SOURCE: “Reflections of a Governess: Image and Distortion in The Turn of the Screw,” in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 23, No. 1, June, 1968, pp. 49-63.

In the following essay, Aswell argues that The Turn of the Screw is a non-supernatural tale revolving around the narrator's inability to confront and acknowledge her dark side.

The governess in The Turn of the Screw judges her experiences in simplistic moral terms: Miles and Flora are threatened by diabolical fiends and can only be saved by her angelic intervention. In truth, however, the governess not only creates the activities of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel out of her imagination; it is she herself who is the intruding ghost at Bly, carrying out the functions and duties she ascribes to her supposed enemies.¹ Her puritanical morality requires that salvation can occur only after the confession of sins. And in order to wring a confession from the...