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10 J. Forensic Psychiatry & Psych. 1 (1999)

handle is hein.journals/jnlofncpy10 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITORIALS The Turn of the Screw: Is child protection the issue? MARK JONES This piece arose in response to a commission for some dramaturgical ideas and programme notes for Benjamin Britten's opera based on Henry James's novella of The Turn ofthe Screw, recently staged afresh at the Theatre Royale de la Monnaie, Brussels. What struck me most about Britten's opera of 1954 is its ambiguous treatment of childhood sexuality. James's novel was pub- lished in 1895. It was closely followed by Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and - more significantly - by his three essays on The Theory of Sexuality (1905), which dealt for the first time with how children experi- ence and understand sexual maturation both physically and mentally. The present-day anxiety surrounding child sexuality is such that I doubt whether Freud's research could today be repeated. James implies a potency in child- hood sexuality and what is chilling in his novel is the adults' increasing hys- teria concerning the corruption by ghosts of children in care. It is implied, but by no means made clear in James's story, that the children are haunted and possessed by two deceased former employees of a distant guardian who (as the effective narrative starts) engages a new, young governess to undertake their charge. The 'ghosts' of the former manservant (Peter Quint) and governess (Miss Jessel) had been involved with each other and with the children (Miles and Flora) in unspecified ways, and, observed and partly influenced by the house- keeper Mrs Grose, a struggle ensues between the new governess and the ghosts for possession of these children: a struggle of mounting intensity and distress. At the time of the staging of the piece in Brussels, paedophilia was hugely ISSN 0958-5184 The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry Vol 10 No 1 April 1999 1-4 © Routledge 1999