A Governess Stepping Beyond Her Boundaries
The role of the governess in both Louisa Alcott’s Behind a Mask and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw poignantly evinces that there is – if spared – no limit to what an ambitious young woman who is determined to overturn her menial and impoverished circumstances can accomplish via assuming and impersonating roles beyond her boundaries. The prevailing social dogmas of the Victorian age which repress governesses’ sexuality engender psychogenic imbalance in them to engross in erotic fancies – a perverse energy that contaminate and destabilize the members of the master’s home. Consequently, if the restrictions and boundaries of a governess as a teacher are not strictly imposed upon from that of other female roles (such as a mother, sister, or a lover), and if the supervision (a female authority in a household) over her conduct is discounted, then, it lures her to assume any or all available roles as long as they are deemed to enhance and accelerate her contrivance: thereby empowering her to afflict those being used and shaped by her ominous influence – especially the innocent ones, the children.
The Governesses of the Victorian era must bear the weight of her sexual symbolism that generally disagrees with the mistress of the house for she poses as a possible temptation to the master and his sons – a destabilizing force to the family she enters. The fact that she must be young, single, and without a suitor inserts a subtle tension, mainly in between the two women: the lady of the household and the governess. It is interesting to note that the governesses from both novellas are not subject to any notable surveillance from female authorities of their employment: one, because she is invalid; the other, because she is dead.
The governess of Bly, on the very first day of her arrival, radiates with joy as she beholds the view of her new residence where she “would be in supreme authority” (5): “The scene had a greatness that made it a different affair from my own scant home…and…appeared…a little girl [and] a civil person who dropped me as decent a curtsy as if I had been the mistress” (7). Had the governess been subjected to controlling presence from the mistress above her, then, an unguarded field ready for harvest (a home without a female authority) to afford her to satiate her secular hunger would have been just a wistful dream. “And then there was consideration – and consideration was sweet” (14). “I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one. (19). A governess, a foreign force, who often comes from an impoverished background, given the chance, can and would rake up whatever she can gather, from the trimmings to the innermost structure of her master’s home, the remedies for her sufferings.
From A Woman’s Power, Jean, as a governess, enjoys an ample amount of flexibility and freedom in her position because the husbandless Mrs. Coventry does not perceive Jean to be a threatening force to her marriage. Instead, she welcomes Jean as a soothing companion who is well qualified as an assistant to her diminished motherhood due to illness. Moreover, had Lucia’s mother (Mrs. Beaufort) been living, she, probably being the closest influence to Mrs. Coventry, and thus her status being next to the highest female authority, would have hampered Jean’s seductive conduct over Gerald out of maternal instinct to protect her daughter. “’Hang Miss Beaufort!’ exclaimed Coventry, with such energy that Jean broke into a musical laugh” (60). Miss Lucia Beaufort, without the title of a ladyship, though hurt and discomfited, lacks the clout over Jean – and even though her rank is higher – is unable to effectively guard her fiancé, Mr. Coventry, from slipping away from her into the arms of a “witch” (86) wearing an angelic mask. Evidently, a weak or an absence of a female authority in the household enables Jean to presume multiple roles that are beyond her boundaries yet unoccupied in the house to fortify her stratagem – the reapings of her extraordinary talents, “the art of devil” (97) to ultimately become the Lady Coventry.
A governess of a Victorian age is at a peculiar position in a household – her rank is below the master but higher than that of the servants; therefore, her rights and merits are often ambiguously in between the upper and lower class, permitting room for manipulations. Trusting that horses can keep a secret, Jean vocally reveals her true attitude toward her authority: “’I see,’ she said aloud, laughing to herself. ‘I am not your master, and you rebel. Nevertheless, I’ll conquer you, my fine brute” (15). Clearly, her success and influence as a governess are highly dependent upon her abilities: scholastic and artistic proficiencies are essential, but more significantly, her psychological skills – the ability to grasp the character and analyze the needs of each member of the household and to adapt accordingly – are more pivotal, the art that is most celebrated and abused by Jean. She ostentatiously outsells her role as a governess (as a sister to Bella, brother to Ned, lover to Gerald, and as a companion to Mrs. Coventry and Sir John) to appease everyone above her, but consummately, to bring gratification and exaltation to herself by elevating to the ultimate crown as a Lady Coventry. Undeniably, Jean is the veteran of her industry and a distinguished winner over the other governess (from The Turn of the Screw) for the latter fails to materialize her ambitions while Jean succeeds in maneuvering and harvesting the most out of her peculiar rank and position.
