4 - The Turn of the Screw: innocent performance

Summary

Thank you for your suggestions of titles. I do not feel we have arrived yet,

although something to do with Bly is hopeful I think. I am not worrying about

it until forced to, but I must confess that I have a sneaking horrid feeling that

the original H. J. title describes the musical plan of the work exactly!!

Britten, 30 March 1954, letter to Myfanwy Piper

Lost in my labyrinth, I see no truth. Oh innocence, you have corrupted me,

which way shall I turn?

The Governess, Act 2, Scene

The title of Henry James's novella presents an intriguing image even before a reader opens the book. What can the figure of a turning screw stand for? How is the phrase to be read? That the words do hold some sort of importance for the story about to begin is intimated early in the unnumbered opening chapter, a framing prologue in which James's narrator reports the conversation following an evening of ghost tales, quoting one of those present, Douglas, directly:

“I quite agree – in regard to Griffin's ghost, or whatever it was – that its

appearing first to the little boy, at so tender an age, adds a particular touch.

But it's not the first occurrence of its charming kind…. If the child gives the

effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to two children –?”

“We say of course,” somebody exclaimed, “that two children give two turns!”

Douglas's reference to “another turn of the screw” can hardly fail to strike a reader as a reiteration of James's title, and yet the phrase itself is playfully vague in its connotations, scarcely more precise in its reference than the title itself. Only the context of Douglas's remark – the discussion of the merits of the tale of “Griffin's ghost” (a story not shared with the reader) – confirms that the turning-screw image refers to some quality of the story's telling, and that this narrative “effect” relates somehow to the presence of children.