“An action occurs that proceeds from the supernatural (from the pseudo-supernatural); this action then provokes a reaction in the implied reader (and generally in the hero of the story). It is this reaction that we call 'hesitation,' and the texts that generate it, as fantastic” (Todorov 195). The fantastic is the moment of hesitation experienced by the reader who is faced with a supernatural event in the story or novel and thus understands that the laws of nature are being questioned. Todorov uses three conditions that constitute the fantastic, in the first the reader enters the character's world and considers it a natural world and then the reader hesitates between determining whether there is a natural or supernatural explanation of the events that happen in the story. The second condition is when the reader identifies with the character in the novel and in doing so interprets the events through the characters in the novel. Finally, the reader must acquire an attitude towards the text and decide which levels or modes of reading he will maintain. The fantastic can be divided into two genres, the uncanny and the wonderful. The marvelous is when a reader must create new laws of nature for a particular event to occur, while the mysterious is when reality remains intact and there is an explanation for the event. Todorov argues that the ambiguity persists even after the reader has finished reading The Turn of the Screw, which is interesting but there are stronger textual clues that the housekeeper was in a state of hysteria. According to a Freudian psychoanalysis of the housekeeper, we understand that there is much more going on than just a haunted estate. The reader knows what's going on... halfway through the paper... wrong because of the inconsistencies with the laws of nature depicted in the novel. According to Sussman, the housekeeper is “a textbook case of hysteria” (230). The symptoms of hysteria were described in a book by Freud and Breuer published just three years before the publication of The Turn of the Screw. While Sussman clarifies the highly suggested conditions of the governess as stated through Freud's textbook, it seems acceptable to determine that the governess and the story she tells are direct illusions of hysteria (231). The housekeeper's actions are an exaggerated emotional reaction caused by multiple events in her past. Works Cited James, Henry. The crackdown and the Aspern documents. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.Todorov, Tzvetan. “The fantastic”. Class pantry. Sussman, Henry. “James: Governess Twists.” Class pantry.