Poetry Taste

Friday we had our first taste of poetry. Tip of the day--don't let poetry intimidate you. It isn't supposed to make sense on the first reading, just give it a few reads and keep an open mind. By the way the title of the poem was Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath. I think one group cheated.

Okay so here is my paper on Turn of the Screw. Sorry I tried to keep it under three pages but I went just a little bit over. This was done quickly so don't be too harsh but it should help you get an idea of what a straight analysis paper looks like. Also notice the correct formating for everything.

Kristin Meister
Ms. Meister
AP English
November 22

Manipulating the Norm: Gender Power Issues in The Turn of the Screw

Superficially, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw seems to reinforce the status quo of American literature as male, whereby men are viewed as having power over women leaving women to become mere objects. James creates a nameless female protagonist whose story is told through the guise of a male narrator. She becomes an object viewed by Douglas’s audience and is used simply as means for the master on Harley Street to avoid being bothered by his charges. She is then set up as naïve and love-struck, willing to do just about anything, including risking her own sanity, for the sake of keeping the master undisturbed. However, on closer examination, James actually creates a novella that subverts the traditional idea of men having power over women as it is the governess who has the final word in her story, not the male Douglas, and it is the male heir Miles who becomes the scapegoat leaving the governess free, “awfully clever and nice” (24).
James’s unfinished frame tale creates frustration and confusion but his experiment with form also draws attention to what has largely been left unconscious. Through Douglas’s initial telling of the governess’s story she is reduced to a nameless object that they all raptly listen about rather than listen to. While at the start, Douglas does have power over the governess’s story, in the end it is the governess who has the final word and Douglas, who disappears after only the first seven pages, is never to be heard from again. James relinquishes power to the governess and allows her to participate as there is no need to return to the male voice once she takes over. Furthermore, as the governess does remain nameless throughout her own narrative this hardly is a power issues as both the master on Harley Street and the narrator remain nameless as well.
In addition to his manipulation of form, James also uses the content of his story to portray patriarchal ideals but only as a means of later subverting them. The governess is described as “the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson” implying inexperience and naiveté (26). The weak female stereotype is further developed as Douglas reveals, “She was in love” with the unobtainable master on Harley Street (24). Her youth, inexperience, and blatant desire to the please the master set her up to be the traditional sacrificial scapegoat in which the purified survivor is the husband/male. However, James twists the patriarchal content in the end when he gives power to the governess and spares her from the enactment of man’s power over woman. In the end, as with the frame structure, it is the female governess who has usurped the power from the males around her. Instead of becoming the sacrificial scapegoat it is Miles, the male heir, who becomes sacrificed and the governess who remains the cleansed survivor. Furthermore, she both fulfills her role as a female and rises above it as she leaves the master “disburdened, delighted […] thanking her for the sacrifice” (29). The question of who profits, and how are crucial to understanding sexual power issues and in this sense it becomes clear that James is giving power to the females as it is Miles who pays the cost but the governess who “already felt rewarded” and Flora, who is now the heir, who profit (29).
Along with a restructuring of the typical gendered scapegoat, James also inverts the power roles associated with looking . Women are frequently seen as passive lookers and males are active. While there is pleasure in being looked at, the passive object is usually at a disadvantage. In a traditional sense the governess is an object viewed by both the guests and the ghosts of Quint and Jessel. This lack of power is further revealed through her first encounter with Quint as “he never took his eyes from [her]” and “even as he turned away still markedly fixed” her (41). In this case, it is clearly Quint who is the active male subjecting the governess to a controlling gaze in the same way that Douglas subjects her story to the scrutiny of his audience. Yet, once again while James superficially appears to be following the status quo, he is in fact inverting it. While the governess is being looked at she does gains some power in the sense that it is her story that entertains the guests and she clearly hold some sway over Douglas as he admits “I liked her extremely” (24). With Quint and Jessel the governess has some initial power in the fact that she is the only one capable of both seeing and being seen by the ghosts, besides the children who are themselves still questionable as to what they are able to see.
The governess gains even more power with each sighting as she is no longer passively viewed but instead becomes an active viewer herself. This reversal beings with only her second sighting of Quint as she is able to watch him “through the glass and across the room” and observes that “it was not for [her] he had come” (44). The governess’s new active role is again emphasized with her encounter with Jessel across the lake. In this instance, with her active looking the governess “became aware that on the other side of the Sea of Azof [they] had an interested spectator” (54). Through her acquired power of adopting the active/male role the governess is able to see what Mrs. Grose, the passive/female cannot—that they children “They know—it’s too monstrous: they know, they know!” (55). Furthermore, at Mrs. Grosse’s incredulity, the governess can only reply “I was there—I saw with my eyes” confirming her power as an active viewer (56). The governess’s final stance of power comes in the standoff with Quint as she tries to save Miles from his Quint’s “view like a sentinel before a prison” (116). In a final act of active viewing, the governess denies Quint his power and pleasure in looking as she shields Miles from his view and forces the presence to “move and shift its posture” until finally “the air was clear” (116-117). In this way the governess is able to reverse the roles of passive/female and active/male as she denies Quint the power of his gaze and instead forces him to be the object of her gaze.
Through his distortion of traditional male dominated structures and ideas, James is able to not only draw attention to the inequality of men’s power over women but he also uses the same devices to subvert this binary opposition. Through a distortion of the assumed patriarchal order the governess is able to adopt male characteristics in order to wrest back some of the power initially taken from her. Whether consciously or unconsciously James’s unfinished frame, disturbing death of Miles, and the disappearance of Quint’s ghost all point to a hidden power within the governess allowing her to survive long after her weaker male counterparts.