Literature · 2

What role does the unreliable narrator hold in Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw,' whose grip on sanity fuels the novella's central mystery?

Answer

Governess

The narrator is a young governess hired to care for two children at a remote estate; her perceptions of ghostly figures drive the story's unresolved ambiguity about her sanity.

💡 Did you know?

Henry James wrote 'The Turn of the Screw' so ambiguously that for over a century scholars debated whether the ghosts are real or the governess is mentally ill.

Other options people guess

  • Housekeeper
  • Butler
  • Village vicar

Topics

  • henry-james
  • gothic-fiction
  • unreliable-narrator
  • victorian-literature

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