So, I've been thinking about this a lot ever since you mentioned it, "Mina," but in chapter 20 it really hit me hard how very possible it is that our narrator is not really as trustworthy as we think...
There Flora and the narrator stand, along with Mrs. Grose, when Mrs. Jessel appears on the other side of the lake! At first the narrator is very happy to finally have proof--that Mrs. Grose has finally encountered the ghost, too... "Mrs. Grose's dazed blink across to where I pointed struck me as showing that she too at last saw..." (Chapter 20, p 197)
But then later: "My elder companion, the next moment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her own flushed face and her loud shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. 'What dreadful turn, to be sure, Miss! Where on earth do you see anything?'
"I could only grasp her more quickly yet, for even while she spoke the hideous plain presence stood undimmed and undaunted. It had already lasted a minute, and it lasted while I continued, seizing my colleague, quite thrusting her at it and presenting her to it, to insist with my pointing hand. 'You don't see her exactly as we see?--you mean to say you don't now--now? She's as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest woman, look!" (Chapter 20, p 198)
And then Mrs. Grose abandons her, and I'm assuming that the narrator, in her mind, must be mad! And perhaps she is...
Are, even in this fiction story by Henry James, ghost stories the product of an overactive imagination, the mind of a madwoman, the flutter of white draperies? I don't know yet, I haven't finished the story, but now I think that this might all be some trick in the narrator's mind...
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That is a possibility. It is very peculiar that Ms. Grose didn't see the ghost. The only thing that perplexes me is that the narrator knows exactly what miss jessel and mr. quint look like. If the narrator did in fact make up all that information, how would she know what the ghosts look like? Does she have a hidden past we don't know about? Does she know more about the family than let on? Another problem I see with the insanity theory is that the children play along. They too seem to see the ghosts. I was thinking that maybe the narrator had a gift that most adults do not have to see the ghosts, kind of like that kid in the Sixth Sense and she was sent to "save" the house from what ever horrors the children and ghosts entail. I'm not sure yet. I have to finish the novels first. It makes you wonder though.
ReplyDeleteWell... now that we've finished the novel...
ReplyDeleteI guess I could see that working. That she was SPECIAL so she could see the ghosts, even though adults usually have closed minds and can no longer see the supernatural... but still, the children never openly admit to seeing the ghosts, and if you really think about it, their strange behavior can be explained in other ways...
So... I don't know. You're right about her being able to describe Jessel and Quint... but how detailed where her descriptions? Did Mrs Groce just sort of help out in coming to the right conclusion and description? I know that with Jessel there was very little detail, because I remember being sceptical at the time.
Yeah. It makes more sense now. I wonder why they did act that way. Maybe it was to get their uncle to come to Bly. The only way he would is if they acted up. Didn't Miles say something to that effect somewhere?
ReplyDeleteBut yes, the more I think about it, the more that makes sense. Her visions of them were at first vague, then they became more in detail with the help of Mrs. Grose. And the children never did look right at the ghosts...
Yeah in Chapter 17...it says he wants his Uncle to come to Bly to settle things. Is it that he wants to get away from the narrator? To escape her? Do you think he and Flora picked up on the fact that she was a looney?
ReplyDeleteWell, and Miles expresses the want to spend time with other males. (Which is normal for a little boy, but still makes me snerk.) And I'm sure they did miss having their Uncle around, since he was the only staple of their life, the only true family member left.
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