"We all need someone to look at us"

That's Milan Kundera from The Unbearable Lightness of Being. As notions go, it seems like a key connector between Martin Buber's I & Thou and Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and here's why: the unnamed narrator in the latter seems so uncertain of herself as an agent in the I-Thou relationship she has with precocious tots Flora and Miles that she begins to invest the "sights" she has of former employees (and lovers) Mr. Quint and Miss Jessup with way more apprehension than would a person with a more developed sense of self. In other words, the narrator has a larger inclination to invent or embellish the ghost-sights of Quint and Jessup because she needs an It to supplement her imperfectly established relationship with the kids; she substitutes a fanciful I-It for the I-Thou she has with her young student charges. Or alternatively, the narrator sets up an Us-Them to compensate for the flawed I-Thou she has with Flora & Miles. (Reminds me of an ongoing conversation two college pals would have about chicks and dudes, but that's neither here nor there.) Buber scholars are more than welcome to chime in: I'm new to the guy.