The Master

Lady Wolseley is one of Henry’s close friends. Her husband is a high-ranking military officer, and in the scene depicting Henry’s visit with her, she is living in Ireland. In the novel, Tóibín makes sure to emphasize the fact that Henry comes from a prominent, affluent family and moves through wealthy circles. Lady Wolseley is therefore meant to be emblematic of the types of people with whom the real Henry James would have associated. As such, she also represents the version of society that he interrogates in his writing, and her presence serves as an important class marker in The Master. She maintains an active social life, enjoys large-scale events like balls and masquerades, and disparages individuals and families whom she deems to be beneath her in social status. 

Although Henry initially describes her as “all cleverness and sympathy” (21), Lady Wolseley’s snobbery is often on display, and she sometimes even directs her venom at Henry himself. For example, she takes part in a conversation at a dinner in which Henry’s Irish ancestors are mocked for not being wealthy enough. This exchange reveals that she is sometimes an unkind and unsupportive person. Still, Henry enjoys her company, and the two maintain a close friendship despite her elitism. She plays a key role in helping Henry to furnish Lamb House, and he appreciates her sense of taste and her commitment to assisting him. Lady Wolseley also subtly indicates that she understands and sympathizes with Henry’s repressed sexuality. For example, she provides him with the services of a manservant named Hammond, whom she hints will be “especially” sympathetic toward him. Henry and Hammond do indeed engage in a brief flirtation, but Henry’s compulsive self-sabotage in this area prevents anything further from happening. Even so, it is evident that Lady Wolseley is aware of Henry’s interest in men and understands his desire to refrain from openly acknowledging it.

William James is Henry’s brother. Tóbín’s depiction of him is largely accurate to the historical figure. In The Master, William is initially characterized as a decisive young man. While Henry feels adrift and unsure of his place in the world, William maintains a strong sense of direction. Because of his academic abilities and career ambitions, William enjoys a greater place in their father’s esteem than Henry does, and as time goes on, Henry feels an ever-widening gulf open up between himself and his brother. 

As adults, both men have a serious disagreement, after which each struggles to forgive the other. They are both stubborn but devoted to each other, and they ultimately reconcile in their older years. William further shows his commitment to Henry when he serves as an unofficial financial consultant, helping his brother to make sound business decisions. As a grown man, William retains the good sense and direction that always characterized his actions. The novel does not explore William’s philosophical career in detail until the final chapters, but at that point, Tóibín does provide an account of William’s work, stating that the man becomes a prominent psychologist and religious philosopher whose writing gains a fair amount of fame. Like his father, brother, and sister, William is an intellectual at heart, and he devotes his life, at least in part, to critical inquiry.

Alice is Henry’s troubled younger sister. He describes her as “unprotected and unready” (47) for life, and he laments her lifelong struggles with mental illness. Alice and Henry are close when they are young, but she is unusually close to their elder brother William. She is also anxious and socially awkward as a young woman, and she sinks further into depression when William marries. Despite her struggles, she lives a quasi-traditional life and even writes diaries that ultimately come to be highly regarded, but when their parents die, she declines further. 

She is eventually confined to her bed and diagnosed with “hysteria,” a now-outdated term that was once applied to women who demonstrated complex forms of emotional distress that doctors of the time did not have the tools to accurately diagnose. In this, she embodies the struggle of many 19th- and early 20th-century women to be taken seriously by the medical establishment, and she suffers from the misguided treatments that ran rampant during the dark, early days of rudimentary psychiatric care. Ultimately, Alice becomes physically ill and is confined to her bed. Henry uses writing to cope with his worries about his sister, and she becomes another example of Henry’s creative process as he styles several characters after her. In the years after her death, his dramatized versions of her help him to better understand both his sister and his fraught feelings about her.

Corporal Hammond is a former soldier of Lady Wolseley’s husband and now acts as a servant in their household. He is Irish but grew up in London and identifies as both British and Irish. He is calm and mild-mannered and has “a quiet voice and an air of smooth discretion” (28). Lady Wolseley arranges for Hammond to be a valet to Henry during the latter’s visit, and Henry takes an instant liking to Hammond. Henry’s understated attraction to men is known to some of his friends, and Lady Wolseley hints that she has selected Hammond for Henry because she is aware that he, too, shares such an attraction. 

Throughout the novel, the issue of Henry’s sexuality is shrouded in ambiguity and secrecy, and the complex relationship between Lady Wolseley, Henry, and Hammond is further evidence of the social restrictions against romances between men at the time. Although Hammond cannot be completely open in declaring his feelings for Henry, he makes a discreet advance anyway. Although Henry is fairly sure that Hammond shares his feelings of attraction, he gently rebuffs this advance despite his longing for a connection with Hammond. His refusal goes against his own inclinations and therefore causes him great emotional distress. Given England’s laws against romances among men, however, he cannot run the risk of misinterpreting actions that may merely be platonic. Hammond’s presence allows Tóibín to critique the 19th-century politics of sexuality; during an era in which it is a crime to be gay, Henry cannot act on his romantic desires.

