『나사의 조임』과 읽기 전략

Abstract

Henry James was a prolific writer of many full-length novels. It is, however, an interesting phenomenon that his novella, The Turn of the Screw, outshines almost all his novels, attracting many readers and inviting diverse kinds of interpretations. One of the reasons why this novella has been so popular with readers is that it has remained "a chameleon text," and "indeed, The Turn of the Screw has probably been discussed more than any other modern story," as Booth pointed out. When it was fist published in 1898, it was generally interpreted as a gothic story of ghosts. In those days the existence of ghosts was believed by the general populace. As time went by, and the general public no longer believed the existence of supernatural beings, different kinds of approaches have been applied in reading this story. One of the main currents of interpretation of this story would be that of Jungian reading. According to Jung, a fully matured individual would have achieved individuation by transcending the binary opposition of good and evil. The governess of this story has yet to achieve individuation, as a product of strict Vidorian patriarchal family education. The ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, therefore, could be the projections of her own shadows. We may also conjecture that James would have a homosexual orientation, and that his sexual orientation may have been a factor in making the descriptions in the story so ambiguous.