HENRY JAMES (1843 - 1916)

letteratura inglese

HENRY JAMES

Henry James chose an individually oriented type of fiction whose main purpose is the exploration of the human mind. He reduced the narrator's commentary to the minimum because he wanted to be unobtrusive. 626h72g In his works there is the adoption of a single point of view, that sometimes provokes doubts about the reliablity of the narrator in relating facts.

The cumulative power of nuance and the search for an elusive secret  are archetypally manifested in The Turn of the Screw (1898), a work which successfully embodies the union of opposites and the contrast between appearance and reality.

The short story is written mostly in the form of a journal, kept by a governess. She tries to save her two young charges, Flora and Miles, from the demonic influence of the apparitions of two former servants in the household, Peter Quint and the previous governess Miss Jessel.

Her employer, the children's uncle, has given strict orders not to bother him with any of the details of their education.

The children evade the questions about the ghosts but she certain is that the children see them. When she tries to exorcize their influence, Miles dies in her arms.

The apparition of the ghosts triggers a series of ambiguous and mysterious circumstances both related to the governess' attitude and to the children's innocence and unawareness. Many interpretations may be given to the story: either the governess really sees the ghosts and wants to protect the children and save their innocence, or the ghosts are just the projection of her sexual repressions and distorted mind. Are the children really innocent or do they side with demons?

There is a theological, not merely moral or psychological, concept of evil. The governess is an inquisitor as well as an exorcist. But the governess' endeavours are doomed to failure, partially because of her own inadequacies and partially because Flora and Miles are not simply unwilling victims of demoniac possession, but have willingly subjected themselves to both demonic and pagan powers. Flora and Miles are definitely preternatural in their "angelic" beauty and "blessed" innocence, but this may all be a sham to hide their true natures.

The common denominator of these religious themes is ambivalence and ambiguity, or more precisely a sense of two-sidedness.

The governess is both a saviour and a cruel inquisitor; by attempting to save the children's souls she may have lost them. The children are pure and simple, yet may hide complex natures behind a theatrical mask of innocence; they seem angelic but are perhaps demonic.

The story mixes Christian morality with pagan amorality.

Is the destruction of the children caused by the governess' "infernal imagination" or by her lack of full comprehension? Is she neurotic or an inept exorcist?

The ambiguity with which the story ends arises as a result of the conflict of recognizing that the continued repression of this apparent evil was in itself destructive and it was the greater evil.