ABSTRACT
Henry james's celebrated ghost story The Turn of the Screw has by its ambiguities, at once fascinating and tantalizing, stimulated a considerable literature. Much of this output has heavily influenced the interpretation of the opera. In summarizing the interpretations of James's novella, contributors to the study of the opera in the Cambridge Opera Handbooks series usefully distinguish between the "first story" and the "second story." According to the first story, the ghosts are objectively real and represent a power of evil against which the Governess pits herself in order to save Miles and Flora. The second story, however, holds that the ghosts and the whole miasma of evil that pervades the narrative are projections emanating from a neurosis on the part of the Governess herself, based, perhaps, on a Freudian interpretation of her rejected love for the children's guardian.
