The Turn of the Screw - Effects of Uncanny - Book Report/Review Example

The Uncanny and its Effects in the Novella, “The Turn of the Screw” Introduction In the novel “The Turn of The Screw” Henry James utilize the uncanny effects to captivate the readers’ topnotch attentions up to the end of the stories. Also both the novel’s theme and structure interact with each other in a way that they significantly contribute to the growth of a sense of uncertainty and confusion in readers’ mind as well as provoking it to concentrate more on the ‘strange’ that prevails throughout the progression of the stories. The “directive power” of the storytellers in “the Turn of The Crew” effectively hides the dark part of the characters behind the façade of “language” that eventually contributes to the readers’ doubt and bewilderment, and then to the rising tension reaching the climax. But the novel does not provide any formal purgation of the confusion. Just it leaves the readers to brood over the mysteries. The annexations of the events are, though not picture-perfect, so perfect that readers cannot decisively come to any conclusion. They intuitively feel that there is some strangeness in the story. Rather the readers begin to brood over the events when the novel actually ends. The causal uncanny in the storytelling is so overpowering that it continually agitate the readers’ with a feeling of uneasiness that something strange or unfamiliar is eluding their eye. Indeed, the succession of the events in the storytelling develops visually perfect images of the characters but the uncanny exclusively functions at the subconscious level of the readers’ mind. Overview of Freud’s Concept of “Uncanny” Freud’s concept of uncanny essentially involves a feeling of both familiarity and strangeness. He explains that the uncanny is reminiscent of the Id in the readers’ or the observers’ personality (Freud 13). According to Bennett and Royal, “The Uncanny” has to do with making thing uncertain.” (22) Since the pleasure principles, savagery and primitive parts of human personality remain suppressed with the rules, norm and regulations of the society, their revelations in any uncanny character in a fiction, in the first place, confound the readers. Therefore, they consider it as something strange or unfamiliar. But at the same time, since one’s subconscious mind immediately can identify its own Id with the Id part of the uncanny, it creates a sense of familiarity, as Freud asserts, “What is heimlich thus comes to be unheimlich…In general we are reminded that the word heimlich is not unambiguous…on the one hand it means what is familiar and agreeable, and on the other, what is concealed and kept out of sight” (23). Again Bennett and Royal say that uncanny has “to do with the sense that things are not as they have come to appear through habit and familiarity” (). Uncanny Effects of the Storytelling on the Readers’ Mind Like Freud’s “doll of Olympia” the characters primarily perform on the line of the readers’ expectations, yet their behaviors are intuitively foreign to the readers. Here one must consider the fact that Henry James has written the novel for modern readers. Since modern readers are usually dominated by the rule and regulation of the society, the savage part of a modern man’s personality is unfamiliar to them. Therefore the taboo feeling that the storytelling produces in the readers’ mind are not familiar to them, yet they feel it as something they know innately. Therefore, they become utterly confused and horrified by sensing the taboo in the characters of the novel. For an instance, the fact, how the storyteller attributes something hideous and supernatural to the characters Miles and Flora, insinuates that they share some taboo relationship between themselves and with the earlier governess Miss. Jessel. But the storyteller does not say anything particular. In chapter 2, the conversation between the governess and Mrs. Grose reveals the boy Miles as someone with demonic power of corrupting. For Grose, Miles is “no boy!" but one who is capable of “contaminating” and who “seems to like us young and pretty!” (5). This whole conversation indicates to some illegal relationship between the boy and Miss. Jessel. But the readers cannot guess anything particular of the relationship; they become horrified the familiar and yet the unfamiliar feelings of taboo. But the physical and behavioral description of the children goes along with the readers’ daily experience of a mild and modest child. The storyteller does not tell about the taboo directly, but she makes her readers feel it. This familiarity and non-familiarity of the characters traits make the readers more uneasy. Thus the characters’ concordance with common experience allures the readers to surf on the façade of the novels meaning while the cognitive dissonance, which grows out the characters’ strangeness that does not go usually with daily commonalities of human life, irritates one’s mind to explore deep into the inner meaning and into the core of the characters’ psychological makeup. There is another uncanny character in the novel. It is the narrator herself. The way she describes her affection and devotion to the children reminds the readers of a motherly governess, but at the same time, it is reminiscent of pedophilia. But the way she describes the girl is problematic and it does not refers to any motherly feeling, as it is evident in the following line: The little girl who accompanied Mrs. Grose appeared to me on the spot a creature so charming as to make it a great fortune to have to do with her. She was the most beautiful child I had ever seen. The phrase “a great fortune to have to with her” is insinuative of both the narrator’s caring mind and her taboo feeling for the girl. Simply she may subconsciously hide her feeling behind the façade of civilized language. She is obsessed with the children’s security. But this obsession evolves from her feeling for the beauty of the girl, as she admits it, “The radiant image of my little girl, the vision of whose angelic beauty, had probably more than anything else to do with my restlessness” (1). Here the noticeable thing is that the readers will take it as the governess’s natural affection but meanwhile they also intuitively feel the taboo. Directive Power of the Storyteller and Power of Language The narrator’s power to guide the readers’ emotion in various directions along with his power of language makes the uncanny more effective in the novel. The narrator, the anonymous governess, narrates the story in a style of “experiencing déjà vu” (23). In the beginning of the novel, the readers’ whole suspicion and doubt are directed upon Miles, the pretty boy. Their confusion, emotion and feeling of horror are dammed up at different turnings of the story such as the introduction of the ghosts of Quint and Jessel, and finally the terrors and the sense of unfamiliarity reaches its climax through the unnatural death of Miles. It is the end of the novel when the readers get the scope to brood over the events of the story. They grow suspicious of the narrator’s infatuation with the boy. But earlier they has been horrified by sexual foreboding of the relationship (Miller 34). Such doubt is further concentrated, she associates the ghosts of Peter Quint with the children. Since only she can see the ghosts, she is either hysterical or her story of the ghost is a fakery that she has created to hide something else. Conclusion Indeed the utilization of the uncanny in the novel brings the readers to the subconscious realm of the characters’ personality where the sexual savagery of Freud’s Id and dwells under the supervision of the Ego and the Superego. Indeed the readers do not knowingly carry out this act of discovering the characters’ psyche to work out the reasons behind their action; rather it happens that the readers also subconsciously -in other words, intuitively- tries to peep into the subconscious of the characters. Throughout this whole intuitive investigation a reader tries to allocate a meaning to the uncanny and this act of instinctive investigation remains almost tensed during the climax of the novel. Works Cited Bennett and Royal, “Uncanny”, Fiction and Repetition. Place: publishers Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny”, Freud: Complete Works. Ivan Smith (ed), New York: Bentham, 2000. James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Virginia: Virginia University Press. 2001 Read More