Henry James The Turn of the Screw - Essay Example

The engagement of the daughter of the person to be a governess to two angelic children, Miles (ten years old, and Flora (eight years old) in a remote house at Bly, presents a harrowing experience, as the children get possessed with two malevolent spirits of former employees. The former employee ghosts are known as governess and valet, who is referred to as illicit lovers, who are bound to inflict Satanism on the two angelic children. It is imperative to point out the horrific scene as the governess seeks to protect the two little children; she ends up murdering the boy and traumatizing the girl (Gilchrist and James 102).

The novel is structured in a manner that the reader becomes the judge, tasked with determining the innocence or guilt of the governess. The tension in the ghost story keeps mounting as it progresses into grimmer and scarier. The novel presents a tricky question of determining whether the governess is mad or not. The novel presents two scenarios. Firstly, the governess would be judged sane, if the ghosts are declared real. In this scenario, the governess’s efforts towards protecting the two children would be considered self-sacrificing, and noble despite the backlash of protecting her charges in the end (Gilchrist and James 302).

On the other hand, the governess might be judges to be insane, if the ghosts are pronounced to mere illusions. Her insanity will then be blamed on her hostility and aggression towards the two children. The literary style employed in the novel thus seeks to make the readers jurors of the actions of the governess.It is also imperative to note the narration style employed in the “Turn of the Screw”. The novel is narrated in the first-person. The feature where the governess narrates in the first person achieves its purpose of manipulating and convincing the readers.

The motif of the gothic fiction genre is reinforced in the novel as it lays emphasis on the mysterious and old buildings.Peter Barry contributed immensely towards literary theory. In his book, he indicates the timeless nature of literature. He also emphasized the logical consequence in literature, as it contains inherent meaning within itself. He indicated that literature traverses socio-political situations (Barry 32). Peter Barry indicated that for readers to understand literary texts, they must study it in isolation, and detach it from other contexts.

The narratology used in Seymour Chatman's Story and Discourse concept presents a systematic, up-to-date, well-integrated, and ranging narrative theory known as “cinematic narrator.” Chatman indicated that the cinematic narrator was a non-human agent, as exemplified in his text, “the composite of a large and complex variety of communicating devices” (Chatman 134). The devices for communication explored in Chatman’s story included both visual channels, for instance, camera distance, mise-en-scène, lighting, editing, angle, and movement.

The narratology also included auditory devices like music, voice, and sound (Chatman 135).The plan exhibited in Chatman’s novel was perfectly logical, rigorous, clear, and noticeable throughout the novel from its beginning. The book has a preface and table of contents, which is detailed and analytical. The narrative employed in Chatman’s novel employed both film and verbal narrative. The components in the narrative are described through a chronology of well-thought descriptions. It encompassed painting, language, pantomime, and ballet.

The narratology also employed a maximal scheme, rearrangement, abstraction, topicalization, and paraphrase. The Chatman's narratology also theorized the generative, the reader-oriented, and the classical-structuralist models.