The Governess in Henry James' Turn of the Screw

Such class distinctions play to limit expression and desire among those subjected to their social and economic forces. The Governess is a young woman who knows there are social distinctions, analogous when she acknowledges Mile and Flora have better breeding than she does, provided she fails to see the full impact of social and economic forces on her psyche. Inexperienced and young, she is exhausted and anxiety ridden over having to care for ii mysterious children. She retires her employer simply pukenot communicate with him, symbolic of the differences between them socially. Because of her repression of her feelings due(p) to these forces, the Governess' psyche begins to see ghost that she believes are a scourge to or somehow connected to the children in a evil manner. As Parkinson (1) maintains, "The young Governess is a neurotic case of repression, and the ghosts are not real ghosts at all but but the Governess' hallucinations."

Young, inexperienced and in over her head at Bly, the Governess is not fully conscious of the impact of social and economic forces on her. She knows there are class distinctions but he

In her role as harboror of the children against the "ghosts," the Governess cadaver bounds to the children and her employer in her mind. She may never be bound to them on the same social or economic level, but in her mind she is needed or necessary to protect them.

Being of low station and unretentive, the Governess has never lived the privilege living of her employer or Flora and Miles. In a way, the visions she experiences may be a direct outcome of her fantasies about living a life that is grander or more exciting than that of a poor Governess. As Aiken (9) writes, "Perhaps it is such people, deprived of fantasy in their early years, who turn so eagerly to ghosts."

r love for her employer and her charges is a desire she cannot fully repress. However, these are desires that she cannot control in herself. Because she cannot control how she feels and is too inexperienced and young to recognize she can never be the "lady" of Bly, her frustrations cause her to see visions that expose the children. Though she can never be of their class, she makes herself into a high-flown figure by trying to protect them from the apparitions. As Roellinger (406) argues, the ghosts pillow "a bafflin
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