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Cranfill suggests that the governess' major motivation for her hallucinations
can be found quite clearly in her own words. She is seeking to draw the
Master's attention to her, to make him love her. She subconsciously creates
horrors that she must save the children from, making herself a heroine to gain
the affection and appreciation of the Master. As Katherine Porter writes, "No
force has ever acted through either a saint or an evil person that wasn't
directed to further the ends and the ambitions and the hopes of the person,
which makes me feel that the instrument [governess] is not altogether so
innocent and so helpless . . . the governess had her positive motive . . . she
was in love with the master" (Qtd. In Cranfill and Clark 48). However, her
extreme insecurity is visible even in her unwillingness to contact him about
the problems at Bly. She repeatedly sacrifices the safety of the children,
and the requests of Mrs. Grose, to her infatuation. She greatly fears that
the Master will ridicule her interpretation of events or worse still, ignore
her "heroic efforts" on behalf of the children. She tells Mrs. Grose she can
foresee "his derision, his bemusement, his contempt for the breakdown of my
resignation at being left alone and for the fine machinery I had set in motion
to attract his attention to my slighted charms" (Cranfill and Clark 47).
Notice her reference to her "slighted charms, " a phrase which is almost
frightening in its clarity of the governess' view of the Master's treatment
of her.
When Flora turns against the governess, her main concern is Flora's
opportunity "of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me out to him the
lowest creature . . ." (Cranfill and Clark 124). There are two implications
to this statement. First, how could Flora make the governess look bad to the
uncle? By telling him the truth, that she is insane? And second, the
governess' concern seems only for how the Master will look at her, not at how
the children feel. When finally Mrs. Grose begs the governess to send for the
Master to come and take the children away, she refuses. She disregards the
safety of the children because she "doesn't want to worry him" (James 371).
Obviously, no credit can be placed in the governess' statement that her first
thought is always of the children (Cranfill and Clark 48). She is merely
using the children to clear a road to the Master.
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The Flying Porqupine
