James found it difficult to write by hand,[23] reserving that for his journals. The Turn of the Screw was dictated to his secretary, William MacAlpine, who took shorthand notes and returned with typed notes the following day. Finding such a delay frustrating, James purchased his own Remington typewriter and dictated directly to MacAlphine.[24][25] In December 1897, James wrote to his sister-in-law: "I have, at last, finished my little book."[26]
literary notes on turn of the screw
After the debate over the reality of the ghosts quietened in literary criticism, critics began to apply other theoretical frameworks to The Turn of the Screw. Marxist critics argued that the emphasis placed by academics on James' language distracted from class-based explorations of the text.[60] The children's uncle, who featured largely only in the psychoanalytic interpretations as an obsession of the governess, was regarded by some as symbolising a selfish upper-class. Heath Moon notes how he abandoned his orphaned niece, nephew, and their ancestral home to instead live in London as a bachelor.[61] Mrs Grose's distaste for the relationship between Quint and Miss Jessel was noted to be part of a Victorian dislike for relationships that were between different social classes.[62] The death of Miles and Flora's parents in India became a fixture of postcolonial explorations of the text, given the status of India as a British colony during James' lifetime.[63]
The Turn of the Screw begins on Christmas Eve during the 1890s, in an old house, where a group of men and women friends are gathered around a fireside telling ghost stories. When the book starts, somebody has just finished telling a particularly gruesome tale involving a ghost and a child. Later in the evening, a man named Douglas comments on this tale, saying that he agrees that since the tale involves a child, it magnifies the horrific effect, which he refers to as "another turn of the screw." He proposes to top this tale with a ghost story involving two children, but when pressed to do so, he says that he must read the tale from the account of the person who has experienced it and that the account is in a book in his home in the city.
Douglas is the person who reads the governess's tale to the narrator and the assembled guests at the Christmas party. In the introduction to the governess's tale, Douglas offers to tell a terrible tale that heightens the terror effect by "two turns" of the screw, since it tells about ghostly interactions with two children. Douglas is very cryptic about his relationship to the governess, saying only that she was ten years older than he was and that she was his sister's governess, which is when she told him her tale. Once Douglas starts telling the tale, it is told entirely from the governess's point of view, from the account that she wrote down for Douglas.
The governess herself hints at the possibility of madness at other points in the narrative. When she is describing the state that she is in after the first ghost sightings, when she is watching in "stifled suspense" for more ghostly occurrences, she notes that if this state had "continued too long," it could "have turned to something like madness." The governess faces a much longer dry spell, in which she sees no ghosts, during several weeks at the end of the summer and early autumn. Although she does not describe herself in "stifled suspense," she does say that one would think that the lack of ghosts would "have done something toward soothing my nerves," but it does not. If one uses this and other examples of the governess's nervous condition, the ghosts can be explained as hallucinations.
It is not her love for the master alone that creates the governess's hallucinations. The young woman's tendency for nervousness has already been noted. But she herself indicates that she might be drawn toward something more, under certain circumstances. At one point, while waiting in "stifled suspense" to see the ghosts again, she remarks that if this tense state were to continue for too long, it could turn "to something like madness." Is the governess mad, or does she just have an overactive imagination brought on by unreleased passion? The second case has already been addressed, but the story gives indication that the first may be true. When the children start prying into the governess's background, she notes that they try to dig out the "many particulars of the eccentric nature of my father." Depending upon the meaning James attaches to the word "eccentric," the governess could be saying that her father was insane. Goddard is much more certain of the father's condition. He says that she is "the daughter of a country parson, who, from his daughter's one allusion to him in her story, is of a psychically unbalanced nature; he may, indeed, even have been insane."
