The question of truth in literature is a complex one. The first and most obvious point concerning this is the fact that no novel can be said to contain ‘truth’ as it is a text that has been created that (in general) has not, does not and will not exist. Although novels may contain elements of true situations no fictional novel can claim to be entirely true as it is a construct invented by an author. This means that the aim of most novelists is to produce work that will appear to the reader as lifelike as possible. As Rowe argues in his book on Henry James: ‘Literature’s appeal to its fictionality may be read as the subtlest of all ruses, because it so often transforms its fictionality into a claim for unique insight and understanding of reality’.[1]
The two novels I will be looking at when analysing this question, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James use different techniques to attempt to make the reader believe in the veracity of their stories.
In the case of The Turn of the Screw, a book Henry James himself described as a ‘rather shameless pot boiler’, it is ironically the ambiguity surrounding the reliability of the narrator that has kept the book in the public consciousness. James persistently keeps the reader in the dark about several key facts throughout the novel, even withholding the name of the main narrator, only known to the reader as ‘the governess’. In a novel concerning ‘the psychological rather than the actual’[2] it is a clever trick to require the audience to use their imagination throughout. In fact as Rowe argues ‘readers are implicit characters’[3] in James’ work, as they attempt to establish their own ‘truth’ concerning the text.
The governess is in fact the third narrator in the book, following the mysterious ‘I’ and ‘Douglas’. As readers, we have good reason to doubt all three. ‘I’ is telling us the story third hand and from memory – we do not know whether we can trust him or his memory. As for Douglas although he claims the story to be true he freely admits that he is adding another ‘turn of the screw’ to the ghost story competition he is having, leading us to believe in the possibility of exaggeration and falsehood in his account. Even if we are to believe in the veracity of Douglas’ story, because Douglas’ prologue is oral and based on his reconstruction of what the governess had ‘told’ him, his story remains unreliable. Equally ‘I’ makes the suspect claim that the narrative he gives the reader is ‘from an exact transcript of my own made much earlier’[4]
The most unreliable narrator of all is of course the governess. James subtly portrays her gradual breakdown leading to the final scene where her mental state is extremely questionable. This can be seen in the governess’ loss of poise and control over her prose; moving from the opening line of ‘I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong’[5] to the contentious final scene of the book where it is unclear whether Miles has been killed by the ghost of Quint or the governess:
They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion. ‘What does he matter now, my own? –what will he ever matter? I have you,’ I launched at the beast, ‘but he has lost you for ever!’ Then, for the demonstration of my work, ‘There, there!’ I said to Miles.[6]
The ambiguity of the final few pages, which end with the governess cradling the dead body of Miles in her arms, leave the reader to discern their own interpretation from the text. There can be no definitive answers as to what exactly has happened but ‘the suspicion remains… that it may be all a projection of the guilty conscience of the narrator, carried (by) her own sense of guilt and inadequacy to see evil and ambiguities everywhere’.[7] However, Rowe disagrees with any attempt to make a conclusive reading of the text, noting ‘critics will refuse the uncanniness of the text and insist upon substituting their own conclusive meanings at the very moment they should argue for the most radical literary ambiguity’.[8] There is not one correct reading of the work, especially considering that the entire story of the governess could be merely have come from the imagination of Douglas. Even when you discover that James saw his most famous work as ‘grossly and merely apparitional’[9] what he means by this- were the ghosts apparitions in the governess’ mind or was the story merely invented by Douglas or ‘I’? As one critic puts it, simply by reading The Turn of the Screw is to ‘enter (a)..labyrinth of mirrors, from which it is henceforth impossible to escape’[10].
In comparison with The Turn of the Screw, Mary Shelley’s narrators in Frankenstein appear far more trustworthy. However, as with The Turn of the Screw, Frankenstein is a ‘story within a story within a story’[11]; Walton’s sea journey, Frankenstein’s creation of his monster and the story of Felix and Safie, whose rejection of the monster turn him toward evil. Despite this, the veracity of Walton’s account (written in letters to his sister) is never called into account throughout the text and as such the question of unreliable narration is not the key issue concerning truth in Frankenstein. Instead the main question of ‘truth’ in Frankenstein, in my opinion, relates to the novels metaphorical role of questioning the exercising of power and responsibility, on both a personal and social level.
