How does Turn of the Screw present writers and writing?
When he wrote The Turn of the Screw, Henry James had just emerged from a mortifying experience as a playwright and returned to the novel form. He was defensive about the novel form being the most artistic type of writing and was cynical about popular forms such as plays. Perhaps because of this, The Turn of the Screw portrays writers as controlling and demonstrates that storytellers have the power to create reality. Mrs. Grose is unable to read or write and is therefore reliant upon the governess, who has power over the older woman because she is creating the story. The governess is well aware of this power. “I had made her a receptacle of lurid things, but there was an odd recognition of my superiority. . . in her patience under my pain. She offered her mind to my disclosures as, had I wished to mix a witch’s broth and proposed it with assurance, she would have held out a large clean saucepan” (60). Here, the governess has revealed that she knows she is pouring inappropriate ideas int
