Is sexual child abuse evident in The Turn of the Screw?

In the novel The Turn of the Screw,
by Henry James, the characters of Peter Quint, a valet, and Miss Jessel, a governess,
consistently appear to siblings Flora and Miles, in an apparent quest for their souls.
Both, Quint and Jessel, are deceased. However, the children's governess senses that
their influence on the children (when they were alive) was clearly corrupting and
"contaminating." The assumption is that this is the reason why the two want to come back
from beyond: To complete the destruction of the children.
 

However, the writing style of Henry James offers a lot
of intimations that do not give away much information. This is an attempt to appeal to
the reader's own psychological schema so that it is the reader, and not the writer,
who will "fill in the blanks" as to what went on between the children and the two dead
servants. This way, the connection that is created between the reader and the story
becomes more in-depth.

Yet, specific words typical of
the Victorian vocabulary of the day are cited each time the actions of Quint and Jessel
are remembered. The words include: Corruption, contamination, evil, and the libertine
idea of little Miles being so openly flirtatious with his governess. These terms and
ideas invite the reader to assume that both Miles and Flora had been exposed to some
form of carnal knowledge.

However, The Turn of
the Screw is hardly the tale of two abused children under the spell of their
dead abusers: It is actually an in-depth analysis of the effects of isolation in the
human psyche. It includes Gothic elements that only help accentuate the tragedies of
despair and fear in human nature. In all, the possibility of sexual abuse is there, but
it is insinuated as a possibility and not offered as a fact in the
novel.