Unreliable Narrator and Doubt in the Turn of the Screw by Henry James (original) (raw)

2019, English and American Studies

In this article we explore the narrative features of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. This work is considered to be one of the most controversial in relation to the author's design and description of the characters. Until recently, the controversy was focused only on whether the events in the narrative are really mystical (within the reality of the text), or the ghosts described by the heroine are the product of her imagination. In recent years there has been a tendency to consider this work in the light of narratology and structuralism. We consider this approach to be appropriate, because for Henry James as a writer and a literary critic the form and content of the text were inextricably linked, and in his later writings he sometimes favored a form over content. The Turn of the Screw is known primarily for its ambiguity. Written in the genre of "scary tales," it not only reveals the events in Bly, but, which is typical of late James, draws a psychological portrai...

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