“If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw”: performativity during childhood in Henry James’s 'The Turn of the Screw'

Abstract

This paper aims at conducting a queer analysis of the figures of children in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and of their role in the story’s effect, in order to suggest a new possible interpretation of the novella and to explore the theme of performativity during childhood. Following Carmen Dell’Aversano’s proposal for a method of queer hermeneutics of literary texts, the paper problematizes some aspects of childhood as a social category, as it is represented in James’s text; it focuses on the concept of innocence and its implications, by linking it to Michael Billig’s idea of repression as a discursive practice that is learned since childhood; and, through these considerations, it addresses a crucial critical issue of the novella – the protagonists’ ambiguous obsession with the ghosts’ influence on her pupils, so severe that it possibly leads one of them to his death.