The Turn of the Screw: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

The governess begins to write her letter to the children’s uncle. She cannot write, so she visits Miles in his room, and after waiting outside to see if he is asleep, she hears him cheerfully say he knows she is there. Miles says that he had been lying awake thinking about their “queer business together.” When the governess asks what he’s referring to, Miles says the way she has been taking care of him, and “all the rest.” He wants to go back to school, while the governess wants desperately to help him.

The two discuss Miles’s school. The governess is concerned for him, and throughout the conversation she says how painful it is to see such an innocent boy suffer the kind of confusion she sees him suffering. She tells him she is concerned about him, and wonders why he never mentions his school. Miles says that he wants the governess to leave him alone, and that he would prefer it if his uncle came to Bly to settle everything.

Because she is so disturbed by Miles’s unwillingness to confide in her, the governess falls to her knees at the boy’s bedside and yells that she wants to “save” Miles. In response to her reaction, Miles shrieks, it is unclear to the governess whether he is laughing or afraid. Suddenly, the candle in Miles’s room goes out, and the governess is horrified, presumably thinking that there is a ghost in the room with them. When she cries out about the candle, Miles says that it was he who blew the light out.