PARTISAN REVIEW
I come now to the story itself. Miss Kenton and Mr. Wilson
make much of the fact that, in the second scene by the lake, Miss
Jessel's ghost is visible to the governess but not to the housekeeper.
This power (of appearing only to certain individuals) has been the
privilege of ghosts throughout all literature; it is, indeed, one of their
most traditional attributes. And James has his own reasons for mak–
ing use of it in
The Turn of the Screw:
it constitutes a definite vic–
tory for the ghosts, thus sharpening the conflict between them and
the governess for the "possession" of the children; and it adds an al–
most unbearable tension to the story. One could not, incidentally,
wish for stronger evidence of the stability of the governess's personal–
ity than the fact that, although the housekeeper herself has seen
nothing, she does not doubt that her friend has-a point which
J ames, who certainly sees the necessity for it, drives home again and
again.
The nonapparitionists have never satisfactorily explained the
coincidence between the governess's description of the ghosts and the
impression which the housekeeper has retained of the living servants;
and they have been forced to account for the death of little Miles
at the end by saying that the governess herself, in attempting to' make
him see what is not there, simply scares the life out of him-this in
spite of James's last sentence, "We were alone with the quiet day,
and his little heart,
dispossessed
[italics mine] had stopped."
They also have not accounted for the fact that the housekeeper
testifies toward the end that little Flora is, indeed, bewitched. For
not only does Mrs. Grose believe that the governess has seen what
she herself was unable to see, but her subsequent session with the
little girl convinces her that the latter is definitely possessed. Refer–
ring to the last dreadful scene by the lake, Mrs. Grose observes: "It
has made her, every inch of her, quite old." (Previously the govern–
ess has told the housekeeper, "At such times she's not a child: she's
an old, old woman.") I reproduce the following conversation be–
tween the two servants:
"You mean that, since yesterday, you
have
seen-?"
She shook her head with
dignity.
"I've
heard-!"
"Heard?"
"From that child-horrors! There!" she sighed with tragic relief.
"On my honour, Miss, she says things-!" But at this evocation she
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