General Resource

“A Closer Look at the ‘Turn of the Screw'” the Lamar University Critical Edition. Weebly.com, https://acloserlookattheturnofthescrew.weebly.com/

Research Essay 1

Is the Governess inventing the ghosts or is the reader to see them as real? (Known as the Apparitionist versus Non-Apparitionist Controversy)

Suggested length (1,500-2,500 words).

Resources:

• Parkinson, Edward J. “The Turn of the Screw” A History of Its Critical Interpretations
  1898 – 1979, 9 June 2010, http://www.turnofthescrew.com/

  Chapter 3 (and 4) will make excellent starting points for this topic. Parkinson provides invaluable discussion of the Apparitionist versus Non-Apparitionist debate.

• Sexton, James. “A Non-apparitionist reading of The Turn of Screw [PDF]”, 1976
• Siota, Raúl Valiño. “The Role of the Governess in The Turn of the Screw, [PDF]” Odisea nº 11: Revista de estudios ingleses 11, 2010, pp. 207-221
• Al-Qurani, Shonayfa Mohammed. “Hallucinations or Realities: The Ghosts in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.” Studies in Literature and Language, vol 6, no. 2, 2013, http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/sll/article/view/j.sll.1923156320130602.3255
• Heilman, Robert B. “The Freudian Reading of the Turn of the Screw.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 62, no. 7, 1947, pp. 433–445. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2909426.
  

  [JSTOR. Your B.C. college library provides free access. If you do not have library access to JSTOR, a read-only version can be accessed online free of charge. See JSTOR “register and read.”]

• Waldock, A. J. A. “Mr. Edmund Wilson and the Turn of the Screw.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 62, no. 5, 1947, pp. 331–334. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2908817.
• Silver, John. “A Note on the Freudian Reading of ‘The Turn of the Screw.’” American Literature, vol. 29, no. 2, 1957, pp. 207–211. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2922108.
• Mao, Weiqiang. “Give the Screw Another Turn—A Cultural Re-Reading of the Turn of the Screw.” (2010). DOI:10.4304/jltr.1.1.44-49

Research Essay 2

Compare and contrast any two of the following film adaptations of The Turn of the Screw, stating your preference and why.

(Suggested length) 1,500 words

Resources:

• “The Turn of the Screw (1974)” IMBD. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072328/
• “The Turn of the Screw (1999)” IMBD. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209440/
• “The Turn of the Screw (TV Movie, 2009)” IMBD. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1577883/
  • “The Turn of the Screw (2009)”  BBC One, 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pk76h
• Starting Point: After viewing your choice of the two videos, read Dennis Tredy’s detailed article (link below). It discusses Dan Curtis’s 1974 version in detail, see Part II of the essay. Unfortunately, he only gives a paragraph [45] to the Ben Bolt version and, of course, is silent about the 2009 version.
  • Tredy, Dennis., Shadows of Shadows – Techniques of Ambiguity in Three Film Adaptations of “The Turn of the Screw”: J. Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), D. Curtis’s The Turn of the Screw (1974), and A. Aloy’s Presence of Mind (1999), The Reception of Henry James in Text and Image, 2005, http://erea.revues.org/550

Research Essay 3

After consulting two or more good dictionaries of literary terms, such as Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms; Cuddon, J.A. Dictionary of Literary Terms; or A Handbook to Literature, Holman, Harmon, discuss why The Turn of the Screw is a good example of Gothic fiction.

Suggested length: 1,500 words.

Resources:

•  W.W. Norton and Company, “The Romantic Period – The Gothic Overview” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 2019, https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_2/welcome.htm
• Duperray, Max. “Déjà vu in The Turn of the Screw” Henry James’s Europe pp. 147-154, https://books.openedition.org/obp/826
• Kramer, Kyra., “Raising Veils and other Bold Acts: The Heroine’s Agency in Female Gothic Novels [PDF]” Studies in Gothic Fiction, vol. 1, no. 2, 2011, Pages 23-36. http://studiesingothicfiction.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/8/8/22885250/sgf_oct_10.pdf
• “The Gothic” The British Library, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/videos/the-gothic