The Tragedy of the Servant Class and the Failure of Matthew Arnold’s Culture in Henry James’s Novel: Focusing on “Brooksmith” and The Turn of the Screw

The purpose of this study is to analyze the tragedies of two main characters in Henry James’s “Brooksmith” and The Turn of the Screw based on the Arnoldian concept of ‘culture.’ The main characters of both works, butler and governess, are tragic characters who serve their masters but fail to join the master’s world or its class despite their trial and passion. “Brooksmith” is a kind of artist who hosts retired diplomats and allows guests to have a high level of intellectual conversation with each other, but it is just another aspect of the servants who revolve around the nobility and never get into the world of British society. The governess of The Turn of the Screw manages to control the master’s house and protects the two young children of the Bly from the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. She seems to have done her job well at first glance, but her destiny seems to be similar to that of Brooksmith, for she disappears from the world of the master in spite of her successful job. This study shows the irony of the British order based on the solid cooperative relationship between the upper class, the master and the lower class, the servant. The fate of Brooksmith depends wholly on Mr. Offord’s life and death, and the role of the governess on the master’s absence. Even though it seems that the flamboyant British society was not possible without these sacrifices and substitutes, their masters gave them the gaze of ‘the uncanny.’