Speaking Horrors: Fantasy, Gender, and Race in Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

Through the use of supernatural elements, Henry James and Toni Morrison present a challenge for their characters to overcome in The Turn of the Screw and Song of Solomon, respectively. When the characters succeed, they develop their own autonomous identities at the narratives' conclusions. In contrast to the supernatural world, real-world circumstances like rigid gender norms in James's novella and race-based marginalization in Morrison's novel oppress the characters, making it difficult for them to self-define. In The Turn of the Screw, for example, James's use of the fantastic creates a chain of events forcing the governess to both confront and combat the ghosts to protect herself and the children. Yet, the governess enacts more than a good versus evil trope; rather, by confronting the ghosts, she confronts her own powerlessness in a gendered world. In Song of Solomon, African American history is an entity embodied in the ghost of a man murdered by white racists. By positioning African American history as alive, Morrison subverts the white dominant culture's repeated subordination of black history and identity as she allows the Dead family to define themselves on their own terms. Although not originally intended by the two authors, the pairing of their works presents the unique opportunity to understand the fantastic's role in exploring marginalization and historical trauma. Because both authors utilize the supernatural world for similar reasons, comparing their works makes possible an understanding of the fantastic as a tool meant to first explore cultural loss and marginalization before repairing it. It is in this repair that James's sympathy for the plight of women and Morrison's championing of African-American history and culture emerge in the two works.