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If you’ve read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and still you’re asking, “What the heck is this book about?” don’t worry, you’re not alone. The 60second Recap sheds some light on the novel’s ambiguity—next.

Video Transcription:

So you’ve read The Turn of the Screw from cover to cover. You’ve even watched all the Recaps. And still you’re wondering: What is this book about? Here’s a hint.

The Turn of the Screw revels in ambiguity. Nothing is stated directly. And even our main character—the governess—is pretty ambiguous. Is she the one sane person in the house, or is she completely crazy?

No wonder it’s so hard to get at the meaning of this story. It’s like Henry James is always holding it just out of your reach—because you don’t know whom to trust, or exactly what to believe.

But actually, James’s tactic of not-stating-things-directly may lead you to the meaning. Because I think what this story is really about is repression. It’s about what happens when you keep things to yourself.

Remember from Recap 3 that Victorian Society kept talk about sex to itself—and became haunted by it.

And couldn’t you say the same for the governess? She keeps her feelings about Flora and Miles’s uncle bottled up … and what happens? Besides her inappropriate emotional responses to the children, she may very well end up seeing things—and going mad.

In sum, consider The Turn of the Screw a cautionary tale about what happens when we keep things bottled up: They either haunt us until we go crazy, or until we deal with them directly.