Control and Ambiguity

Frankly, the end of the novella was a little surprising with the sudden death of Miles and the abrupt finish to the text, with no real return to even the frame story as we have gotten in some of the other texts we have read. Although this could just have something to do with the ghost story genre in which James is writing, I think that it could have more to do with the idea of control and the lack of it that has been had throughout the story. Even as readers we have been at the mercy of the very reliable, or very unreliable, governess for our information about the ghosts and children, and she too has been throughout the story wrestling for control as we talked of in class, control of the children from the ghosts that she sees as continuing to work their “evil” on them in death as they had in life. However, we never truly gain possession of any real answers to any of the major questions that the book and characters pose, leaving us to only make broad inferences on scarce clues that we do have, leaving the reader in the weird predicament of being both fully in the hands of James as the story comes to a close, as well as fully in control of coming to our own conclusion in determining what truly happened.  The theme of ambiguity that persists within the story then extends far past the ending, however for some odd reason I still expected some sort of solid resolve, something concrete beyond just a sort of "the horror, the horror", but it only continues to add layers to the story, inviting to read and re-read and reinterpreted in a never ending battle for control.