However, to simply denounce that the governess of Bly is less adroit would be a hasty conclusion for the better part of her failure is a resultant of her insatiable sexual fantasies born by social taboos that are put on the governesses of the Victorian age – their stigmatized youthful sexualities. Her (the governess of Bly) place of employment, “the house in Harley Street” (4) inflates her bosom with “unmentionable” (17) possibilities. “She conceived him as rich… saw him all in a glow of high fashion, of good looks, of expensive habits” and, most importantly, “of charming ways with women” (4). All the endeavors of this “youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson…at the age of twenty” are geared toward gaining a good impression from the master who is “a bachelor in the prime of life” (4). The governess, who deems her own refection from the mirror as “the extraordinary charm of…small charge” (7), wants to partake of the forbidden fruit (a love affair with the master) – though she knows that would be stepping beyond her boundaries. This covert obsession – her melodramatic psyche that is repressed – gradually rots her innocence, drives her to madness (sees ghosts that others don’t see), and leads her to kill the symbolic figure of her infatuation, Miles, the heir of the unreachable master – a tragedy that could have been prevented, had the societies of the Victorian era been less prudish in the carnal nature of humans.
Although the role of a governess as a teacher should ideally embody nurturing qualities, the kind of nurturing it strives to emulate can never come close to standing parallel to that of a true loving mother. For a limited time, governess of the Bly succeeds as a nurturer of her pupils because she puts on a deceptive cloak that is designed to charm and tame her subjects – to whom she attaches her psychosexual circuits. “This was not so good a thing, I admit…essentially…my charming work…my life with Miles and Flora” (18). Her initial success as a nurturer cannot be sustained because she fails to overtake and withstand the awesome role of a true nurturer, the mother, because her heart cannot biologically connect with the real needs of the children. Instead, her biological chemistries with that of her students (Miles and Flora) and other family members (Mrs. Grose) are perverse arousals of erotic fancies, harboring grave threats to the minds of their victims, the innocent children. “Oh, it was a trap – not designed, but deep – to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard” (14). Succinctly, it is perilous to permit a twenty year-old governess, who is superfluous with sensuality to assume the great nurturing role of a mother for her students.
The two authors, Henry James and Louisa Alcott, by writing their stories that deal with the influence and power of a governess, warn the readers of the harmful effects a governess can exert over the members of her master’s family, especially her pupils – the future adults whose minds would be permanently marked by her! Such stories help raise the awareness of social issues surrounding the governesses, a sexually problematic figure for the upper class. Furthermore, both novellas help address the issues of delegation of powers and responsibilities: They teach us that it is crucial for the appointees (governesses) to receive close attention and supervision from the master (particularly, a female authority) over her work; otherwise, the relentless desire in them to unshackle the yoke that bonds them to persistent – sexual and financial – repressions can readily be converted into a forceful charge that destabilizes the place of their employment, a home of an aristocratic society. Any healthy institution functions under a prime principle of “checks and balances.” A home is a smaller, yet indisputably the most important institution and a unit that builds nations. Just as any well-managed clubs, companies, and governments employ strategies of “checks and balances” and “punishment and reward,” an avaricious governess with sensual charm who is devoid of authoritative attention and supervision is bound to abuse her power and bedazzle her way up the top to satisfy her yearning for improvements – a life of an aristocrat which she has the knowledge of but can never possess.
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