Oliver Evans
JAMES'S AIR OF EVIL:
"THE TURN OF THE SCREW"
It
is exactly half a century since
The Turn of the Screw
first appeared on the literary scene. Its commercial success, which
it is very likely that James himself did not foresee, was instantane–
ous; it soon proved, after
Daisy Miller,
to be his most popular book.
Reading contemporary reviews of the new Jamesian "thriller," one
becomes convinced that it was the sensational character of the sub–
ject which, more than anything else, appealed to most readers, and
that this sensationalism, in turn, derived from the two most imme–
diately obvious elements in the story: the author's preoccupation,
first, with the theme of the supernatural; and, second, with that of
perverse sexuality. The first of these themes was new with James;
the second had previously (in such stories as "The Pupil" and "The
Middle Years") only been obliquely hinted at.
If
the popular success of
The Turn of the Screw
is thus easily
to be accounted for, the reasons for its
aesthetic
success are by no
means so immediately obvious, yet nothing can be plainer than the
fact that the story is eminently successful in this sense also. Had
its success been merely of one kind, critics would have let it go at
that; they have not, however, been content to do so, and there are
now almost as many interpretations of the story as there have been
critics willing to venture them. On one point alone are they all (with
the very prominent exception of
Mr.
T.S. Eliot, who does not defi–
nitely commit himself) in substantial agreement, and that is that
The Turn of the Screw
is one of james's finest novels. The disagree–
ment, in other words, does not concern the fact, but the reasons
therefor.
I have little hope, in the face of so much distinguished discord,
of settling once and for all a problem so delicate and so complex.
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