Terror In The Turn Of The Screw: A Narratological Approach

Since its publication in 1898, Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw has never ceased to be discussed widely, because many literary critics hold that its narrators, characters and genre are filled with the uncertainty. However, this thesis will analyze terror in the novella by taking a narratological perspective, associating with Henry James' novel theories together.The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, main body and conclusion. The introduction makes a brief review of Henry James and the criticism of the novella, and then summarizes the research content, method and arguments. In the main body there are four chapters including the analysis of narrative structure, focalization mode, narrative time and narrative discourse. The first chapter focuses on the frame and the embedding story. In the frame, the preceding three chapters explain the introductory relationship between the discourse level and the story level. They foreground the credibility of the governess and the appearance of ghosts in order to make the reader believe that this is a story with terror. In the story level there are two stories in an embedding form. One is about Douglas' delivery of the governess' manuscript; the other is about the governess' manuscript. Chapter 2 is designed to probe into focalization mode. The author makes use of internal focalization mode proposed by Genette, in which the anonymous male "I" and the governess are considered as narrators. As an outside narrator, the anonymous male has a predominant position to control the whole novella and makes three times of delay to tell the manuscript with the help of Douglas, which add more terror to the story. And the anonymous governess, "the central consciousness", adopts an interaction of "narrative I" and "experienced I" to recall her horrible experience at Bly. According to Genette's narrative time theory, chapter 3 makes a study of time sequence and time span, and finds out that the management of time intensifies narrative effect of the text, which calls the reader's attention to terror rather than the truth. Chapter 4 discusses functions of free direct discourse and direct discourse. In the frame, Douglas' description about the ghost story is direct discouse, which paves the way to ghosts and stimulates the reader's reading interest. In the manuscript, what occupies its great space is the governess' interior monologue, also called free direct discourse. The conversations and dialogues between the governess and Mrs. Gross reveal her anxiety and terror so as to achieve an artistic render of the terrible atmosphere of the entire novella. By these two methods the reader can see what the governess says directly, observe her internal movement, and feel her extreme terror when ghosts appear. The part of conclusion makes a summary of four chapters of the main body, and affirms Henry James' literary position and the weight of The Turn of the Screw.Conclusively speaking, The Turn of the Screw is a remarkable work of art because of these narrative techniques adopted by Henry James, and now is awaiting more amd more literary critics and readers to explore and to fathom.