The Psychology of the Story

• The ghost really existed

• The ghost was the creation of the governess’ imagination
• A young woman had psychological disorders
A Ghost Story

• Alice James
• Ghosts: passive, not saying much
• Freudian theories
A Ghost Story
• She wishes that: “Someone would appear there at the turn of the path and would stand
before and smile and approve. I didn't ask more than that - I only asked that he should
know.“
• “He did stand there! - but high up, beyond the lawn and at the very top of the tower...“
• “My second was a violent perception of the mistake of my first: the man who met my
eyes was not the person I had … supposed…. the figure that faced me was … as little
anyone else I knew as it was the image that had been in my mind…. the man who looked
at me over the battlements was definite a picture in a frame” (James 21)
• Is she having delusions, or does she genuinely need to save the children from
something evil that threatens them?
 A Ghost Story

• The ghosts intend to “get hold of the children“

• Many of the accusations the governess brings up against the ghost are faults which are
also evident in the ghost
A Ghost Story

• Projection: superego vs. id

• Linking inner experience to the social expectations - brought to bear on the character's
construction
• References to eyes and vision – “bewilderment of vision“
Conclusion
“Only make the reader's general vision of evil intense enough and his own
experience, his own imagination, his own sympathy (with the children) and
horror (of their false friends) will supply him quite sufficently with all the
particulars.“

• Evolution of Literary Criticism: 1898 – 1916 Literal // 1916 - ... Psychological

Thank you!

Nikolina Maksimović
References:

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

Samuels, Charles T. The Ambiguity of Henry James. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971.

Roellinger, F. X. (1948). Physical Research and “The Turn of the Screw” American Literature, 20(3), 401–
412. https://doi.org/10.2307/2921600

Banerjee, Jacqueline. “The legacy of Anne Bronte in Henry James’s ”The Turn of the Screw” English Studies
78.6 (1997): 532. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web.

Mansell, Darrel. “The Ghost of Language in The Turn of the Screw” Modern Language Quarterly 46.1
(1985): 48. Professional Development Collection. EBSCO. Web.

Cargill, Oscar. "The Turn of the Screw and Alice James." The Turn of the Screw: Henry James. New York: W.
W. Norton & Company Inc., 1966.

Sigmund Freud, Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, 1912