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Modernist Themes and Tropes in The Turn of the Screw - Coggle Diagram
Modernist Themes and Tropes in The Turn of the Screw
Narrative Ambiguity and Levels of Narration
E.G: Prologue of James' novella reader is told the story is in fact a letter written by the governess to a friend - Douglas - who then reads the letter to a group of his friends. This multilayered approach highlights the constructedness of the governess' story an the unrealistic/hysteric quality it has.
James uses these narrative levels to create distance from the governess’s account of the ghost story at the outset. With this technique, James draws attention to the interior psychological world of the governess, and it is left ambiguous whether the ghosts and sinister events of the story are actually real, or simply a figment of her imagination.
Hyper
text = every traceable reference and subsequent use of that idea across multiple textual forms. Hypertext theory helps to account for valid but unintended intertextual connections beyond the authors’ initial purview.
Hypo
text = origin of a thought or the furthest traceable recording of a thought. This is useful to trace the root cause, development, and intention of an idea.
Narrator is portrayed as unreliable and biased through the distillation of narrative info through multiple sources and layers of narration which generates hypo and hypertexts.
Narrative ambiguity is a common element of modernism, clear cut event and explanation are not given.
Literary Allusion and Intertextuality
Intertextuality = ways in which texts draw on, speak to and are part of the texts that come before and after them, common element of modernism.
E.G: governess mentions
Jane Eyre
directly in the text, as well as
The Mysterious Udalpho
.
In doing so, James leads the reader to equate the novella with others similar to it and perceive that perhaps the governess' experiences are realistic in nature.
Urban Alienation
Underlying disconnect between people and the city became a common theme in 1800s and 1900s literature.
Industrialisation brought on a great deal of migration from the countryside to the city and as a result, many texts from this time period explore the social changes that were brought on by this.
The disconnect between urban and rural as well as society's growing neglect for the traditional family structure became very prevalent themes in modernism, which displayed the negative impacts of industrialisation and the years leading up to WW1.
Miles and Flora are put in their uncle's care after the death of their parents, and he instead leaves them in the care of the governess in their countryside manor, Bly, and wishes not to be concerned with any issues from them while he is in the city. This illustrates the breakdown of the family unit and lack of connection between the rural and urban settings.
Loss and Despair
Tumultuous relationships with the past are a common theme in modernist texts as a result of the great socio-political changes that occurred within the period.
Many texts from this era (modernism) show the anxiety of losing track of stable truths, certainties, and the idea of their being self aware and objective.
Loss in the novella: Miles and Flora have lost their parents, the governess loses guidance and contact with the uncle, the ghosts are specteres of loss and hold an uneasy control over the children, children also suggest loss of innocence through their traumatic experiences.
Taboo Sexuality
James' novella suggests the sexual nature of the relationship between Jessel and Quint, and also suggests that Quint may have sexually assaulted others who lived at Bly - including the children.
These sorts of explorations of sexuality beyond the social norm of the time is typical of modernist literature.
Forbidden sexual desire (similar to that explored in Nabokov's
Lolita
) is used to push the boundaries of what was then considered acceptable literary material.