Frankenstein can be seen as a ‘novel of ideas’ – combining entertainment with an engagement of the social issues of the day. Over the years since publication, critics have shown that there are many possible readings of Frankenstein; ‘Gothic, political, biographical, religious, psychological, anti-male feminist, anti-Godwin and anti-Shelley’.[12] While these multiple interpretations often contradict one another or deal with only small sections of the book, it remains true that there are undoubted metaphorical elements to Frankenstein, but perhaps not the ones that critics wish to fit with their own personal ideologies.
As with The Turn of the Screw, in Frankenstein it is up to the reader alone to evaluate the validity of a character’s words and actions. It is possible to read the character of Frankenstein as either a melancholy tragic hero or as a self obsessed man bent on turning himself into a God, regardless of the consequences for those around him. This is something the Monster himself refers to, noting ‘I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed’[13]. It is interesting to compare and contrast the character of the Monster with that of its creator. While Frankenstein, right up to his death, remains unable to understand his accountability for the horrors occurring around him, the Monster fully assumes responsibility for his deeds. However, Shelley ultimately places the blame on the ‘civilised’ society that continually rejects the wretched monster, who tells his creator that ‘I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend’[14].
There is little doubt that the story of Frankenstein is Shelley’s reaction against her contemporary society. This can be ascertained simple from the subtitle of the book; The Modern Prometheus. While Prometheus’ actions involved redemptive suffering for the good of humanity, Frankenstein, ‘the modern Prometheus’, suffers not for humankind but for his own selfish errors (and even then he is resentful at his punishment). The Monster also reflects how Shelley saw her society as it evolves from instinctive goodness to learned evil, ‘mirroring a society based on fear’[15].
Many commentators see Frankenstein as a Christian parable, a simple moral tale that teaches us God should not be usurped. However, I am not sure this is correct. After all, Frankenstein did manage to create a creature that was initially both ‘benevolent and good’. It is only Frankenstein’s and society’s rejection of the creature that turns him into a monster. I believe that what Shelley is in fact saying is that humans can choose to use their power for good or evil, but must be prepared for the consequences if they choose the latter course. This message must have been particularly resonant in the 19th century, an age of great scientific advancement and figures such as Humphrey Davy and Charles Darwin.
Both of these novels go a long way in proving that the idea of ‘truth’ in literature is a slippery concept that is hugely dependant on each individual reader’s perspective. In The Turn of the Screw the question of truth relates to which character (if any) to believe, whilst in Frankenstein truth is associated with what you believe the moral of the novel to be. With both books, it is possible for readers to fit the texts around their personal ideologies. Indeed it is probable that they will do so, even if subconsciously. One of the reasons that both these texts have stayed in the public imagination for so long (and are likely to continue to do so) is due to the multiple potential interpretations of each text. This has kept both critics and readers returning to the novels hoping to find their own conclusive meanings to each text, where in fact it is more likely (certainly in the case of The Turn of the Screw) none actually definitively exist.
[1]John Carlos Rowe, The Theoretical Dimensions of Henry James, (London: Metheun and Co, 1984).
. p.125
[2] Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, (London: Penguin, 1994).
[3](Rowe, p.125)
[4] (James, p. 10)
[5] (James, p.14)
[6] (James, p.121)
[7] Henry James and the Experimental Novel. Sergio Perosa. p.83 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978).
[8](Rowe, p.129)
[9] (Perosa, p 133)
[10] Shoshana Felman, ‘Writing and Madness: (Literature/ Philosophy/ Psychoanalysis), Yale French Studies, pp55-56, (1977)
[11] Betty T. Bennett, Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley- An Introduction, p.31. (London: John Hopkins University Press, 1998).
[12](Bennett, p.30)
[13] Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, p. 77 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
[14] (Shelley, p.78)
[15] (Bennett, p. 38)
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