THE MANY TURNS OF THE SCREW: THE INHERENT AMBIGUITY OF HENRY JAMES’S THE TURN OF THE SCREW
THE MANY TURNS OF THE SCREW: THE INHERENT AMBIGUITY OF HENRY JAMES’S THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Summary/Abstract: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898) is perceived as one of his most controversial pieces of literature due to the variety of critical readings that it has generated since its publication in 1898. Readings of the story range from treating it as a Gothic ghost story dealing with the age-old Manichean battle of good versus evil to psychoanalytical examination of its protagonist’s experience. This variety has led to later readings that instead of insisting on a single, straightforward interpretation, attempted to explore the inherent ambiguity of the text that has resulted in such diverse readings. Since this ambiguity could be attributed to James’s awareness of his readers’ experience of the novella, this study primarily approaches the text using Wolfgang Iser’s reader-oriented approach. In doing so, this research explores the way James’s narrative technique generates indeterminacy and affects the reading process in a way to resist any attempt at a fully coherent interpretation.

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