Essay On The Governess In Henry James The Turn Of The Screw

The niece of Parris, Abigail, soon becomes the center of attention when evidence comes forth of her and a group of girls danced in the woods. To take the attention off herself she begins to blame other people of the village that they are one with the devil. Then, Abigail blames Elizabeth Proctor, in hopes

As Hale warns Danforth of his decisions, he proclaims, “orphans are wandering... abandoned cattle bellow on highroads...and stink of rotting crops hangs everywhere,” using these imageries in insinuation of the court’s failure to justly judge when regarding conducts of witchcraft, suggesting that they, as Danforth had earlier pronounced, “hold four hundred in the jails upon their signature”, thus an immense amount of power and authority that presumably their leaders would not want stripped away (121,81). From the beginning, as Danforth suggests, the safety of the court’s prolific dominance lies upon its ability to continue charging villagers of witchcraft upon its signature. Hale, consequently, using the images of “abandoned cattle” and “wandering orphans” to suggest that the court’s inability to realize the reality that the outcomes of their trials lie beyond just simply whether one is with God or the Devil, thus taking away its people's’ lives, brings forth its leaders’ reluctance to disregard Abigail Williams’ erroneous acts as signification of their greed upon power, fearing that if they were to charge Abigail for perjury, all their previous decisions conducted upon Abigail’s lies would damage their prestige within the town. Greed, again, is demonstrative of the vast alternation in the town’s dynamic through Miller’s use of imagery.

For example, towards the end of Act one, Reverend Hale tries to convince Tituba to confess that she is working with the devil. She shouts out that she saw two women with the devil, Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. Abigail realizes that the only thing she

As soon as the governess sees the Peter Quint, she puts the safety of the children above all else. After seeing Mr. Quint, the governess describes herself as “a screen—[she] was to stand before them [for] the more [she] saw, the less they would” (James 27). The governess behaves rationally and is able to carry out her job successfully. This is something only a sane person could do, as an insane person could not carry out the task of protecting the children and keeping them safe from whatever dangers there may be. The governess also states that, “[she] was there to protect and defend the little creatures” (James 27).

Have no fear now—we shall find him out and I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face!”(39). Hale is forcefully making these innocent people put every drop of faith into his words, solely through his experience, to gain power over them through that trustworthiness. Establishing power through unjust credibility also applies to Reverend Parris, the man who is more concerned with his profession than his ill daughter. During the trial in the third act, Proctor has evidence that Mary Warren never saw any spirits.

The Devil influences the villagers of Salem, Massachusetts by using their ongoing fear of him to manipulate their thoughts and actions in a manner to set himself in the highest position by the end of the Act 1. As the Puritans lean toward blaming the Devil for their misgivings and suspicions, he gains control of their thoughts. Ruth and Betty pretend to fall ill after Reverend Parris catches them in the forest with Tituba and other girls, partaking in what is considered to be witchcraft: an act that defies the laws of femininity in the Puritan society. Mrs. Putnam does not buy her daughter Ruth’s act; rather, she sees it as “‘the Devil’s touch”’ which “‘is heavier than sick”’ (13). Believing that the Devil

“Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you,” (Act I, 160). She was the first person in the play to accuse a person of seeing people summon spirits of the Devil. This caused a massive, wide-scale witch hunt to take place; families torn apart, mothers, fathers, and even children murdered for what was considered to be the greater good. Now, others began to accuse people of witchcraft and people who had been lifelong friends to each other now had no choice other than to point fingers at each other or be put to death. Widespread panic and unreasonable action was sweeping through everyone in Salem, all because of a little lie by

I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! (Miller.1.1050). With Abigail's careless act, the town is in despair, every time she would create a lie it would turn people against each other. Even when these group of people have been living with each other years, with one action from Abigail they are automatically believing each person is associated with the Devil.

Reverend Parris, worried for his own job, explains to Abigail that her “punishment will come in its time. But if you trafficked with spirits in the forest I must know it now, for surely my enemies will, and they will ruin me with it.” Even the idea of witchcraft in Reverend Parris’s house could ruin his reputation in the town and therefore risk his job. By Betty being ‘afflicted’, she is holding power over her own father and his position in the town. She knows that the longer she is asleep, the more desperate her father is going to be blame someone for the witchcraft who is not her.

In 1607, the first wave of colonial settlers arrived in Virginia and began to establish Jamestown. Many of the new settlers came from wealthy families never performing a day of manual labor. With agricultural farming, being the revenue source of the new colonial settlers there would soon be a great demand for labor. Contracts of indentures were expiring and with much devastation in England, there was a shortage of English servants. Since the number of Africans far outweighed English servants, the English dominant sought to take advantage of this and in 1662 passed an act that racialized slavery by defining it as a status inherited “according to the condition of the mother.” In January 1639/40, Act X passed stating, “All persons except negroes to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined at pleasure of the Governor and Council” giving us one of many documented acts of how racial freedom was affected. In this essay, I

Ambiguity is the characteristic of a word, phrase, or book that can be understood in multiple ways. Henry James, during the middle part of his career, incorporated this type of vagueness into his writing. One of James's most debatable use of ambiguity was a ghost story. In the novella The Turn of the Screw, Henry James uses conflict, perspective, and ambiguity to create a mystery, with his own twist, for the reader to solve and leave them guessing. James, through conflicts involving the children and possible ghosts, limited point of view, and the overall ambiguity, forces the reader to solve mysteries throughout the book without giving the answers at the end.

Prior to reading Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, I anticipated I would be reading about a woman in slavery with an unhappy past. I did not expect her story to end in a positive way. My expectations were to read of a woman bound in slavery that wrote memoirs of her saddened life and that life would continue until the day she died. I expected her to leave the home of a master and possibly become a maid or cook in the White House. I did not envision her becoming as successful as she did, her story far exceeded my expectations. Elizabeth Keckley's narrative had a positive outcome, once she was able to buy her freedom as well as her son's. She moved North and became popular

The titular Jane in Jane Eyre struggles to free herself from the power of others to achieve independence throughout the course of the book. As a child, she fights against unjust authority figures, and as an adult, she spurs multiple unequal marriage proposals. Bronte, through Jane asserts that a woman should be independent from others.

The governess is insane because she is the only person at Bly to witness the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. During her employment, the Governess claims to experience several ghostly interactions, however no one else could relate to her sightings. For example, after claiming to see two ghosts, the Governess confides in Mrs. Grose and later says “she herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess’s plight,” (James 24). Mrs. Grose is eliminated as a witness and cannot argue if the paranormal activity at Bly was real. Since no one can support the governess’s claims, then presumably, they were hallucinated by

Her brother's ghost is the, "living embodiment of a disturbing possibility: that human privileges are quite fragile" (213). The presence of the ghost forces the narrator to realize that