Henry James was a sophisticated physiological realists as well as a gothic writer- challenges our sense of reality. 

Cultural context: Spriritualism, séances and spirit photography (taking pictures of ghosts with double exposures and doctored negatives) in Victorian society. 

Is James 'Screwing' with Victorian children, transgressing the innocence of Victorian children. The child was seen as an angel and of spiritual purity. 

Middle class children were predominately used in photography as opposed to lower class chimney sweeps etc. Lewis Carroll used nude/semi-nude photos of children to immortalize their angelic qualities. 

3 possible turns of the screw:

1. A drama of salvation; 

the governess battles the evil ghosts to save the children. The governess holding a dead child is a triumph?

2.Diary of a madwoman;

 challenges the notion of a ghost story, they exist in the governesses head. Supernatural to psychological. She's a young 'fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage'. She appears to enjoy gothic romances (The mysteries of udolpho, Jane Eyre).

Sexual Awakening and repression; 'the long glasses in which, for the first time, I could see myself from head to foot.'  A symbol of her innocence and lack of self awareness, virgin. The governess has erotic ambiguity, perhaps sexually repressed and projects her repressed desires through the ghosts. Perhaps she molested Miles whilst smothering him to death? 

The Climax: Mirrors and windows are a key image cluster. She forcefully presses Miles against the window. Erotic ambiguity in the relationship between Miles and the governess; they flirted and she often commented on his beautiful physical appearance.   

Miles: 

Why was he expelled? For saying things to 'boys he liked'. Suggesting the homosexuality of Miles, what can you possibly say to other boys (In a nice way) to be expelled as a result?

Parents of the children have died, then adopted by their grandparents who die, uncle doesn't want anything to do with them and hires a new governess.  

The child is evil; enanitodromia: the conversion of something to its opposite. The children begin by being angelic/pure/innocent and are now seen as evil? Children are seen as innocent as they are not yet fully encultured and are unsocialised.

3. Metafictional trap: 

A fiction about fiction (self-reflixive narrative). Everyone finds different things scary, so he only makes the 'readers general vision of evil intense enough'. We are not told what is evil so we must figure this out ourself, this often creates a scarier tale as we must fill in the blanks and come to our own conclusions.  

Labyrinth of mirrors: we are not reading the text, the text is reading us. What we see in the text is therefore a self-reflection.