Opener Note

So, this kind of goes along with the last brief post I made. On the inside of the cover it says the following on James and the novel:

"The American Novelist and short story writer, younger brother of William James, lived in England for the greater part of his last forty years. The "Turn of the Screw" (1898) is on e of the most celebrated ghost stories of all time, is an excellent example of his narrative skills...[about] who is to be believed, who is to be trusted what is actually occurring?"

There is some more, but it is of little importance. So anyway, I thought this was great to get a little bit of background on the author. Especially that he is the sibling of William James! As Christina you know, he was hailed in our psy. book as the creator of being a tabula rasa- or blank slate. This theory holds that when we are born we know very little and that knowledge and what we see ourselves as arises from experience and observation. He also in the1870's developed the first psychology lab in the U.S at Harvard and developed the approach called functionalism- this is the idea that our consciousness is what helps us to make decisions, solve problems, etc. He felt that this experience changes for every person and how we view and process the world is unique to each of us, and how we adapt to the world around us. So why did I waste all that time and nerdiness being excited about that? A psychological approach to horror. I never even thought of it in that way before. I thought the author simply understood a deeper part of the human nature, but now I'm seeing that maybe they are just using psy. tricks on us. Que intersante, i love it! Anyway, it'll be super important for me to keep the James' in mind and see how that unfolds.

And finally, the last bit, i talked about this a little bit before in my earlier posts on the turn of the screw. "who can be trusted? what is actually occurring?" how can one begin to predict the story, which we all do, to relieve some of our fear, by thinking we know what to expect, if the people in the story don't even understand what's going on?! I think I'm starting to see why this book is acclaimed as one of the best horrors. It takes on the human nature in a completely different spin, in that it takes the idea of ultimate helplessness to the next level. yAH, I'm geekishly excited for this now. :)