The Turn of the Screw (1980)

Scene i: The Journey
Scene ii: The Welcome
Scene iii: The Letter
Scene iv: The Tower
Scene v: The Window
Scene vi: The Lesson
Scene vii: The Lake
Scene viii: At Night

The story is found in the diary of a young governess, and is told from her point of view The setting is Bly, a country house in England, to which she comes to take charge of two children, Miles and Flora. The Prologue tells how she was engaged by the children’s guardian, who left instructions that he was not to be bothered with any of their problems.

In Act I, the situation seems at first to be happy and tranquil. When a letter arrives from Miles’s school, announcing his expulsion, the Governess decides to say nothing about it, but to look after him herself at Bly Some time thereafter, she sees a strange man about the house- on a tower, by the window- and from her description of him, Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper, identifies him as Peter Quint, a former manservant who has recently died. According to Mrs. Grose, both Quint and Miss Jessel (the former Governess, also dead) exerted a bad influence over the children. The Governess, seeing Miss Jessel by the lake where she drowned herself, becomes convinced that the ghosts have returned to possess the children. She and Mrs. Grose thereupon become allies in the struggle to protect them. But the true menace is not clear until the Governess realizes that Miles and Flora are deceiving her with their songs and games. They already know of the ghosts’ presence.

Scene i: Colloquy and Soliloquy
Scene ii: The Bells
Scene iii: Miss Jessel
Scene iv: The Bedroom
Scene v: Quint
Scene vi: The Piano
Scene vii: Flora
Scene viii: Miles

At the beginning of Act II, Quint and Miss Jessel reveal themselves in the Governess’ dreams. She is now sure that the children are in touch with the ghosts, but cannot extract from either of them the confession she feels would save them. In horror at realizing that Miles knows as much as she does, or more, but unable to deal with the situation, the Governess decides to leave Bly Her impulse changes, however, when she sees Miss Jessel in the schoolroom, and she writes a letter imploying help from the children’s guardian. Miles’s dazzling display at the piano the next day gives his sister a chance to slip away to Miss Jessel. When Flora is discovered by the lake, and challenged to admit Miss Jessel’s presence, her outburst of hatred causes her to be removed to London with Mrs. Grose. In her dreams that night, she pours out her soul to the doubting housekeeper, who is thus at last convinced of the presence of the ghosts, and Miss Jessel’s influence is dispelled Left alone with Miles, the Governess forces him to confess that he has stolen her letter to the children’s guardian, but Quint reappears to do battle for the boy’s soul. With Miles’s cry, “Peter Quint, you devil!” the Governess achieves her aim, but at the moment of her triumph, the boy dies in her arms.