Turning the Screw of Ordinary Human Virtue

Henry James undoubtedly would have been amused - devoted as he was in his fiction to recording the ironic split between intention and achieve- ment - if he had lived to observe the success of "The Turn of the Screw." Soon after he had written a story called "The Next Time" which seemed to mirror his acceptance of his own unpopularity (since the plot of the story centered upon the repeated failures of a "fine" but unsuccessful novelist to write a bad but popular novel), James published a ghost story which has become one of the most frequently read in the language and which has even inspired two movies based upon its plot. What intensifies the irony is that the article I have written is only the latest of dozens of attempts to fathom a story which its author referred to as a "mere jeu d'esprit" - a "pot boiler." Yet the mystery which is the essence of the story's critical appeal continues to perplex and fascinate: are the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel objectively real and threats to the exquisite and archetypal children, Miles and Flora? Or are what the governess "sees" only hallucinations, products largely of her subconscious needs and desires

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