The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
I found that reputable writers write stories differently from novice writers. Gimmicks are void even though the plots sometimes were not so intriguing as to stand out. It’s true in Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier, so
is in this ghost novellas collection written by Henry James.
Both of the writers were not attracted to the ghost story stereotype. No screamers or contrived eerie background settings. Instead, their stories were largely extensions of everyday realty. And they are both good at fictionalizing events that were supposed to be normal and easy.
In Don’t Look Now, there were one couple traveling to Venice to ease off their
resentment for the newly loss of their daughter. The writer focused to depict the two strange elderly sisters one of which said to have presentiment. While the
husband suspected the intension of the sisters, the plot led to the seeming accidental serial killer news haunted in Venice. The story reached its summit when
the husband followed a childlike figure in the dark, who seemed to need help, but realized at the last moment that the figure was the serial killer. And it was
not a child but a dwarf woman.
In this Henry James’ ghost collection, take The Friends of the Friends for example. There was nothing eerie about the start or the middle of the story, except
there were coincidental phenomenons in light of the two named persons, though who were totally strange to each other. The woman and the man had the same temperament and interest; they even shared some common friends; about all, they both experienced to see the ghost of their parents just one day before they died. But somehow they never managed to know each other. Not until the woman died all of a
sudden. Now the woman became a ghost and come to meet the man every night, who
was absolutely obsessed with her.
The story ended like this: “He never married, any more than I’ve done. When six years later, in solitude and silence, I heard of his death…It was sudden, it
was never properly accounted for, it was surrounded by circumstances in which—for oh I took them to pieces!—I distinctly read an intention, the mark of his own hidden hand. It was the result of a long necessity, of an unquenchable desire.
To say exactly what I mean, it was a response to an irresistible call.”
I often wonder it was upon what that writers such as James Henry, and Daphne Du
Maurier could create such hair-raising ambiance with their narrative easy tone.
And it was not just ghost story. I remember when I watched the adapted film The
Great Gatsby, I was amazed the original great novel was based on such a weak love story. But I guess that were the manipulating power of the good writers. In their created worlds, the strange and sinister can be embroidered on the very type
of the normal and easy; and the heavy and unforgettable on the basis of the simple and ordinary.
Novellas collected in The Turn of the Screw:
1.Sir Edmund Orme2.Owen Wingrave3.The Friends of the Friends4.The turn of the screw
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