeling of suspense in the reader while also emphasizing the importance of the moment for the governess - if this one minute required so much detail in its telling then it must have been an essential moment in her story. In this way the digressive and anachronistic elements of narrative are not in competition with the linear structure of the story but serve to reiterate it, working together to create the uncanny, unsettling feel of the story. It is undeniable that this same moment, told without the detail and description that it now contains, would lose much of its weight and importance.

Similar to the ways in which the linear elements of narrative work with digressions and anachronisms to create a compelling story, story and discourse function almost inseparably in narrative.

As Jonathan Culler has suggested, a fundamental premiss of narratology is that narrative has a double structure: the level of the told (story) and the level of the telling (discourse) (Culler 1981). . . 'Story', in this sense, involves the events or actions which the narrator would like us to believe occurred, the events (explicitly or implicity) represented. 'Discourse', on the other hand, involves the ways in which these events are recounted, how they get told, the organization of the telling. . .these two levels can never be entirely separated. . . (Bennett and Royle 55-56).

In other words, every narrative does not simply consist of the plot, but the way in which the plot is divulged has equal importance to the events themselves. This is another way of explaining the roles of plot (story) and digression and anachronisms (elements of discourse). By saying that the events and the telling of them can never be entirely separated, Bennett and Royle are emphasizing the importance of literary devices and that their use can influence the way in which a story is read. They are also pointing out the fact that it is virtually impossible for a text to exist and not contain both story and discourse. The simple act of recounting events inherently includes a telling. Even the most straightforward, cut-and-dry story has a straightforward, cut-and-dry discourse that changes the way those events impact the reader.

This narrative theory of story and discourse is especially important in uncanny fiction because of the prevalent use of frames to set up the texts. Take The Turn of the Screw, for example. In the following passage an unknown narrator is setting up a complicated frame for the story that is about to be told:

Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death - when it was in sight - committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth (James 6).

The events that the narrator is describing are the way in which the story made its way to him or her while the discourse is used to create a sense of importance - this story has had to be copied down numerous times, changing hands at Douglas's death bed, and it is read with 'immense effect'. While the events themselves are relatively simple - the passing along of a story - the way that they are told amps up the value placed on them and therefore on the story itself.

To further complicate matters, it could be argued that this particular passage is not well suited to the idea that story and discourse can never truly be separated because, in essence, the narrator is very nearly separating them for us - first, the story of how the story came to be, then, the story itself is told. However, this notion assumes that the frame is not actually a part of the story - no doubt the feeling intended by the author. That is the very reason that frames are so often employed in uncanny literature - they give the reader a sense of removal from the events being transcribed, the sense that this story exists so far outside of themselves that it is not possible to ever fully comprehend them. This removal lends an aura of mystery to the tale being told, and thusly, an uncanny story is born. But, for the purposes of examining the relation between story and discourse it is necessary to remember that the frame is a part of the text, written, in this case, by Henry James, just as is the story of the governess itself. Therefore, the story of how the story came to be and the story itself are not separate entities but all part of the larger text. In fact, the frame then becomes discourse by adding the element of the uncanny to the governess's story.

In understanding the ways in which story and discourse, and therefore plot and its digressions and anachronisms, interact it becomes clear that "[o]ne of the paradoxical attractions of a good story. . .is often understood to be its balancing of digression, on the one hand, with the progression towards an end, on the other" (Bennett and Royle 55). It would be ignorant, when examining the effects that a text's narrative have on the way it is read, to ignore the reader's desire to see how things will resolve themselves.

A part of the equilibrium that endings apparently offer is the satisfaction of epistemophilia, the reader's desire to know. And because of the conventional emphasis on hermeneutic discovery at the end, endings tend to be particularly over-determined places: we look to the end to provide answers to questions that the text has raised (Bennett and Royle 55).

A basic motive for reading is to discover how it will all end, to be satisfied that events are tied up, to know the fate of a favorite character, to justify the time spent with the story. However, endings can be tricky in that they are not always clear in the way that they 'provide answers to the questions that the text has raised'.

The ending of The Turn of the Screw could be read as entirely unsatisfying - Miles has died, we are not sure of what; it is still not clear what he was expelled from school for; the presence of the ghostly figures of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel is not explained; the frame so painstakingly set up at the beginning is not revisited - and yet it still somehow feels right - these questions do not need to be answered for the reader's epistemophilia to be relieved.

But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. I caught him, yes, I held him - it maybe imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held. We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped (James 121-22).

In the case of James's novella, the reader's epistemophilia is not necessarily driven by discovering the answers to these questions, but rather by a desire to feel that the situation has been resolved, which it seems to have been. When the governess says that 'we were alone with the quiet day' it indicates that the apparitions have departed from the room, and even further, from Miles, as his 'little heart' is now 'dispossessed'. However, it is not until this ending is read that an understanding can be reached as to what drove the reader's epistemophilia. It may seem, throughout the course of the text, that it is indeed the answers to plot-driven questions such as those mentioned above that encourage the reader to turn the page. But once the last sentence is read relief is felt, and it becomes evident that the answers to those questions are not necessary, perhaps not even desirable, to enjoy the text. This is not to say that the reader is not left slightly unsettled for that is the mark of a successful piece of uncanny fiction. "The ending tells everything, it gives us 'the answer', and it tells us nothing: it is not for this 'answer' that we have read the story. Our epistemophilia proves to be perverted" (Bennett and Royle 55).

Closely examining the narrative in The Turn of the Screw sheds a lot of light on the story itself. Because this is an uncanny novella it is important that it unsettle the reader, leave them in suspense, make them unsure of the words they have just read. By looking at the narrative structure of the story it makes it easier to see how these effects are achieved. In Henry James's text the beginning-middle-end linearity of the governess's story is wrapped up in digressions, anachronisms, and a discourse that is distinctly eerie. It is also enclosed by a multi-layered frame, calling into question the very idea of story and discourse. While an intense analysis of narrative theory and how it applies in The Turn of the Screw is enlightening it also ignores some crucial elements that make the text what it is, such as character and the complexity of the beginning.

Works Cited

Bennett, Andrew, and Nicholas Royle. Introduction to Literature, Criticism, and Theory. 3rd ed.

Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited, 2004.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. London, England: Orion Publishing Group, 1993.