As For Me and My House takes place during the depression in the small prairie town of Horizon in Saskatchewan. Sinclair Ross was raised on a farm in Saskatchewan, which helped him create the vivid descriptions of rural prairie life. He worked as a bank clerk for years, but still managed to write three other novels. They include: The Well, Whir of Gold and Sawbones Memorial.
Mrs. Bentley’s Diary Entries
Sinclair Ross wrote As For Me and My House in the form of journal entries penned by an unnamed Mrs. Bentley. The drawback to this form of narrating is that readers are stuck with Mrs. Bentley’s biased version of people and events.
Mrs. Bentley and Philip Bentley
Mrs. Bentley married Philip the preacher, who really wanted to be an artist and she had ambitions to become a famous pianist. Both of them seemed to blame the other for their shattered dreams.
Philip took the position as a minister because the church offered him a free education along with an escape from his small hometown. His heart wasn’t really in it, especially once he realized he would simply be bouncing on to similar small towns for the next several years.
He was quite unsociable and would often ignore guests and head straight to his study where he liked to escape to read and draw. This left his wife to entertain and make excuses for him.
Characters in As For Me and My House from Horizon
Most of the people in the small town of Horizon are portrayed in As For Me and My House (McClelland & Stewart, 1957) as being oppressive, intrusive, demanding and/or fake. Mrs. Bentley puts up a false front to match what she perceives as false fronted people, similar to the stores in Horizon.
Mrs. Bentley convinced herself that she was superior to the small town people and that she and her husband were meant for bigger and better things. At the same time, she was ashamed of her old clothes, car and her home. It was a dreary home with gray painted walls, low leaky ceilings and small windows. Perhaps her descriptions reflected her changing feelings about her life and her marriage, because she even began to hate the furniture she used to love.
Marriage Problems in As For Me and My House
Mrs. Bentley was unable to provide her husband Philip with a child, so this may have been part of the reason for his maltreatment and bitterness. They temporarily adopted a 12-year-old trouble making catholic boy, and this caused a commotion with their protestant neighbours. It also played havoc with their already damaged marriage. Philip seemed more alive with the boy, yet he also continued to shut his wife out.
She on the other hand didn’t take as much responsibility as she could have. She often complained about money, but was a talented pianist who had taught lessons for a living. There was no mention that her husband forbade it, but that’s possible.
She had enormous control because even after discovering Philip had been unfaithful, she did not mention it. Often she had to pussyfoot around things in order to avoid Philip’s immature outbursts. For that reason, there was always tension in their marriage and she guarded most of her words and actions.
- Sinclair Ross described the suffocating marriage and tense atmosphere in As For Me and My House so well that it was distressing. The story was still gripping in a macabre way and there was hope for a better future. In the end, they both appeared to get what they wanted, but how that turned out is up to the reader’s imagination.
Sandra Williams - Sandra's a book addict and writer from Ontario, Canada. Her interests include cooking, health and personal development, so many of her ...
