Seeing the Governess with a Discerning Eye: Psychology and Delusion in The Turn of the Screw Anonymous 11th Grade

Henry James digs deep into the nuances of insanity and prompts the reader to see his protagonist’s madness with a “discerning Eye” in his novella The Turn of the Screw. Insanity, though shunned and often feared by the world, must be attempted to be understood so that the mentally ill can best be helped. Throughout the novella, the reader is confronted with intimations of the governess’s already, but still deteriorating mind. In light of the governess’s madness, the reader can understand why she acted the way she did.

Given that the governess is insane, the reader must recognize that she truly thought she was seeing the ghosts. Delusion can be defined as “an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder,” (oxforddictionaries.com) but the Webster’s New World Dictionary simply defines it as “a false belief, specifically one that persists psychotically” (“delusion”). The first definition describes delusion as having the possibility of being true. Thus, it is only called a delusion because it strays from what is normally accepted. The second definition, though, bluntly defines delusion as...