![]() While James’ novella skillfully embodies the important virtues of a well-received story-reflected in the first line of the narrative, “The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless” (James 22)-he demonstrates a uniquely deliberate control over what he has written, a conspicuous ownership over the characters he created and the stories they tell. This helps to create a parable replete with suspense, a quality of many well-crafted stories. In The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, the characters withhold much of their interior lives from both one another and from the reader. Above shows a mocking cartoon of Charles Darwin as an ape, demonstrating the difficulty that people who believed in the story of the Bible had in understanding his theory of evolution-a new story entirely. ![]() ![]() James's deliberate obscuring of a definitive reliable narrator parallels the lack of certitude with which people of the 19th century could believe the contradicting stories that science and religion tell. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |