Henry James: The Turn of the Screw

[Steph]

I'm not an expert on horror stories, but I have to say that The Turn of the Screw is a classic. When I first heard what it was about I though a story about a mansion and a couple of ghosts was going to be boring and old (been there done that sort of thing). However, I read it and realized it was much more than a ghost story. The plot was mysterious and actually got you really thinking about who the real culprit was. I love how that there was a deep sense of character psychology and how you followed the governess slowly grow closer to derangement in her point of view.

What I wanted to know was what point in the story you guys knew that the governess was the cause of the chaos. My English professor spoiled it for me, so I was aware of what would happen before reading.

 

[beer good]

Yeah, I really liked this one. A story which leaves itself open to several different readings - straight-up Gothic ghost story, creepy psychological horror, or any combination of the two. The narrator annoyed me a bit at first, she's so verbose she makes Jane Austen characters sound like Sam Spade in comparison, but once you start to speculate that maybe not everything's right with her, it becomes a point in itself - is she trying to explain what happened, or is she mounting a defense? And then there's the introduction - who is Douglas, and what's his relation to the story?

Brilliantly creepy.

 

[Polly Parrot]

I read this more than a year ago, I wasn't sure about the creepiness mainly because I didn't think it creepy, just some governess' hallucinating dead people.

 

[753C]

I liked it. And one thing is for sure, Henry James is a big fan of the comma.