Chapter 4 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Notes and Annotations

1. Chapter 4 The Turn of the Screw by Henry JamesNotes and Annotations • “Was there a “secret” at Bly---a mystery of Udolpho…” The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe, a ghost-novel in which the heroine is carried off to a lonely castle in the Apennines; the alternative describes the situation which confronts the governess heroine of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Regardless, the allusion lends itself to the governess’s interest in Romanticism.

2. Chapter 4 The Turn of the Screw by Henry JamesNotes and Annotations Romanticism: a movement in the arts that flourished in Europe and America throughout most of the 19th century. Romantic writers glorified nature and celebrated individuality. Their treatment of subject was emotional rather than rational, intuitive rather than analytic.

3. Chapter 4 The Turn of the Screw by Henry JamesNotes and Annotations • “They were like those cherubs of the anecdote who had---morally at any rate---nothing to whack!” • Once again, we see the governess compare the children to angels. How would this skew her view of children and essentially, childhood? How does her allusion to Romantic literature lend itself to a skewed POV?