The Center for Teaching has a growing library of materials related to teaching, including books, videotapes, journals, and articles. These materials are available to any teacher at Vanderbilt; you may browse while in the library or check materials out. The library is located at the Center for Teaching, Calhoun 116. Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life . Jossey-Bass, 1998. Best described as an "itinerant teacher," Parker Palmer leads workshops and writes on the interconnections between teaching, social change, and spirituality. True to its title, The Courage to Teach focuses its attention on the "inner life" of the teacher, something which Palmer claims has been neglected in an age more concerned with tricks of the trade and products of the profession. Contrary to many prevailing winds that would blame teachers for a host of educational ills, Palmer claims that most attempts at educational reform have bypassed the central agents for meaningful change: teachers who give heart to their students. Written with conviction and elegance, Palmer's book is part motivational text, part spiritual autobiography. He writes, "I am a teacher at heart, and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy. When my students and I discover unchartered territory to explore, when the pathway out of a thicket opens up before us...then teaching is the finest work I know. But at other moments, the classroom is so lifeless or painful or confused-and I am so powerless to do anything about it-that my claim to be a teacher seems a transparent sham." Peppered with references to his own trials and struggles as a teacher, The Courage to Teach may strike some readers as self-indulgent. Glimpsed as a whole, however, the book has a clear purpose: to encourage teachers who have lost heart (and at times, this includes all of us) to recover the passion that brought them to the profession. By focusing on the "who" of teaching, rather than the "what" and "how," Palmer's work is a refreshing read and a compelling piece of pedagogical self-discovery. Janet Eyler, Dwight E. Giles, and Angela Schmiede, A Practitioner's Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning , Vanderbilt, 1996. Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles are professors at Peabody who are currently teaching a seminar on service-learning in higher education. Both have done extensive research on the theory and practice of service-learning. What makes their recent guidebook unique-and accessible--is its focus on student reflection. The purpose of their work is clear: "to draw upon student testimony of successful reflection and to translate their stories into practice." Interactive by design, A Practitioner's Guide can be used as teachers plan courses with a service-learning component, or in the middle of the semester as a means of assessing course design and content. Eyler and Giles encourage educators to get as much feedback from students as possible: the more time teachers provide for student reflection throughout the semester, the greater the benefits of service-learning. Chapters three and four are especially helpful in this regard, and offer several examples of reflective exercises. As a book that draws on actual student experiences of service-learning in practice, this guide is unparalleled. Jane Tompkins, A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned . Addison-Wesley, 1996. In this memoir, Tompkins maps out the experiences which have led her to see the shortcomings in our educational system, from grade school through university education. She argues that school should-but generally does not-teach us how to live as people and how to understand ourselves. "A holistic approach to education," she argues, "would recognize that a person must learn how to be with other people, how to love, how to take criticism, how to grieve, how to have fun, as well as how to add and subtract, multiply and divide. It would address the need for purpose and for connectedness to ourselves and one another." This is the approach she endorses and calls for. Tompkins addresses her background as a literary critic and professor of English at Duke University, which she calls "a tale of success shadowed by ignorance." Although she made great strides in her field, becoming a well-known figure, she explains that her work taught her very little about the things that really mattered. In her striving to achieve as much as possible in school and then in her career, she bought into a system that cares little for the individual human being. She then discusses the events that led her to a new perspective. Tompkins writes in a personal and impassioned tone. She has harsh criticism for academia, arguing, "The university has come to resemble an assembly line, a mode of production that it professes to disdain. Each professor gets to turn one little screw--his specialty--and the student comes to him to get that screw turned. Then on to the next. The integrating function is left entirely to the student.... It would be more helpful to students if, as a starting point, universities conceived education less as training for a career than as the introduction to a life." Her reflections also offer hope, however, and provide validation for the powerful role teachers can play in the lives of their students-and the profound impact students can have on their teachers. Barbara Jacoby and Associates, Service-Learning in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices . Jossey-Bass, 1996. This recent work offers an excellent introduction to the concept of service-learning: that higher education needs to focus not only on the life of the mind, but also on pressing human needs, offering a campus voice to the social problems of our day. Organized in the form of short essays, the book is designed as a resource for teachers unfamiliar with the idea of service-learning, and as a handbook for educators who want to implement service-learning in their own classrooms. Each essay concludes with a comprehensive bibliography, offering a wealth of current research and examples of service-learning in practice. The value of this book is that it combines the latest in theory with numerous concrete examples for implementing service-learning in course design, class activities, and extended immersion experiences (such as alternative spring break explorations). A further strength of the volume is an appendix that lists the addresses, phone numbers, and websites of national organizations that support service-learning. Teachers who consult this book will soon find out that they are not alone in building bridges between academe and the communities in which we live. 2ff7e9595c
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