“Ghostly Ambiguity: Presuppositional Constructions in "The Turn of the Screw"

Description

The “Ghostly Ambiguity: Presuppositional Constructions in The Turn of the Screw” is an essay and it was written by two American literary critics: Helen Aristar Dry and Susan Kucinkas. This essay was initially published in 1991 in the 25^th issue of the academic journal of Style. The Journal of Style which mostly addresses questions of style, and publishes critiques in language, literature, and humanities belongs to the Penn State University, Pennsylvania, United States. The essay features “presuppositional constructions” (p. 73) as the quality of language to discuss the ghostly ambiguity in The Turn of the Screw. 

Summary

Dry and Kucinkas’s essay begins by making the position that narration in The Turn of the Screw is not only working to show the mod but it tends to be a subject itself. The writers mention the emphatic ambiguity highlighted by various critiques. The essay suggests that, in order to resolve the text ambiguity, “it's grounding in human sign systems” (p. 72) need to be examined. For that purpose, the authors underline the importance of language related to other behaviours and emphasise that the capability and validity of the governess as the narrator should be measured not only by the presented information but also through “the eccentricity of the discourse raises metalinguistic questions” (p. 72). The authors argue that the narration happens through “presuppositional constructions [which] introduce information into a discourse "as though" it were already known” (p. 74), therefore, underpins a “mutual assumption” (p. 73), between the narrator and the reader. 

The essay argues based on the foundation of presuppositional constructions and its implication of extracting “the "brand-new" information” (p. 77). The essay separates a passage of the story into several parentheses and shows that each of them outlines an “external action” (p. 78). For instance, the authors point out the sentence of ‘what arrested me’ from the story and argue that this expression functions as a “cleft sentence” (p. 79), in the way that it leads the reader to assume that the narrator is arrested by something, and the reader only needs to find out what that arrester is. Therefore, the information given through such sentence not only moves the plot forward but also provides an “assertion” (p. 80) about the governess's inner life. The essay concludes that presuppositional constructions in this story lead an equivocal situation of ambiguity through either depicting “the ghosts as assumed, not asserted” (p. 83) or by applying the eccentricities in the process of cooperation between teller and hearer. 

Evaluation
The analysis made by Dry and Kucinkas is important as it goes beyond the conventional discussions of the ambiguity in The Turn of the Screw, which mostly emphasised either the real existence of ghosts or merely considered it as a figment of the governess. This essay has responded to the primary text through disclosing the exploitation of linguistic resources and finds out that the “ambiguity derives from a feature of James’s syntax” (p. 83). The essay is relevant to the topic as it argues that the presuppositional constructions lead to depict the governess's inner life through a system of indirect discourse and thus cause ambiguity. 

Reference 
Dry, Helen Aristar., and Susan Kucinkas. “Ghostly Ambiguity: Presuppositional Constructions in "The Turn of the Screw".” In Style25, no. 1 (1991): 71-88. Accessed September 5, 2017. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/stable/42945884. 

Annotated Bibliography

“Imperialism at Home: Race and Victorian Women’s Fiction”

Meyer’s overarching claim is that the novel Wuthering Heights criticises the British imperialism. She highlights the oppressive aspects of British society in the nineteenth-century observed by Emily Bronte, and that her novel suggests the retaliation of those who have been oppressed. Meyer argues that Bronte delightedly releases Heathcliff's potentials of confrontation, which gradually turn the previous oppressed as the new oppressor and through this depicts reverse colonization.

The article highlights racial differences in relation to the slave trade and ownership. In the early incident when Heathcliff and Catherine were caught in Thrushcross Grange the Lintons treat Heathcliff as the acquisition of Mr. Earnshaw. Meyer argues that the Lintons are egotistical towards Heathcliff but meanwhile, find him fearful because of his dark skin. Meyer notes that this “reductive and predictive reading of physiognomy,” (p.100), by the British to govern ‘dark races’ is being satirized by Bronte.

By mentioning the other critics who noted Wuthering Heights as having “threatening power” (p. 101), Meyer highlights that the unbearable cruelty of British society not only led to revolt, but it also provoked those subjugated to practice the same oppressive approaches of capitalism.  

The author confirms that economic injustice is an essential issue to the novel, nevertheless, she posits that under the British imperialism the economic injustice is imposed on the "dark races" rather than on the class system. The author justifies that Heathcliff never tried to make an alliance with the other working people and his progress from a state of extreme poverty to one of great wealth emphasises “the values of capitalism”, (p.102).  

The author claims that according to Wuthering Heights not only dark races but the white women are also subject to the cruelty of British imperialism.  Meyer states that Heathcliff and Catherine are being deprived in many ways. The oppressive mainstream society marginalises Heathcliff, causing him to have an incomplete identity as he has no surname. Likewise, Catherine is alienated and suffers from an unstable identity as she gets different surnames in Wuthering Heights and in Thrushcross Grange.

Mentioning the historical subjugations enforced by British imperialism on China and India, Meyer argues that Nelly’s earlier imagination about Heathcliff’s parentage of a Chinese emperor and an Indian queen is a restoration of history.  This imaginary scene implies that oppression may lead those subjugated countries to unite together and turn to retaliate the oppressive British. Furthermore, the assumption that Heathcliff having been in the army is associating with another colonial uprising in North America because his absence coincides with the Revolutionary War. As the “political anxieties about loss of empire”, (p.115) was one of the major issues of the time, Meyer argues that Bronte subtly connects Heathcliff to various rebellions around the world against the British imperialism. 

Meyer argues that Wuthering Heights is not an impressively feminist novel, and neither does it merely narrate women’s disempowerment under British imperialism. She finally asserts that this the novel is an instance of “complex transformations of the metaphor linking gender and race,” (p.125), in the literary work of British female writers in the nineteenth century.

Reference

Meyer, Susan. “‘Your Father was Emperor of China, and Your Mother an Indian Queen’: Reverse Imperialism in Wuthering Heights.” In Imperialism at Home: Race and Victorian Women’s Fiction, 96–125. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.