Research Paper on:
The Narrator's Role in The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
characters and events as accurate, then the story is believable. Henry James was acutely aware of this, and structured his classic 1898 tale, The Turn of the Screw, with  calculated ambivalence. It can be interpreted in two distinct ways, depending upon the readers viewpoint, as either an entertainingly realistic ghost story, or as a compelling character study of  a narrator suffering the progressive effects of an emotional breakdown. The story itself is deceptively simple - as told by the governess/narrator - is deceptively simple. She is  summoned to the country estate of Bly to serve as a governess for a two young orphaned children, who were under the guardianship of their uncle, the precocious Miles and  the impressionably "angelic" (300) Flora. Over the course of her tenure at the estate, the governess becomes increasingly convinced that the house is haunted and that her young charges  are becoming possessed by evil spirits. The novel purposely begins as a typical ghost story. The setting described by the narrator is appropriately Gothic, somber and seemingly  a perfect place for secrets (and people) to be buried. The circumstances are murky - the bachelor lord of the manor is almost always away on business, and the  only permanent residents, in addition to the governess and the children is the stern and sullen housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, until Miles is permanently  expelled from school for an inexplicable reason. While, on the surface, everything appears to be fine, while out for a lone walk, the narrator reveals that she observed a  mysterious stranger staring at her. This was not her first acquaintance with the man, but in this instance, she notes with "certitude that it was not for me he