Governess as Ghostwriter: Unauthorized Authority and Uncanny Authorship in Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw"

Abstract

This essay reads "The Turn of the Screw" to show Henry James's turn-of-the-century vision of the author as a ghost-like discourse-producer whose textual proprietorship is acknowledged by his/her absent presence in the circulation and consumption of a text. The governess in the novella represents this Jamesian author figure by means of her self-transformation from ghostwriter, a writer who creates the text for the names of her para/textual superiors, to ghost writer, a ghost who authors the text. The essay concludes by suggesting the Jamesian author figure/ghost writer as a critique of, and alternative to, the Foucauldian notion of fin-de-siècle authorship based on the author-function.