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On the outside, Sinclair Ross's novel, As For Me and My House is a chronicle of the everyday life of a protestant minister and his wife in a small town.If the reader delves deeper into the novel you will discover that this novel is actually about the dysfunctional
relationship that has developed between Phillip and his wife.The roots of this dysfunctionality lie in the internal conflict of both Phillip and Mrs. Bentley as they try to come to grips with the shattereddreams and goals of their youth and the hypocrisy of their lives as they live with the conscious choices that they have made previously.
As a young man, Phillip had a dream of becoming an artist.That dream was replaced by his becoming a minister.Mrs. Bentley's ambition of becoming a pianist,
was replaced by becoming the wife of a minister. Both of these characters have buried the dreams of their youth in favor of the surety and stability that a regular wage offers.
Mrs. Bentley, as the narrator, chronicles their everyday life in a small town with a touch of cynicism and regret with the realization that she will always be a small town minister's wife.
The hypocrisy and shabby clothes and small town social round –
none of it matters very much when he takes time off to be
aware of me.I can stand apart, look on the Horizons with
Before I met him I had ambitions too.The only thing that
really mattered for me was the piano.It made me self-sufficient,
a little hard.All I wanted was opportunity to work and develop myself. (22)
He's a failure now, a preacher instead of a painter, and every
minute of the day he's mindful of it.I'm a failure too, a small
town preacher's wife instead of what I so faithfully set out to be
but I hav…