Ambiguity: What may or may not have happened in "Gingerbread", "Normal Again", and The Turn of The Screw

In The Turn of the Screw as well as the two Buffy episodes "Gingerbread" and "Normal Again", aspects of realism and fantastical Gothic elements are intertwined. Nicole talked about the real world in the two Buffy episodes as being scarier than the normal Buffyverse that the audience is used to, and I would like to sort of agree and sort of expand on that. I think that these two episodes are scarier than an average Buffy episode, and I agree that the scariness is due to the presence of "the real world" or storylines that are much closer to reality than the normal vampires and monsters are. (Normal for Buffy, that is.) But I think that it's the ambiguity as to what comes from the real world and what comes from the Gothic ghoulies that makes both episodes, as well as The Turn of the Screw, really creepy.

In my opinion, The Turn of the Screw is scarier than either Buffy episode. This is because the ambiguity is never resolved - we never really find out what's up with the ghosts, exactly how Miles dies, why Flora turns into an old woman, or what made Mrs. Grose start murdering everyone in sight. (I'm seriously a fan of this explanation. I plan on rereading this story in search for evidence supporting it. But I digress.) Ultimately, the reader comes away chilled because he or she doesn't know whether or not the ghosts exist.

"Normal Again" is the second most disturbing, because again we as an audience are not given an answer as to whether or not the entirety of Sunnydale is a figment of Buffy's imagination. However, because this is a TV series and the mental ward is never really brought up again, the audience can kind of forget about that mildly disturbing possibility that we're watching a show about a girl's delusions. I would argue, however, that if we knew definitively that Buffy is crazy, this episode would be far less disturbing - it's just a sad story about a mental patient. But because we don't know either way, it's disturbing both when Buffy ties up her friends to kill them (which wouldn't be upsetting if we knew that she's definitely crazy, emotional attachments to the characters aside), and when Buffy re-enters her coma (which wouldn't be upsetting if we knew for sure that the whole mental patient thing was due to the gross demon poison). If you could follow that sentence, what I'm trying to say is that the ambiguity is what freaks us out - we don't know which side to cheer for.

Similarly, in "Gingerbread", the moments where we don't know for sure what's going on are the most unsettling. The end where it turns out that the entire mob was pretty much driven by the influence of an evil demon reassures us and is extremely relieving - it almost feels like a letdown because all of the tension due to not knowing goes away. For awhile in the beginning and middle of the episode, it seems like Joyce is just acting a little bit strangely because she found two dead children. When it is revealed that the dead children are talking to Joyce, another layer of ambiguity is added. For one thing, the way the children are presented they could be figments of Joyce's imagination. We don't really believe this due to our status as jaded Buffy viewers, we are very much still unsettled because the extent of the children's influence on Joyce is unclear. Joyce still for awhile seems to be looking out for Buffy's best interests as best she can until the whole burning at the stake thing happens. Because we don't know how much of Joyce's behavior comes from her and how much has to do with the creepy dead kids, the episode is highly unsettling until the resolution.

Sorry for how long this post has been, guys. So for a final quick sum-up: Ambiguity is a really good tool for creating a scary atmosphere, because if we're not sure what's going on we can't even begin to try and do something about it.

What's up with moms?

In “Gingerbread” and The Turn of the Screw, the Western concept maternal instinct is perverted (not the adjective, but rather the verb). Many early societies worshiped women and their fertility because women were able to bring forth new life, which is amazing when actually thought about. In Western society, mothers are supposed to be warm and caring. They have an obligation to their children, while fathers do not have the same kind of social contract. When mothers kill or abuse their children, the media goes into a frenzy (see the Casey Anthony Trial and Mommie Dearest) but the same attention is not given when fathers kill their children. In The Turn of the Screw, the governess becomes a bizarre mother figure for Flora and Miles. She acts like a mother in that she wants to protect the two children, but she develops an unhealthy fascination with Miles. She always mentions his beauty and as the end draws nearer, she begins to repeat the words “perverse” and “unhealthy” more and more when talking about not only the ghosts’ relations to the children, but also her own. As a mother-figure, the governess can only fulfill very certain roles as laid down by society (i.e. protector, caregiver, etc.), but the increasing sexual tension and Miles’s death are certainly not part of society’s expectations. In “Gingerbread”, an older idea of maternity is shown: the mother as not only a life-giver, but also as a taker of life. In many non-Western societies, the original mother (Earth), both nourishes life and destroys it. Buffy’s and Willow’s mothers refute all Western expectations of motherhood: they betray their daughters, hurt them, and attempt to brutally kill them. When Buffy and Willow are being burned at the stake, Buffy’s mother says something along the lines that as Buffy’s mother, she knows what is best for her daughter. The underlying message seems to be that as the person who brought Buffy into the world, she can take Buffy from it. To us, as Americans, the idea of mothers acting in these ways is terrifying. Because of that, Joss Whedon takes pity on his audience and lets life return to normal after the wicked demon is vanquished. Henry James, however, refuses to change the governess and leaves us with the uncomfortable image of Miles dead in the governess’s arms.

