Flashcards for The Turn of the Screw

Douglas

Douglas serves as the secondary narrator who connects the outer frame story to the main ghost tale in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898).

character

Flora

Flora is the younger of the two orphaned children at Bly, introduced in the Governess's manuscript as an almost otherworldly beautiful and charming little girl.

character

Miles

Miles is the older of the two orphaned children at Bly, and one of the novella's most haunting and ambiguous characters.

character

Miss Jessel

Miss Jessel is the former governess at Bly, and her death before the story starts casts a long shadow over every scene.

character

Mrs. Grose

Mrs. Grose is the warm but illiterate housekeeper at Bly who acts as the Governess's main confidante and the most sensible adult in the story.

character

Peter Quint

Peter Quint is a ghostly antagonist in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

character

The Frame Narrator

The Frame Narrator is the unnamed first-person voice that opens and closes Henry James's novella, acting as a structural link between the reader and the central ghost story.

character

The Governess (Narrator)

The Governess is the main character and only narrator of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898).

character

The Uncle (Guardian)

The Uncle is a wealthy, handsome bachelor who is the legal guardian of his orphaned niece Flora and nephew Miles.

character

“I don't know what I don't see, what I don't fear!”

This anguished exclamation comes from the unnamed Governess, who serves as the unreliable first-person narrator in Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess (unnamed narrator)

“Why, the man's dead! He died last year. Miles died—I caught him, held him—it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held.”

This powerful moment is delivered by the unnamed governess at the peak of Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess (narrator) · Final chapter (Chapter 24 / Epilogue section)

“No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it the more I fear.”

This line is delivered by the Governess, the unnamed narrator in Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898), as she obsessively reflects on the supernatural—or possibly psychological—events taking place at Bly.

The Governess (unnamed narrator)

“We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, had stopped.”

This heart-wrenching closing sentence of Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898) is narrated by the unnamed Governess, who is the story's first-person narrator.

The Governess (narrator) · Final chapter (Chapter 24)

“You see me—you see me? She stared, glared again, and all this time without a word: she just kept looking at me.”

This passage is narrated by the unnamed Governess in Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898) during one of her intense confrontations with the ghost of Miss Jessel, the former governess who died under mysterious circumstances.

The Governess (narrator) · Chapter 15 (approximately)

“It was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilised, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship.”

This description comes from the unnamed governess, who serves as the first-person narrator, as she arrives at Bly, the isolated country estate where she's been tasked with caring for Miles and Flora.

The Governess (unnamed narrator) · Chapter 1

“She was there, so I was justified; she was there, so I was neither cruel nor mad.”

This line is delivered by the unnamed Governess, who narrates the story in the first person, during the intense confrontation towards the end of Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess (unnamed narrator) · Chapter 20

“I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most loveable.”

This line is spoken by the Governess, the unnamed narrator in Henry James's psychological novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess (narrator) · Chapter 6

“He was there or was not there: not there if I was.”

This line comes from the unnamed Governess, who serves as the first-person narrator in Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess (unnamed narrator)

“Peter Quint—you devil!”

This intense shout comes from the unnamed Governess near the climax of Henry James's novella The Turn of the Screw (1898).

The Governess · Final chapter (Chapter 24)

Bly Estate

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the Bly estate represents a form of psychological entrapment, revealing the corruption that hides beneath the surface of beauty and order.

Letters and Written Communication

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, letters and written communication highlight the delicate nature of truth, authority, and connection.

The Ghosts (Quint and Jessel)

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel symbolize ambiguous evil and the unknowable.

The Lake

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the lake on the Bly estate represents the line between the living and the dead, the conscious and the hidden, and what is known versus what remains a mystery.

The Tower

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the tower of Bly manor symbolizes psychological isolation, unchecked authority, and the perilous rise of obsession over reason.

Frame Narrative

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James creates a double frame that keeps the horror at a constant, unsettling distance.

Foreshadowing

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James masterfully uses foreshadowing to create an unsettling sense of dread, with details that only become clear upon reflection.

Suspense

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James builds suspense not through action but by withholding information — the reader is consistently left without the certainty needed to feel secure.

