作られる幽霊譚 : The Turn of the Screwにおける欲望の視線

概要

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This essay shows that Henry James's The Turn of the Screw can be read as a ghost story in terms of the process of its reading. First, this novella is a ghost story in that the chief narrator, the governess in the main story, demonizes or, rather, makes herself an apparition haunting the victim-children. While she desires to protect them from the malicious spectres, she unconsciously repeats the process of posession (haunting/having the children) in the same way as the ghosts once did; her attempt to protect them ultimately turns out to be the act of putting herself on the ghosts' places. Becoming thus another ghost, the goversness proves her own story a process of making of a ghost story. At the same time, however, the reader him-/herself becomes a ghost through the process of reading of the governess's narrative. While reading the story, the reader transfers his/her desire to "possess" the true meaning of the ghosts through the governess's gaze and thus occupies the same position i.e., the point of view as the governess has in the narrative. In this sense, The Turn of the Screw makes the reader another ghost. This novella is thus a ghost story whose process of reading produces the effect of ghastry beings as the "effect" of desiring that.
1999-03-01