I think in that moment it serves a narrative purpose. It serves a structural purpose of setting you up for one thing and then giving you another. I think there are plenty of times where it really is, it's just long-winded and is not a way that we speak anymore or write anymore. So yeah, I don't know that it is necessarily always serving a purpose. I think it's just how James is writing. There's a spot later where she kind of talks about this truth, she talks about truth a lot. The truth of either the evil that is trying to inhabit these children or the truth of whatever went on with miles which I'll get back to in a second
What makes a good ghost story? If you said creepy children, gothic architecture, and unreliable narrators, then Henry James has you covered The Turn of the Screw.
This week Andrew mangles words, Craig gets lost in James' Victorian prose, and the two solve the mystery surrounding the ghosts of Bly.
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