Henry James's novel, The Turn of the Screw, features a plot that can be interpreted in several ways depending on how the reader wishes to interpret it. Many readers believe that the housekeeper is really seeing the ghosts of Peter Quint and his mistress, as well as the former housekeeper, Mrs. Jessel. However, another group of readers and critics believe that the governess is obsessed with the children and their former governess to the point of driving her to mental insanity, leading her to hallucinate. In my opinion, I think the housekeeper may have seen the ghosts of Peter Quint and Mrs. Jessel, but the circumstances may not have been as extreme as she made them out to be. Considering that the housekeeper had never met Quint and Jessel when they were alive, it is almost impossible that she would have seen their ghosts without knowing what they looked like. However, I believe seeing the apparitions slowly drove the new governess into madness as her mind was consumed with theories that the ghosts were trying to corrupt the children and perhaps even herself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayWhen the new housekeeper began her job working with two children, Flora and Miles, she seemed to be in a healthy state of mind, eager to begin working on the Bly estate. Nonetheless, in the first few days that the housekeeper had worked with Flora, she had experienced events that most people would consider strange. He began seeing a ghost-like man, who he later discovered was the ghost of Peter Quint, a former valet of Bly. The governess discovers that Flora's brother Miles has been permanently dismissed from school for unknown reasons. He tried to make sense of the situation as everyone in the Bly estate believed that Miles was a well-behaved and well-mannered young man. As time passed, the housekeeper also began to see the ghost of the previous housekeeper, Mrs. Jessel. He began to believe that his children were communicating with ghosts, almost like a sort of possession. When Flora suddenly becomes ill, she speaks to Mrs. Grose, a maid at Bly. He uses language that shocks Mrs. Grose as she has no idea where he could have learned that language. « 'From that child... horrors! There!' he sighed with tragic relief. «On my honor, miss, he says some things...! But at this evocation he fell; he dropped with a sudden cry onto my sofa” (109). Considering the amount of time Mrs. Grose has spent with the children, which is much longer than that of the governess, she still finds it extremely out of character for Flora to behave this way. This shows that there is something that drives the children to behave this way, qualifying the governess's theory that the children are conspiring with ghosts. The other interpretation of the story's plot is that the housekeeper is mentally ill, which is the belief I have come to accept. When the Governess first arrives at Bly, she shows no signs of instability as her stability seems to progress in a downward spiral during her time there. As she begins to learn more about the previous housekeeper, Mrs. Jessel, and her lover, Peter Quint, she begins to become obsessed with their story. The more he thought about it, the more he developed his theory that the children were conspiring with the two ghosts. "But even if they pretend to get lost in their fairy tale, they are immersed in the vision of the dead that is returned to them."... "they talk about themselves - they talk about horrors!" (69). The governess explains to Mrs. Grose that the children have deceived everyone in Bly, creating the facade of well-behaved and.