The Terror of Loneliness

In “Normal Again”, and The Turn of the Screw, there is an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. The doctor in “Normal Again” informs Buffy and her parents that she has created this fantasy to have a place in which she is the central figure surrounded by amazing friends and going on crazy adventures. He addresses the central aspect of humanity. People are defined by their connections to other people. For example, a person is only poor because there people richer than they. Most people thrive off their relationships with people, whether family, friends, or lovers. Buffy is an inherently lonely person and as any person who has ever felt lonely, it is wonderful to imagine a place where you are the most important person in the room.

In class, a question was brought up: whether the governess in The Turn of the Screw is simply crazy and has made up the ghosts. If read from that point of view, the governess could be seen as the loneliest person. Loneliness (a theme that the gothic loves to explore) could drive a person mad. The governess is in love with her employer who does not even acknowledge her existence. She is alone in a large estate with only another woman and two children. She could have completely made up the ghosts in her mind to force the children to become closer to her and free herself from her crushing loneliness, like the other Buffy in “Normal Again”. United against a common fear, the governess tries to convince the children to trust only her and it gives her an excuse to be with them at all times.

It is such a terrifying thought to be totally alone that most people and possibly Buffy and the governess would rather choose madness. Whether they are actually living out their delusions is a different question. I feel for both Buffy and the governess and I prefer the end of "Normal Again" to that of The Turn of the Screw because Buffy is left with friends, rather than the governess who is once again completely alone.

"Fear Itself" - Fear Itself

This episode is all about facing one’s fears. Our characters’ fears are each manifested in the haunted house – Buffy is left alone, Xander effectively disappears, Willow’s magic goes awry, and Oz begins to turn into a werewolf. Anya realizes Xander is in danger. Giles doesn’t seem to fear anything, although I may fear him with a chainsaw…that was a little terrifying. Anyway, the point is, the whole first two thirds of the episode is foreshadowing the haunted house, and the part with Buffy and her mother really stuck out to me as the crux of the lesson. Joyce was afraid of new people and a new place, and she faced her fears and is now happily situated in Sunnydale. The haunted house is the effect of the fear demon before he has fully manifested. So really, all of the terrible things happening are like shadows of real fear. It’s the things we can’t see that frighten us, the dark and the scary voices and the heavy footsteps. But when the characters face their fears head-on, in the form of the fear demon, they find that really, their fears only had power over them because they allowed it. There’s something that the Master says in season 1 about fear, I believe we saw this, “Fear is in the mind, like pain, it can be controlled.” (Side note: It’s interesting to see how the things the characters fear have changed since that first episode.) Essentially, the Master is telling us that fear exists only in the mind, and therefore we as humans with advanced mental faculties can quell our fears, thereby removing their power over us. And since fear exists only in the mind, it makes sense that the fear demon is inconsequential. As Xander puts it, “Big overture, little show.” Ironically, the objects that represent / cause fear in Castle of Otranto are the enormous sword, helmet, and this specter that appears to be a giant in armor. But in reality, the things that the characters fear are marriage and prophecies. Anyway, I love the imagery at the end of the episode – fear is so trivial when faced head-on that even Little Red Riding Hood can quash him.

“Gingerbread” and “Normal Again” – Terrifying Reality

In both of these episodes, it is reality that is the most frightening, especially to Buffy and her friends. In “Gingerbread” Buffy’s own mother is the catalyst to a force that nearly destroys Buffy’s fragile world in which she is able to operate as the slayer. This force is human fear, mob mentality, and a man with a key. At the end of the episode, the demon that’s part of Buffy’s world is the easiest thing to kill in comparison with the insanity that stemmed from MOO. A quick spell, smashing a potion on the floor, and a great big stake in the neck, and Buffy wins again against the demon world; like she says at the beginning of the episode, bang boom stake (Whedon foreshadows). But there’s no easy fix to the problems that stemmed from the human world as we see at the end of the episode. Willow’s mother blocked out almost everything from those few days when she abducted her own daughter and tried to burn her at the stake. Once again, Whedon shows us how simple the demon world is in comparison to the ambiguous and confusing human world. I think the most representative still from the whole episode is the shot of Buffy’s face when she realizes her mother’s actually going to burn her at the stake – pure horror. That’s what happens when reality gets mixed up with fantasy, Whedon seems to say. But then, how do we reconcile Buffy, she half in and half out of the world of fantasy? The same is shown in “Normal Again” through Willow’s expression when she’s tied up in the basement – horror at Buffy’s becoming mixed up in this supposedly “real” world. But it’s this world that’s so much more frightening than a waxy demon chained up in the basement. I think that what Buffy finds the most frightening is the concept that she really isn’t any of the wonderful things she’s purported to be throughout the series. Instead of a strong, confident, selfless, and courageous woman, she’s less than ordinary, sick and incapable of living in a comparatively simple world where her greatest responsibility would be taking out the trash. I’d prefer the delusion too.

Another thing to mention: as I commented on someone’s post, I think the reason we’re left with the same old Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the end of “Normal Again” is because that’s the Buffy that we take advice from, that we look up to, that we need. Buffy the hero is the food of our imagination, so if Whedon, as I think Janelle mentioned at one point, had returned to that room with the strapped bed and the sick girl, it would entirely dislodge our belief in Buffy. If we had returned to the sick girl, the idea that in another reality Buffy could have been real and just as strong as she proves herself would disintegrate. It’s important to question the show with episodes like “Gingerbread” and “Normal Again,” but it’s also very important to embrace the unreality of the show so that we may also embrace the very real lessons it can teach us.