Reading the Desire of the Governess in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw
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This article will attempt at understanding James’s stance and critique on desire displayed in The Turn of the Screw (1898) through textual and Lacanian analysis. I argue that the governess’s desire and her relationship with the children and the ghosts can be explained by employing the famous Lacanian maxim that "man’s desire is the desire of the Other"(S11, 235). The insecure governess attempts to discover the secret of the children who seem superior to her in all aspects in order to become desired by them. However, the children are unresponsive and do not tell her what they desire, which subsequently triggers her fantasy. Because the governess is anxious to find out about the secret, she assumes that the children would yearn for the same obsession that she desires. Her obsession becomes apparent through her reading of the ghosts that are the embodiment of both the governess’s insecurities. From a Lacanian perspective, these ghosts can be read as the governess’s interpretive creations that she projects onto the children as their desire. In the end, the governess’s truth-quest directs us not to any real truth but to her truth. What we can gather from the governess’s account is only that her reality is selected and shaped by her desire. Just like the ghosts that cannot be proven, the secret of the children remains ghostly and ungraspable.
Abstract
This article will attempt at understanding James’s stance and critique on desire displayed in The Turn of the Screw (1898) through textual and Lacanian analysis. I argue that the governess’s desire and her relationship with the children and the ghosts can be explained by employing the famous Lacanian maxim that "man’s desire is the desire of the Other"(S11, 235). The insecure governess attempts to discover the secret of the children who seem superior to her in all aspects in order to become desired by them. However, the children are unresponsive and do not tell her what they desire, which subsequently triggers her fantasy. Because the governess is anxious to find out about the secret, she assumes that the children would yearn for the same obsession that she desires. Her obsession becomes apparent through her reading of the ghosts that are the embodiment of both the governess’s insecurities. From a Lacanian perspective, these ghosts can be read as the governess’s interpretive creations that she projects onto the children as their desire. In the end, the governess’s truth-quest directs us not to any real truth but to her truth. What we can gather from the governess’s account is only that her reality is selected and shaped by her desire. Just like the ghosts that cannot be proven, the secret of the children remains ghostly and ungraspable.
참고문헌 (26)
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