In The History of Sexuality1 Foucault asserts that the Victorian era, notwithstanding its

repressive exterior, was in fact responsible for the mass proliferation of sexual discourse; through
its emphasis on confessions of the flesh, the child became required to name his or her sin,
thereby destabilizing the myth that sexuality was something to be hidden. In this essay, I first
analyze sections of The History of Sexuality, and then, building upon said analysis, I argue that
the governess within James The Turn of the Screw functions as an allegorical representation of
the Victorian call to confession.
Throughout the academic scholarship surrounding The Turn of the Screw, one is met with what
seems to be a thoroughly agreed upon sentiment, namely that the governess is seeking to repress
the sexuality of the children: Thusthe governess's physiognomical imprinting, like her sense
of sexual evil, is a part of her characterization as an upright and idealistic person, but one with
dangerously unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality.2 Another exemplary quotation:

Attributing children a definite characteristic, like innocence, allowed Victorians to

entertain a fantasy of protection, which was essential in a world of such rapid change.
However, by associating children with innocence, adults were simultaneously identifying
their children as others beings different than them and hence unknowable, even fearful.
Children, in other words, were protected but still at risk. As others, childrens

1 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, New York: Vintage.

Sexual Hysteria, Physiognomical Bogeymen, and the Ghosts in The Turn of the ScrewStanley
Renner, Oakland, California: University of California Press, 194.
2

innocence made them urchins: little imps, scary in their mysterious embodiment of
purity.3
However, as I have previously stated, the governess erratic (some would say insane) behavior
stemmed not from some urgent need to silence outcroppings of dissidence within a highly
ordered society. Instead, her madness is emblematic of a time and place in which subjects were
urged to name their sins. This is not to deny the fact that Victorian England widely condemned
sexuality, but rather to shift the focus from a temporal analysis (in which the critic notes the
differences between passing periods) to a spatial analysis (in which the critic is concerned with
defining the parameters of discursive spaces any given subject is allowed to occupy.) In short,
our focus in this essay will not be on Victorian Englands repression of childrens sexuality;
instead, we concern ourselves with the ways in which The Turn of the Screw illuminates certain
mechanisms responsible for the creation/maintenance of spaces present within Victorian
England.
In the section of his entitled The Repression Hypothesis, Foucault states that, despite
its prudish trappings, the Victorian era was the site of the multiplication of discourses in the
field of exercise of power itself: an institutional incitement to speak about [sexuality], and to do
so more and more; a determination on the part of the agencies of power to hear it spoken about,
and to cause it to speak through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail.4 In other
3 Jenn McCollum, The Romance of Henry Jamess Female Pedophile, MP: A Feminist

Journal, Vol. 3, Issue 1, 42.

4 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1, New York: Vintage, 19.

words, although there was an authorized vocabulary and/or situations in which one could
speak about sex, the speaking itself was mandatory, in that one had to confess his or her sexual
activities (unless these activates were committed within a monogamous marriage.) Thus, the rise
of the homosexual, the chronic masturbator, and the pedophile as we understand them now, that
is as psychoanalytic subjects whose deviations from the norm can be understood to illuminate
some deeper truths about society. And according to Foucault, sexual deviations among children
were subject to the same psychoanalytic framework: The child was not to be simply the mute
and unconscious object of attentions prearranged between adults only; a certain reasonable,
limited, canonical, and truthful discourse on sex was prescribed for him.5 The discursive space
assigned to the child is that of the innocent and asexual angel, and therefore the repression
hypothesis may hold some merit; children must be protected from the world of sex, the world
of sin and moral atrocities. But what if I child were to (through some unfortunate incident)
come into contact with this world? It is then that the second mechanism of Victorian culture
kicks into place; the subject must, confess; this confession then allows for the child to be
normalized, in that normalization cannot be attempted until the deviation from the norm is fully
realized, i.e. the child must publicly admit the transgression of the limit(s) of his or her
discursive space.

5 Ibid., 29.

It is this realization and re-normalization that the governess within The Turn of the Screw
seeks for Miles and Flora. Her reaction to the knowledge that Flora could have potentially seen
the ghost of Miss Jessel is evidence of this: They knowits too monstrous: they know, they
knowall that we know.6 The what the children know is deliberately ambiguous, but this just
further highlights Victorian cultures obsession with categorization; the childrens transgression
may not have been sexual, but they still transgressed some limit (or at least thats what were led
to believe), and therefore for the rest of the novel the governess busies herself with getting the
children to confess. And it is important that this confession is not forced out of Miles and Flora,
because within the psychoanalytic discourse we had previously discussed, the analyzed must
realize that he or she has transgressed the limits of the norm through a process of self-realization,
i.e. they analyzed must realize their wrong doing on their own, separate from any sort of outside
influence. A parallel can be drawn to traditional Catholicism, in which the sinner realizes he has
sinned, which then prompts the guilty ritual of confession. In fact, the priest is really only the
passive spectator in front of which the sinner begins (out of guilt) the process of his own renormalization; it is not the priest (nor God) the sinner fears, but the realization that he has
reached a limit, and then passed this limit. The governess, in essence, is taking on the role of the
catholic priest, and it is perhaps the childrens insistence on not acknowledging this role which
drives her to the point of madness: No, nothere are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the
6 Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, London: Dover Thrift Editions, 29.

more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I dont know what I dont seewhat I
dont fear!7 Unable to find out why the children she was entrusted, therefore unable to perform
the work shes been ordered to perform by society, the governess goes mad. And thus our
rejection of the repression hypothesis opens up another field of analysis in which madness isnt
understood as mental illness, but rather a (forced or unforced) rejection of work. This then, of
course, forces the question: as a society, was Victorian society (through the maintenance of these
various discursive spaces) responsible for the madness of its mad subjects? And what about
contemporary society? Do we not also create the mad, only to then punish them under the guise
of ethical medical practices?
In this essay, I first analyzed utilized sections of The History of Sexuality to refute the
claim that Victorian Society silenced all mention of sexuality, and then I argued that the
governess within James The Turn of the Screw functions as representation of the Victorian
emphasis on confession.

7 Ibid., 74.