BEAUTY vs EVIL in Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw”

 

(article)

~Tapas Sarkar

      The story of “The Turn of the Screw” is fundamentally about the struggle between Good and Evil. Here the fight is between the Good characters and the bad (Evil) characters for the Beauty which refers to the children. 

    So, first of all, if we divide the characters, we get three type of characters-

Evil characters: 

a. Peter Quint (the main ghost, devil)

b. Miss Jessel (her character is obscure, who is giving accompany to Quint)

Good characters:

a. The Governess (who is trying to save the children, rather overprotecting them)

b. Mrs. Grose (who is the actual good character, she takes care of the children, does not see the ghosts, she just is loyal and obedient to the family)

Innocent characters (beautiful puppets):

a. Miles (possessed by Peter)

b. Flora (possessed by Jessel)…..according to the Governess only ***

    Here, the children are the centre. They are beautiful and cute; and being that much pretty and admirable they can never be bad or evil. They must be innocent and impeccable which both the Governess and Mrs Grose believe in the very beginning of the story. To them Physical appearance (their Beauty) and Morality (their Innocence) are strongly related, indispensably connected. Throughout the story, there are a lot of references to the connection between Physical appearance (Beauty) and morality (Innocence). We see, in the Bly house, Mrs. Grose says "Look at her!"….the Governess praises Flora’s beauty (morality); and when the letter from the school indicates that Miles is not a good boy, the Governess and Mrs. Grose try to equate their physical charms with goodness. Mrs. Grose tells Governess that she must see Miles first, and then she will realize he could not be bad any more than Flora could be. When the governess sees Miles she decides that Miles must be good, and her evidence is the same as Mrs. Grose's. They believe that the goodness of the children is shown on the children’s beautiful faces.

    But, gradually the Governess discovers that the beauty could be paired with the evil. She cannot accept the children being disobedient to her. The children whom she saw beautiful, became ugly with the strong connection to the evils. In one place she says “I’ve said it already—she was literally, she was hideously hard; she had turned common and almost ugly.” But, when she looks at the children, she just gets attractive of their charm and she has to protect them. Somehow she promises to protect the children. But, she cannot understand that Beauty can be Evil or good or her own overpowering protective nature can be evil. She continuously keeps fighting against the evil through the children’s body until the death of Miles; and finally finds that her overprotecting nature is failure or not at all good. Because, where the evil peter Quint has destroyed Miles’ soul, the inner spiritual beauty, on the other hand the Governess is indirectly responsible for the physical death of Miles. Thus, the entire story is about Beauty vs Evil and at the same time Beauty vs Goodness/morality (overprotective nature of human beings) too.

    The fact is that we cannot judge someone by his/her outlook, appearance. A beautiful man/woman can be harsh in his heart and an old, ugly man/woman can be good (cute) by his/her heart. The external beauty does not always reflect the inner beauty. In the 19th century, the external appearances were equated with GOOD or BAD which even nowadays we believe often. Henry James’ story “The turn of the Screw” shows the same.