....Shortly after an awful opening night of one of his plays, James was invited to have tea with his friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury. During the visit, James and Edward White Benson, the Archbishop, had a discussion about ghosts. Benson told James a story about two young children left in the care of servants through the death of their parents. The servants are wicked and they corrupt the children to be as evil as the servants themselves are. After the servants die, they return to haunt the house and the children. The ghosts try to lure the children into their power. This, of course, is the basic plot of The Turn of the Screw (Beidler 12-13).
Some readers question whether James would have written a ghost story, but others point out that ghosts are sometimes the work of great literary minds. Shakespeare himself created ghosts in his plays. James was surrounded by interest in ghosts from an early age. His father was very interested in spirits and James' brother William actively researched the phenomena. During the time James wrote the novel, ghosts were being studied and discussed in both science and literature (Beidler 13-14).
Oscar Cargill holds the belief that James' The Turn of the Screw may have involved James' mentally disturbed sister, Alice. Cargill states that James could not have instantly used so rich a "germ" for a story because of affection for his sister. It remained planted in James' mind until James altered it so completely that no one could guess from where the idea had come. Most readers, of course, have no reason to believe that the story was meant as anything other than a ghost story -- until they look into James' past and discover his sister.
Alice James was prone to violent bursts of hysteria. James was with his sister through some of the worst years of her illness. Alice described James as caring for her as if he was caring for himself. James' love for his sister may have been the reason he made the governess the heroine of the tale. James noted things in Alice's journal, such as her curiosity for sexual anecdotes and the premarital chastity of her previous doctor. Alice also wrote that her companion, Kate Loring, was always coming around the turn of the stairs or from somewhere unexpected. These could be traced as the origins of the interest the governess has about Quint and Miss Jessel's premarital affair and the fact that the ghosts always appear on the stairs or somewhere unexpectedly (Cargill 160-163).
Cargill is quick to disregard the claim that the story is based on the narrative of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cargill describes James' entry of the narrative in his journal to be "scrappy" and stated that James never acknowledged the sources for his stories before. Cargill believes that James alludes to the Archbishop as the originator so as to protect Alice (Cargill 145-148).
Cargill also goes on to state that the children never admitted to seeing the ghosts. The governess is the only one who sees them. She then even lies and tells Mrs. Grose that Flora saw Ms. Jessel's ghost while they were at the lake, but, actually, Flora was busy playing and saw nothing. The governess tells Mrs. Grose not to ask Flora about it though because, she says, Flora will lie (152-153).
On the governess' second day at Bly, little Flora takes her on a tour showing the governess every room and telling her every secret about the place. This could have set the governess' imagination working and been the cause of the hallucinations.
Cargill also points out various times in the story that the governess shows signs of unstable behavior. First of all, she has four sleepless nights before going to Bly. According to Cargill, this makes her prone to fall for a master she has never met. Right up until the end she exhibits her infatuation by seeking a confession from Miles to make herself look better to the uncle. She doesn't send the children's letter or write her own about any troubles at Bly because she is afraid the master will look at the letters as a strategy to attract his attention. Her behavior towards the master she hardly knows borders on obsessive (153-155).
Another point Cargill makes is that, even if the Archbishop's anecdote was a source for James' story, it certainly wasn't the only source. James labels it "the private source." There possibly could have been other public sources, such as any printed material that was available to anyone. James once confessed to recalling many "intellectual echoes" he heard in creation of the story. In fact, he comments that they were so numerous that he couldn't begin to pick among them for reference. There is another possibility of direct influence -- that of Sigmund Freud.
Cargill claims that there is an even more important element in the creation of the story than Archbishop Benson's narrative -- Freud's "The Case of Miss Lucy R." Lucy R. was a governess who came to Freud for treatment. She suffered from depression and was "tormented by the subjective sensations of smell." Through Freud's account of Miss Lucy R., we see many similarities between her and the governess in The Turn of the Screw. First, Freud discovered that Miss Lucy R. had suffered a severe scolding from the father of the children because a man and a woman visitor had kissed his children on the lips. This could be in relation to the valet and the former governess in James' story (Cargill 152-157). Even if Henry James had not come across or read "The Case of Miss Lucy R." himself, it could have been brought to his attention by his brother, William, because of their sister's condition.
Cargill states that James' dependence on his personal knowledge of hysteria and on "The Case of Miss Lucy R." make it clear that there are no ghosts in the story and that the phantoms are creations of a hysterical mind -- only hallucinations (157)....
The fact that James' sister was sufffering from hysteria and probably read "The Case of Miss Lucy R." sets up a possible source and basis for James' story. It seems the best theory is that James used a wide variety of ideas and sources. It may have started out as a ghost story, but it seems to have quickly developed into something more. James probably took his knowledge about ghosts, his sister's condition and the invitation from Collier's Weekly and wrapped them into one wonderful story that we may never stop discussing.
Works Cited
Cargill, Oscar. "The Turn of the Screw and Alice James." The Turn of the Screw: Henry James. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 1966.