Monday, November 1, 2021

Micro Mention "The Turn of the Screw"

Henry James


The scariest thing about "The Turn of the Screw" is the governess's inappropriate relationship with those kids. I think the ghosts were there because they were like, "someone should call child services from beyond the grave. Oh, it's 1898? Someone should invent child services."

I found her relationship with the young boy in her charge to be the most disturbing because this story is all from her point of view. It's just that some of the things she says about him don't fit for what is essentially a nanny/teacher relationship with this kid. Maybe I'm bringing too much modern suspicion, colored by countless news stories about teachers having inappropriate relations with their students, into my reading of this old ghost story. But I've read this novella twice now and still can't shake off the perception.

"The Turn of the Screw" is just old enough of a story that its language is just out-of-date to the point before being antiquated that it requires extra focus to understand the story. It was the reading equivalent for me of watching movies in standard definition instead of HD. So overall, the experience was more frustrating than frightening for me.



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