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Windows in The Turn of the Screw are in two instances the invisible boundary separating the governess from the ghost of Peter Quint. It is no coincidence that these encounters happen at windows. The story is, at least in part, about boundaries that—like windows—at once divide and connect people to each other. This is especially true of the governess’s relationship with the children. The governess often discusses her feeling that the children deliberately withhold their inner feelings and personal histories from her, so their reticence prevents her ability to access the children. But she clearly believes that her encounters with the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel, and the awareness she develops of the children’s relationship with the two, give her what she considers to be privileged access to the children’s histories and feelings. Nobody else ever confesses to seeing the ghosts, and the conclusions the governess draws about the children’s relationships with them remain unverified, so these encounters with the ghosts function like windows, or like boundaries that at once connect the governess to, and divide the governess from, the children.
Windows Quotes in The Turn of the Screw
The The Turn of the Screw quotes below all refer to the symbol of Windows. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
There were shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him.
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Chapter 10
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You were looking for me out of the window?" I said. "You thought I might be walking in the grounds?"
"Well, you know, I thought someone was"—she never blanched as she smiled out that at me.
Oh, how I looked at her now! "And did you see anyone?"
"Ah, NO!" she returned, almost with the full privilege of childish inconsequence, resentfully, though with a long sweetness in her little drawl of the negative.
At that moment, in the state of my nerves, I absolutely believed she lied…
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Chapter 23
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This inference grew in a few minutes to sharp intensity and seemed bound up with the direct perception that it was positively he who was. The frames and squares of the great window were a kind of image, for him, of a kind of failure. I felt that I saw him, at any rate, shut in or shut out. He was admirable, but not comfortable: I took it in with a throb of hope. Wasn't he looking, through the haunted pane, for something he couldn't see?
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Get the entire The Turn of the Screw LitChart as a printable PDF.
Windows Symbol Timeline in The Turn of the Screw
The timeline below shows where the symbol Windows appears in The Turn of the Screw. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 4
...While in the room where she went to retrieve her gloves, she sees through the window the man, staring “deep and hard” into her eyes. She runs outside to see if...
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Chapter 10
...when she rushes to her bed to search for her, Flora emerges from behind the window’s blind. The governess, now upset, asks why she had hidden there. Flora replies that she...
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...had been blown out. She notices that Flora left her bed to look out the window again, and she assumes the girl blew out the light. The governess says she now...
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Chapter 23
...had once seen Quint, the governess sits on the couch, and Miles stares out the window. The governess has a revelation: she claims that Miles is looking longingly out the window...
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Chapter 24
...the letter she’d meant to have sent to his uncle, she notices through the room’s window the face of Quint, staring threateningly into the room. The governess reacts to this with...
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