The Turn of the Screw

Reading Check

1. “[T]o win the child into the sense of knowing me” (Chapter 1)

2. So the governess would see him and think he was “bad” (Chapter 11)

3. The ghost of Miss Jessel sitting at the governess’s desk (Chapter 15)

4. She says to the governess, “I don’t like you” and then asks Mrs. Grose to “take [her] away.” (Chapter 20)

5. Demons (Chapter 21)

Short Answer

1. Douglas provides background to the governess’s manuscript prior to reading out loud: As a young woman, she applies for a job as a governess at a house to take care of two children who are recently orphaned. The children’s uncle hires her under the circumstances that he should not be disturbed about their upbringing, and she has full control over them. Despite her unsteady feeling, she agrees to the terms. (Prologue)

2. The governess receives a letter that Miles had been expelled from school, prompting the governess to ask Mrs. Grose about the child’s behavior. She is immediately defensive of him, and she later alludes to the fact that “he” likes governesses who are young and pretty. (Chapter 2)

3. During a garden stroll, the governess sees a figure of an unknown man in the distance, who after discussing his appearance with Mrs. Grose, learns that he is an apparition of the former Valet Peter Quint. The governess sees him again, as well as the apparition of the former governess Miss Jessel. She believes that both apparitions are seeking the children. (Chapters 3-7)

4. After nights of seeing the apparition throughout the house, and finally seeing the children out of their beds, the governess tells Mrs. Grose she believes that Peter Quint and Mis Jessel “want to get” the children. Mrs. Grose suggests that she ask the children’s uncle to visit the property so she can explain the circumstances; however, she resolutely declines, and she makes an oath that if Mrs. Grose writes for him to come, she would “would leave, on the spot…” (Chapters 8-12)

5. The governess concocts a plan where Mrs. Grose will take Flora away from Bly so she can be alone with Miles and he can finally admit to the presence of the apparitions. Miles admits that the reason he was expelled was for saying things at school. At that moment, the governess sees Peter Quint’s ghost at the window; she says that Miles is free from Quint, and in that moment Miles dies. (Chapters 22-24)