The Master

Throughout The Master, Henry wrestles with various aspects of his identity—particularly his liking for solitude and his romantic attraction to men, both of which are heavily discouraged during the era in which he lives. Much of the narrative focuses on Henry’s compulsive bouts of self-reflection. He is concerned primarily with his identity as a writer, his cosmopolitan outlook, and his sexuality. He often uses painful experiences as a way to reflect on who he is as a person, and he is thus able to clarify his sense of self through his struggles with adversity. 

When the novel first introduces Henry, he is struggling to define his own niche within the literary world and failing miserably. At the beginning of the story, he has just embarked on a new literary endeavor: drama. Despite his background as a novelist, he hopes to expand his writing repertoire, and he is devastated when his play fails: a setback that smarts all the more when he beholds the simultaneous success of his foil and rival, playwright and author Oscar Wilde. Devastated by this development, Henry falls back on reflection to assimilate these events and move on, and this approach forces him to reconcile with the fact that he will never enjoy the widespread popularity that Wilde does because his more intellectual works do not have a broad appeal.