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Annabelle Miller-Turn of the Screw

Page history last edited by Annabelle Miller 4 years, 8 months ago

 

“He sprang to his feet again. “Yes-tomorrow. Now I must go to bed. Good Night.”And quickly catching up a candlestick, he left us slightly bewildered. From our end of the great brown hall, we heard his step on the stair; whereupon Mrs. Griffin spoke. “Well, if I don't know who she was in love with, I know who he was.” 

Pg. 3

(Q) Are we going to learn more about why he might have have been in love with her? Is the story going to reveal more about her personality or at least if she had a greater connection to Douglas that what we have learned so far? 

“The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant home, and there immediately appeared at the door, with a little girl in her hand, a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsey as if I had been the mistress or a distinguished visitor. I had received in Harley Street a narrower notion of the place, and that, as I recalled it, made me think the proprietor still more of a gentleman, suggested that what I was to enjoy might be something beyond his promise.”

Pg. 6

(C)This reminds me of a time I went to visit an uncle of mine, no one had told me he was wealthy so when I got to his house I was shocked to see how big his house was. I couldn’t believe that I was going to get to stay there for a few days and her reaction to Bly reminded of that. 

“We had then a young woman-a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; she took the children altogether for the interval. But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from the mast that she was dead.”

Pg. 13

(Q) Is this going to make the governess question if she should stay at the manor? Is she going to investigate what had happened to the woman that had died?

“Yes, I had the sharpest sense that during this transit he never took his eyes from me, and I can see at this moment the way his hand, as he went, passed from one of the crenelations to the next. He stopped at the other corner, but less long, and even as he turned away still markedly fixed me. He turned away; that was all I knew.”

Pg. 17

(P)This is going to spark the governess’s interest in the ghosts of Bly Manor. I think that they are going to continue to reveal themselves to the governess, maybe with the plan to cause her great distress. 

“Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world-the strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work-for I was something or other that could sit-on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond and in this position, I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. 

Pg.28

(E) With the appearance of another ghost, I think that the author is trying to hint to the audience about who the master of the house was. Earlier the Ghost of Peter was someone who worked there but ended up dying, just like Lady Jessel. So by the appearance of another ghost, I feel like the author is trying to tell us that they died at the hands of their master. 

“Yes, indeed-and if he was a fiend at school! How, how, how? Well,” I said in my torment, “you must put it to me again, but I shall not be able to tell you for some days. Only, put it to me again!” I cried in a way that made my friend stare.”There are directions in which I must not for the present let myself go.” Meanwhile, I returned to her first example-the one to which she had just previously referred-of to the boy’s happy capacity for an occasional slip.”If Quint-on your remonstrance at the time you speak of-was a base menial, one of the things Miles said to you, I find myself guessing, was that you were another.” Again her admission was so adequate that I continued: “And you forgave him that?”

Pg. 36

(CL)So the governess is trying to investigate the deaths of the woman and Quint. She is also trying to learn more about their lives as humans. I think this passage here is saying that Jessel and Quint had inappropriate relations with the children when they were still alive. 

“He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly to assent. “How otherwise should I have been bad enough?” he asked. Then, after another embrace, the incident and our interview closed on mu recognition of all the reserves of goodness that, for his joke, he had been able to draw upon.”

Pg. 46

(Q) I don’t exactly understand why they were trying to prank the governess. Were they trying to hide interactions with the ghosts or throw the governess off of their trail? Or were they simply trying to mess with her?

“What, under my endless obsession, I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. His voice tinkled out.”I say, you there-come in.” It was gaiety in the gloom. 

Pg. 61

(E)Miles at this point is trying to throw the governess off of the trail. I think he is trying to keep tabs on the governess and try to learn about what she knows. 

“Little Flora? Not so bad but that she’ll presently be better. London will set her up. Bly had ceased to agree with her. Come here and take your mutton.”

Pg. 79

(P)The theory that Flora has been possessed by Lady Jessel was already presented in the text, so I think that if she was the only reason she fell “ill” was so that the governess would leave Flora alone about the matter. 

“But he had already jerked straight round, stared, glared again, and seen but the quiet day. With the stroke of the loss I was so proud of he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss, and the grasp with which I recovered him might have been that of catching him in his fall. I caught him, yes, I held him-it may be imagined with what a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held.We were alone with the quiet day, and his little heart, dispossessed, has stopped.”

Pg. 87

(Q)How did Miles die??

 

 

Comments (4)

Sharon Murchie said

at 10:32 am on Aug 7, 2019

"How did Miles die?" Did the governess kill him by suffocation? Or, was he truly possessed and died when the spirit of Quint left him?

20clopez@... said

at 7:39 pm on Aug 11, 2019

I like how in the 5th quote you thought that the author was foreshadowing how they died. I didn't really understand this book the best, so I feel like this clears up that maybe the individuals died at the hands of someone else, if that makes sense

Annabelle Miller said

at 5:16 pm on Aug 14, 2019

Ms. Murchie-I truly don't understand how Miles died, part of me thinks he was actually dead for quite some time and the only thing keeping him alive was the spirit of peter and when peter left him Miles's body finally gave in.
Carla-I am not sure if that is actually how they died but I am glad that my thoughts on the matter were able to help you understand the book better.

Tyler Wargo said

at 10:11 pm on Aug 15, 2019

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who was puzzled about the ending! This ending was even more startling than the season finale of 'Game of Thrones'.

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