Unreliable Narrator

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James builds his horror story around a governess whose version of events we can never fully trust.

Dramatic Irony

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James creates dramatic irony by providing the reader with ongoing reasons to question the governess's reliability, even though she remains completely convinced of her beliefs.

Pathetic Fallacy

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James uses pathetic fallacy to reflect the governess's psychological state in the landscape around Bly.

Symbolism

In Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, symbolism weaves through the novella's ambiguous structure, where objects and spaces evoke dread that mere description cannot capture.

Imagery

In The Turn of the Screw, Henry James uses vivid imagery with intense precision to make the governess's fear feel almost tangible rather than just described.

apparition

A ghost or supernatural figure that appears suddenly and unexpectedly; in this text, the unsettling visible forms of the dead former servants that the governess believes she sees.

noun · Chapter 1

prodigious

Remarkably great in extent or degree; used here to convey something impressively large or intense, often with an unsettling quality.

adjective · Chapter 1

governess

A woman employed in a private household to educate and care for the children; the unnamed narrator of the main story who takes charge of the children at Bly.

noun · Chapter 1

portentous

Giving a strong sense that something bad or significant is about to happen; ominous and full of foreboding.

adjective · Chapter 1

lucid

Expressed clearly and easy to understand; also used to mean mentally clear and rational, as opposed to confused or deluded.

adjective · Chapter 1

singular

Remarkably strange or unusual; out of the ordinary in a way that draws attention and unease.

adjective · Chapter 1

livid

Having a pale, ashen, or bluish color, as if drained of blood; used to describe a face marked by shock or supernatural wrongness.

adjective · Chapter 1

interlocutor

A person who takes part in a dialogue or conversation; in the prologue, the person who questions Douglas and draws out the story.

noun · Chapter 1

predecessor

A person who held a position or role before the current one; here referring to the governess who held the post at Bly before the narrator.

noun · Chapter 1

consecrated

Made sacred or devoted entirely to a particular purpose; used to suggest a solemn, almost religious dedication to a course of action.

adjective · Chapter 2

intercourse

Communication or dealings between people; in this Victorian text it means social exchange or conversation, not a sexual act.

noun · Chapter 2

scruple

A feeling of doubt or hesitation about whether an action is morally right; a nagging moral reservation that prevents one from acting freely.

noun · Chapter 2

importunate

Persistently pressing or demanding in a way that is difficult to ignore or refuse; annoyingly urgent.

adjective · Chapter 2

elicit

To draw out or provoke a response, fact, or reaction from someone, especially through careful questioning or pressure.

verb · Chapter 2

palpable

So intense or obvious that it seems almost physically present and can almost be touched or felt in the air.

adjective · Chapter 2

remonstrate

To protest or object firmly to someone about their actions or words; to argue against something with earnest disapproval.

verb · Chapter 2

tacit

Understood or implied without being openly stated; an unspoken agreement or acknowledgment between people.

adjective · Chapter 2

perdition

A state of eternal spiritual ruin or damnation; used to convey the sense that the children's souls are in mortal danger.

noun · Chapter 3

abyss

A deep, seemingly bottomless pit; used figuratively to describe an overwhelming depth of horror, moral corruption, or despair.

noun · Chapter 3

exorcise

To drive out an evil spirit from a person or place by means of prayer or ritual; here used broadly to mean freeing the children from the influence of the ghosts.

verb · Chapter 3

impute

To attribute a fault, quality, or action to someone; to assign blame or responsibility to a particular person.

verb · Chapter 3

confound

To cause someone to feel surprised and confused; to mix up or perplex so thoroughly that clear thinking becomes impossible.

verb · Chapter 3

wrested

Forcibly pulled or taken away from someone's grip or control; seized by a violent twisting or struggling motion.

verb · Chapter 3

ineffable

Too great, extreme, or overwhelming to be expressed in words; beyond ordinary language, used here for horrors or feelings that resist description.

adjective · Chapter 3

dispossessed

Deprived of something one holds, especially a home, land, or in this context a body or soul; driven out and left with nothing.

adjective · Chapter 3