The Blur of Reality and Imagination

The end of The Turn of the Screw comes abrupt, and almost disatisfying. Just when things seem most real, and most right, it turns out that everything is not as right as it would appear. This, I think, goes well with the ghost genre and type of narrative being told. Many ghost stories are left off with an ambiguous ending, or one that we don't find conclusive as we would like. The Governess confronts the ghosts, and in this direct confrontation, the entire episode feels much more firmly rooted within us. There is something about visualizations and directed dialouge that make the setting more real. But up to this point, it is hard to determine if the Governess is truly seeing ghosts or if she's losing herself to madness. I'm not saying that the Governess has lost it and this is all in her head. I just think that the shift in structure seems to be more based on reality at the end, only to end with the last paragraph stating, "I held him--it may be imagined with what was a passion; but at the end of a minute I began to feel what it truly was that I held." It is directly brought up that she "imagined" reminding us that there has been this issue of what is real and/or imagined throughout the story until this point. Endings are always important, and in a ghost story, they are especially important. I think the way this story ends tacitly brings this dicotamy back to light at its end, and leaves us in a supplication as to what is left as reality for the Governess.