Readings for this Week:
* The Victorian Governess in Fact and Fiction, pp. 158-183
* Bruce Robbins, "They don't much count, do they?": The Unfinished History of The Turn of the Screw, pp. 376-389
Answer ONE of the following...
1. Anna Jameson wrote in 1846 that the position of governess "places a woman of education and of superior faculties in an ambiguous and inferior position, with none of the privileges of a recognized possession, or places a vulgar, half-educated woman in a situation of high responsibility, requiring superior enowments" (163). Does this knowledge make us more or less sympathetic (or more or less suspicious) of the governess/narrator? And knowing this, what do you feel might have been James' intentions in creating her story?
2. Many Marxist critics, such as Lucien Goldmann "rejected the idea of individual human genius, choosing to see works, instead, as the "collective" products of "trans-individual" mental structures" (367). In other words, focusing on an all-knowing, elite author struck them as a bourgeoise construction that denied "the people" their role in creating history and literary thought. How might we use the readings in "The Victorian Governess in Fact and Fiction" to perform a Marxist reading of The Turn of the Screw? What ideas/passages might it highlight?
3. In Bruce Robbins' essay, he focuses on Douglass' comment that "she was a most respectable person--till her death, the great awkwardness of which had, precisely, left no alternative but the school for little Miles" (379--pp.27-28 in our book). He reads this passage through a Marxist lens, finding it evidence that "Miss Jessel never was real. She was already a sort of ghost" (379). How, according to Robbins, do class issues make all servants 'ghosts' in the house of an aristocrat? How are these sentiments echoed by the governess and/or other characters in the novel, according to Robbins?
4. Robbins, quoting Fredric Jameson's famous book, The Political Unconsciousness, remarks that a romance is a "symbolic answer to the perplexing question of how my enemy can be thought of as being evil...when what is responsible for his being so characterized is simply the identity of his own conduct with mine, the which...he reflects as in a mirror image" (387). Robbins uses this to suggest that the governess creates 'doubles' of herself to exorcise the great 'evil' of her existence. In this light, how does Robbins reinterpret Freud's "the Uncanny" in terms more of class than psychoanalysis?
1. Anna Jameson wrote in 1846 that the position of governess "places a woman of education and of superior faculties in an ambiguous and inferior position, with none of the privileges of a recognized possession, or places a vulgar, half-educated woman in a situation of high responsibility, requiring superior enowments" (163). Does this knowledge make us more or less sympathetic (or more or less suspicious) of the governess/narrator? And knowing this, what do you feel might have been James' intentions in creating her story?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that this knowledge might ought to make us feel more suspicious of the governess. The negative feelings that she might be harboring concerning how society treats her would certainly have an impact on her thoughts/actions in a profound way. The governess is neither low class or upper class―her place in the class structure of the day might be described as a sort of limbo. Miss Jessell and Quint are ghosts but they're not spirits in the traditional sense of that word. Rather they're distorted reflections of the governess's tortured psyche. The governess's psyche is tortured because she doesn't have any upward mobility (she's stuck in her place in society), she'll likely never marry, and doesn't appear that she'll ever win the love of the master of the house. Considering the previous facts it also could be said that we should be sympathetic towards the governess as well. Using the governess character James may have been trying to show us the inequalities of class structure; the governess should have more options in life and her socioeconomic status shouldn't get in the way of her societal advancement. Whether or not this was completely intentional on the part of James we really don't know. My belief is that James was creating through the vehicle of fiction a critique of the times that he lived in.
1. Anna Jameson wrote in 1846 that the position of governess "places a woman of education and of superior faculties in an ambiguous and inferior position, with none of the privileges of a recognized possession, or places a vulgar, half-educated woman in a situation of high responsibility, requiring superior endowments" (163). Does this knowledge make us more or less sympathetic (or more or less suspicious) of the governess/narrator? And knowing this, what do you feel might have been James' intentions in creating her story?
ReplyDeleteJameson’s quote is unique and brings out an interesting parallel. No matter how endowed or inept the governess may be, she will be under or over qualified. It seems as though society in that day didn’t really know what to do with women who wanted\needed work. If a woman was not married, what choices did she have is she was a part of the working class? The governess system seemed to be the only way to deal with those women.
This makes me a bit more sympathetic with the governess. As I already see her as a diseased, but well- meaning, schizo. (I think! More to come!) This is just something else to pile onto the problem mound. How is a girl supposed to NOT be crazy?! She’s either under-qualified or over-qualified. It doesn’t make her story anymore trustworthy, but could there be some deeper issues?
I could see James bringing attention to the governess issue with this narrator. He may even been brining the whole class system under the microscope for his audience. James could have simply wanted to write a story for shits-and-giggles. Whatever the reason, and whatever the lens we use to read James, this story can deal with a lot of theoretical and critical approaches; and it can be dissected by these methods.
3) All throughout The Turn of the Screw, there exists multiple discernments of what a ghost is and what it represents. The servants and the governesses are seen differently depending on the person. The Master's lack of caring and compassion towards Miles, Flora, Miss Grose, and the Governess, and the way he wants to distance himself from them is in accordance with how someone might deal with a ghost, namely forgetting that they exist. Simply, he treats them as if they aren't real. Robbins gives a specific example on how Miss Jessel was treated as a ghost before she died and after she died. The Master cared nothing for her in life or death; her significance amounted to very little. The counterpoint to this is that to the Governess, Miss Jessel matters very much, not only as a corrupted force, but as a double to herself. The Governess "sees" Miss Jessel, while the Master never did at all.
ReplyDeleteThe Governess learns about the atrocities committed by Miss Jessel and Quint, and she then worries about the similarities between her situation and theirs, which subsequently causes her to see (or create) manifestations of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Their ghosts are her fears. Furthermore, in The Turn of the Screw, the Governess never interacts with any of the other servants - they are but ghosts to her.
Miles and his supposed negative relationship with Peter Quint did nothing to sully his view on servants, as throughout the book he continues to have a relationship with the servants.
Knowing more about the status of governesses in this time certainly gives us a better lense to look at The Turn if the Screw, because it gives us a reason behind the story. governesses were usually looked down upon. They were a class all to themselves, neither high nor low, they are stuck in the middle. If you feel as I do, that the governess in this case is a completely unreliable narrator, and an intense attention seeker, then knowing this about governesses may make us at least more sympathetic to her plight. She is desperate to make her life interesting, so she invents something that makes her not only intriguing, but indispensable to the children, to Mrs. Grose, and in her mind, to the master. The idea of a governess being responsible for my children frightens me. They are not trained to take care if children, for no one chooses a governess job, they are forced in to it by their situation or lack thereof. Of course, today people use daycare, which isn't much better. I believe that James wanted to show his society what happens when they don't pay attention, and the role if a governess fits perfectly with those designs.
ReplyDelete