Often serving as a foil to Henry, even from afar, Oscar Wilde is a gay young playwright who remains quite open about his romantic attraction to men. Henry initially encounters Wilde when he attends one of the man’s plays as a way to avoid attending his own play’s opening night. Because Wilde’s play is a runaway success and Henry’s is a failure, Henry compares himself unfavorably to Wilde. However, because of that comparison, he develops a keener sense of his own strengths as a writer, realizing that his intellectual writing appeals to a more rarified group than the audiences that crowd the theaters to see Wilde’s plays. Henry reconciles himself to the fact that although he might never be a “popular” writer, there is more artistry to his work than there is to Wilde’s. His viewing of Wilde’s play, therefore, helps him to clarify his own identity. 

Wilde is also an important historical touchstone whose controversial life delivers a further commentary on 19th-century England’s repressive attitude toward alternative forms of sexuality. Tóibín’s account of Wilde’s trial is relatively accurate, and it provides another key moment of contrast with Henry. While Henry the character and Henry James the man were both guarded about their sexuality and feared the prospect of acting on their romantic impulses, Wilde flaunts his own sexuality, openly appearing in public with other gay men. The inclusion of Wilde’s trial is therefore meant to show how intolerant society was of gay men and women during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because Wilde lived somewhat openly as a gay man, he was soundly punished for it. By contrast, Henry chooses not to confront his sexuality and is rewarded for it, but he also has to wrestle with the lifelong sadness of never fully expressing himself or engaging in an authentic romantic relationship.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is one of Henry’s oldest friends. At the time of Holmes’s visit, Henry wistfully describes him as “an old friend, become now a distant one” (82). Holmes is dependable, assertive, and adventurous. He enjoys new experiences and embodies the same cosmopolitan attitude that Henry cherishes and respects. Holmes is a public figure who, as Henry notes, has both a public and a private face. In private, he relishes risqué talk about women, but in public, he is much more reserved. He is also more reserved around Henry, who realizes that Holmes refrains from sharing salacious gossip about women because he must be aware that Henry is attracted to men. 

However, Holmes shows his commitment to discretion when he never openly acknowledges Henry’s sexuality. The two once shared an embrace that was sexually charged for Henry, but Henry is never sure whether Holmes felt the same way, and he has pondered the experience for years. The novel remains ambiguous on this point; Holmes’ behavior suggests that he is aware of Henry’s attraction to men, and Tóibín does not clarify what Holmes’ intentions were in embracing Henry so intimately. 

Holmes, like many of Henry’s friends, is portrayed as being deeply complex. For example, he values Henry’s friendship but berates him for not showing enough devotion to their friend Minny, and he even blames Henry for Minny’s death, claiming that she would have lived longer if Henry had invited her to join him in Italy. Henry takes these accusations in stride and responds as he typically does to difficult situations: with self-reflection. As such, his friendship with Holmes illustrates Henry’s cognitive analysis of his social surroundings. For Henry, friendship offers opportunities for him to reflect on his own identity and orientation toward the world.

Minny is Henry’s cousin. As one of six children who was left orphaned, she is outgoing and intelligent, and of all her siblings, she is the one with whom Henry develops the strongest bond. Henry recalls her as being “light and curious and spontaneous” (86). He fondly remembers one meeting in which Minny had a spirited exchange with his father. This scene, like many in the novel, is self-consciously styled after moments from Henry James’s own novels. Minny is, at least in part, the inspiration for one of James’s most famous characters, Isabel Archer, the protagonist of Portrait of a Lady. Notably, Tóibín’s creation of the scene in which Minny converses with Henry’s father is deliberately similar to Portrait of a Lady’s first chapter. 

Throughout The Master, the fictionalized Henry notes on many occasions that he draws inspiration from his own observations of and conversations with friends and family. Although his works are not autobiographical, they are deeply character-driven, and Tóibín’s description of Henry’s writing process is designed to provide psychological insight into the processes that may have given rise to James’s own thoughtful, celebrated writing. Historically, James’s characters are so “life-like” because they are grounded in the characteristics and experiences of real people. 

Within his context, Tóibín presents an extrapolation of how James himself may have gone about creating his characters. In The Master, Minny is a strong-willed individual who is determined to be the master of her own fate, while Isabel, the character that Henry creates by using Minny as a rubric, is similarly independent. Thus, Minny and the other characters from whom the fictionalized Henry draws inspiration speak to Henry James’s actual writing process, celebrating his habit of incorporating complex psychology into his novels.

Constance is one of Henry’s best friends. She is a descendant of James Fenimore Cooper, and Henry admires her ancestor’s contributions to the world of literature. Constance dies by suicide after a long battle with depression. Henry is devastated by her death, especially when another friend, Lily, argues that Henry could have been a better friend to Constance and perhaps “saved” her from suicide. 

During her lifetime, Constance is an intellectual and a kindred spirit. Like Henry, she lives “in her own mind” (215) and is a keen observer of the world around her. She is also artistically minded, and she and Henry bond over their shared interests. The two share a similar liking for solitude and avoid large groups, but they enjoy their time together. Constance experiences bouts of depression for much of her life, especially in the winter. Henry knows this about her and does his best to help, but she often succumbs to what was then termed “melancholia.” Like Henry, Constance travels frequently and lives much of her life abroad, never staying in one city for any length of time. She and Henry consider themselves to be citizens of the world rather than citizens of one particular country.