Wow! This was a really excellent essay, and I've been thinking about it (and your previous one, on the Shining) on and off for days now.
I've never seen either of these two movies, but The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw are two of my all-time favorite stories, and from what you've written here, it sounds as if both of these film adaptations were pretty faithful to the originals.
One of the things that strikes me about both the Governess and Eleanor (going by their book incarnations here, of course, since I've not seen either movie) is that they're not only imaginative characters, but characters whose imaginations are unusually, hmmm...self-centered? I'm almost tempted to use the term 'narcissistic' here, or maybe even 'paranoiac.' It's not just that they fantasize a lot: they both do this very specific thing where they take things from the outside world and then imaginatively reconfigure those things to be all about themselves - or to be parts of the self-centered narratives they use their imaginations to create. They don't just imagine. They recycle, they coopt. In some ways, they deny the very existence of anything external to themselves.
I'm trying to think of examples of the sort of thing I mean here, but sadly, we're having some home construction done right now, and so most of my books are - the horror! the horror! - boxed up. So forgive me if my references are all going to have to be kind of vague.
You already mentioned the way that Eleanor recycles the stone lions she saw on the drive to Hill House to use as props in the fantasy she invents later on. I'm also thinking of this scene somewhere near the beginning of the book, where she's in a diner or a gas station or something, and she overhears someone talking about a child who would only drink from a particular cup. Eleanor immediately makes this snippet of overheard dialogue all about her. This is schizophrenic thinking, really. It's the way that paranoids think: they interpret everything in the world as being directly about themselves.
The Turn of the Screw is a far more ambiguous work than The Haunting of Hill House, of course, because...dude! It's Henry James! But I think that the Governess is shown as doing much the same thing: she also displays that type of self-centered, paranoiac imagination. Once she has decided for herself "what is really going on" with Flora and Miles, she interprets absolutely everything as "proof" of the narrative that she's already written in her head. If the children look to where she thinks the ghosts are, that's proof that they've been corrupted; but if they don't turn to look, then that's even more damning proof of their corruption...
Again, this is paranoid thinking, and in the end, like Eleanor's fantasies, most of it is directed towards self-aggrandizement. In the fantasy that the Governess has invented, she is the heroine of the piece. She is the one who is going to save the children, she is the ghosts' Nemesis, the ghosts know this and they oppose her accordingly... she's the central, shining figure of the narrative that she has chosen to internalize.
Or maybe I should say "the narrative that she has chosen to externalize?" Because I think that what makes the Governess and Eleanor both so dangerous (and the books so scary) isn't really so much that they fantasize. It's that the particular way that both characters use their imaginations is all about denying the existence of the external, about weakening the boundaries between their own inner lives and the objective reality of the things and people around them.
Part I
I've never seen either of these two movies, but The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw are two of my all-time favorite stories, and from what you've written here, it sounds as if both of these film adaptations were pretty faithful to the originals.
One of the things that strikes me about both the Governess and Eleanor (going by their book incarnations here, of course, since I've not seen either movie) is that they're not only imaginative characters, but characters whose imaginations are unusually, hmmm...self-centered? I'm almost tempted to use the term 'narcissistic' here, or maybe even 'paranoiac.' It's not just that they fantasize a lot: they both do this very specific thing where they take things from the outside world and then imaginatively reconfigure those things to be all about themselves - or to be parts of the self-centered narratives they use their imaginations to create. They don't just imagine. They recycle, they coopt. In some ways, they deny the very existence of anything external to themselves.
I'm trying to think of examples of the sort of thing I mean here, but sadly, we're having some home construction done right now, and so most of my books are - the horror! the horror! - boxed up. So forgive me if my references are all going to have to be kind of vague.
You already mentioned the way that Eleanor recycles the stone lions she saw on the drive to Hill House to use as props in the fantasy she invents later on. I'm also thinking of this scene somewhere near the beginning of the book, where she's in a diner or a gas station or something, and she overhears someone talking about a child who would only drink from a particular cup. Eleanor immediately makes this snippet of overheard dialogue all about her. This is schizophrenic thinking, really. It's the way that paranoids think: they interpret everything in the world as being directly about
themselves.
The Turn of the Screw is a far more ambiguous work than The Haunting of Hill House, of course, because...dude! It's Henry James! But I think that the Governess is shown as doing much the same thing: she also displays that type of self-centered, paranoiac imagination. Once she has decided for herself "what is really going on" with Flora and Miles, she interprets absolutely everything as "proof" of the narrative that she's already written in her head. If the children look to where she thinks the ghosts are, that's proof that they've been corrupted; but if they don't turn to look, then that's even more damning proof of their corruption...
Again, this is paranoid thinking, and in the end, like Eleanor's fantasies, most of it is directed towards self-aggrandizement. In the fantasy that the Governess has invented, she is the heroine of the piece. She is the one who is going to save the children, she is the ghosts' Nemesis, the ghosts know this and they oppose her accordingly... she's the central, shining figure of the narrative that she has chosen to internalize.
Or maybe I should say "the narrative that she has chosen to externalize?" Because I think that what makes the Governess and Eleanor both so dangerous (and the books so scary) isn't really so much that they fantasize. It's that the particular way that both characters use their imaginations is all about denying the existence of the external, about weakening the boundaries between their own inner lives and the objective reality of the things and people around them.
(cont.)