In the prologue it states ‘ if the child gives the effect of another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children- two children give two turns’ so I would say that in this story the turn of the screw=twist of the plot. Generally speaking the idiom is a metaphor, a turn of the screw an action which makes a bad situation worse, especially in order to force someone to do something -- but it certainly does not answer the question of what is tightening the screw: ghosts? The children? Her own imagination, steeped in repressed eroticism? The whole story has the theme of ugliness associated with evil and beauty associated with being good, one of the major themes is the impact class has on the interaction between people, as there are numerous references to class throughout in the governess’s tale, but even the characters in the prologue are concerned with class. Douglas is careful to explain part of what happened in Harley Street to make her take the position. She was ‘the youngest of several daughters of a poor country’ and ‘her prospective employer proved gentleman’. H e also goes on to talk about the bachelor stating that such a ‘figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage’.
There are various interpretations of The Turn of the Screw. One interprets the novel as a legitimate and very literary ghost story. The other theory says that James meant to create a psychological thriller, and that the governess was insane, the apparitions being only figments of her imagination.As it is ghost story suspense is achieved through the chapter with the use of broken sentences with clauses and also the fact that the narrator doesn’t finish telling the story. The narrator is an unknown character so the technique being used is an embedded narrative as it adds the effect of mystery as he begins to tell the story which he said was ‘locked in a drawer- and not been out for years, the fact it is said the story has not been out in years it also add mysterious effect implying that no one has read the book so the reader would start to wonder what the book contains.
The prologue sets up a story within a story as the rest of the book is the governess’s manuscript. Why does James feel the need to have the narrator tell the story of Douglas telling a story that he reads from the governess’s story it supposedly to make the story seem more authentic. However, it makes the story harder to believe, as readers are often with the fact that stories tend to get muddled up when retold. Douglas doesn’t tell the story immediately because it was locked away thereby giving the effect that the story is private and of value. He tells the governess’s story and it fits into the gothic theme as she has been dead for 20 years and he also stated that the governess was his sister’s governess.
From the prologue the way Douglas begins talking about the governess it is clear sensed that he had fondness of her and also he spoke of her in an affectionate manner giving the readers the impression that she was charming, agreeable and also naïve.
