(In)compatible Interpretations? Contesting Readings of The Turn of the Screw

Abstract

(In)compatible Interpretations? Contesting Readings of The Turn of the Screw Willie van Peer and Ewout van der Knaap 1. Introduction The small community of listeners gathered around the fire in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw expect to hear a real ghost story, 1 and with them we modern readers can share the same horizon of expectations—if we want to. It is not only the very text itself that makes the reader think in terms of a ghost story; in a real linguistic sense, 2 it is the reader who is free to deal with the “‘pure fantastic’ mode” 3 of one of the most ambiguous texts of all times. Theoretically, texts allow an indefinite number of meanings. The ambiguity in The Turn of the Screw turns out to be not only at the narrative level, but also at the level of discourse, both being “inextricably interrelated.”4 On the other hand, interpreting literary works (and maybe artworks in general), appears to be affected by claims of truth and by attitudes exclusive of other interpretations. Roman Jakobson already made it clear in 1921 that artists tend to break the barriers of convention. In interpreting an artwork we are undertaking a similar process. After a period of becoming accustomed to the work, and after having been immersed in the traditional ways of looking at it, we feel the urge to ‘really look’ at it again as a work of art: our need for aesthetic experiences makes the process of defamiliarization5 perpetual. In practice this process is not without conflicts between ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives.’ In the case of James’s story it is hardly possible to discuss the work [End Page 692] without at the same time highlighting the ongoing debate between the opposite camps. The oldest one claims that The Turn of the Screw is nothing else but a ghost story. The name Edmund Wilson has become associated with notions of a careless reading for the defenders of this interpretation, ever since his 1938 essay tried to establish that the work should be read in a Freudian way. 6 It is interesting to observe that today’s critics are still guided by their loyalty to one of these two views. Even when interpretations like that of Felman (1977), denouncing the Freudian reading as a one-dimensional frame, try to overcome the dichotomy, no solution is offered for the problem of how to fit the older interpretation into the new view. Following the apparent deadlock in the debate, Freundlieb (1984) has called for “an entire paradigm shift—away from the practice of interpretation towards an explanatory analysis of the processes of understanding” (p. 81). Since according to him “interpretive statements have no truth value” (p. 83) and hence are “neither true nor false but nevertheless plausible or acceptable” (p. 82) his proposal can only be carried out by juxtaposing the results of the processes of text-comprehension. This could, for example, start from a confrontation of two conflicting groups 7 of interpretation: an analysis of the claims and arguments of a group G (various people claiming that The Turn of the Screw is a ghost story) and of a group F (those claiming that the work requires a Freudian reading). The moment for such an analysis may have come, since the sheer number of arguments (on either side) has accumulated to such extent that a systematic analysis of them may yield interesting results. In what follows, the arguments of each group will be studied and a comparison of their respective weights be made. A letter code will be used for main claims and an accompanying number for the arguments themselves. Our analysis will concentrate on the question of whether the arguments are (in)compatible. 2. Claims and Arguments Interpretation G is straightforward in its claim that The Turn of the Screw is a ghost story. The defense of this interpretation makes use of the following arguments: G1: James’s story fits into the literary tradition of the ghost story genre and its conventions.8 [End Page 693] G2: Defenders claim to know that James wrote out of an interest in the supernatural, 9 and reason...