critical introduction--as for me (original version)
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Patrick McEvoy-Halston
English 5793
Professor Colin Hill
27 Oct. 2005
Critical Introduction: As For Me and My House
Sinclair Rosss,As for Me and My House, excites many critics of Canadian
literature. As we read criticism of the work, again and again we encounter critics who
make use of their essays to announce their delight in knowing of at least one Canadian
writerRosswho wrote something which can and should unapologetically be labeled
modernist. This is the broad significance of the work: apparently, its merits are so
obvious that it announces, beams like a bat signal, to all those interested, that Canada
did manage to produce a work of fiction between the two wars which is not only not an
embarrassment, but which might well be a modernist masterpiece. Without it, it
sometimes seems, critics of Canadian literature would have clear reason to study
Victorian Canadian fictionthat is, fiction written by Canadians during the Victorian
era (because nothing more could have been expected of them)and, of course, our
bounty of postmodern contemporary literature, but would not have much justification for
studying the literature between the gaps (which really could and should have been so
much more.) By itself, that is, it seems to justify further explorations into the literature
written between the wars. (For such a work to exist, there really must have been
something enrichingnot just stiflingabout the Canadian milieu during this time
period; mustnt there?)
What makes it a modernist work? To begin, since it hasnt much been
commented upon, its aristocratic tone. Our narrator, Mrs. Bentley, views much about her
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with evident disdain. She shares an attitudea particularly modern, modernist attitude
that the plebs about her arent capable of understanding either her or her husband. Her
disdain even makes it difficult to designate the book as regional literature; for it can be
difficult to resist agreeing with her (indeed, some critics seem to be in love with her, e.g.,
Robert Kroetsch) that the particularities of those about her, of those who populate her
immediate Horizon, arent much worth delineating or understanding at all. (We might
sense the cosmopolitan modernist in her attitude toward the unsophisticated.)
The natural environment is worthy of her attention, however. And it is a ravaging
environment, of the type so common in Canadian literature. But her descriptions of the
elements tell us more about her than about her surroundings. And it is clear that Ross is
mostly interested in her, in how she experiences the world, how she shapes the world
about her to suit her needs. And it is also clear that she does describe her surroundings to
suit her purposes. The elements are more than brutalthey are, conveniently, primeval:
that is, they are fundamentally opposite in nature to the human community she so loathes.
The elements seem at times, her natural allies, but the house she lives in wars against her.
She thinks it hates her, as she hates it. And it does, in a sense, hate her: that is, those
who built it, who previously inhabited it, would have been the type to despise her should
they have been privy to her innermost thoughts. Her descriptions of the house are,
therefore, in a sophisticated way, quite realistichowever surreal. They register both her
and Rosss superior awareness of the psychological effects of being in any particular
environment.
Numerous critics have noted that Me and My House challenges the
straightforward conception of time as linear. Instead, the bulk of critics argue that the
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book, like life, is essentially plotlessthat each day can be the same as any other
particular day. Im not sure about this, however. What I sense in the seeming sameness
of everyday goings on, in the repetition, is Rosss keen awareness of psychoanalysis
particularly of masochism. The ending that disappoints many critics, that is, the happy
ending which seems to them so false given the nature of what preceded in, is in fact very
appropriate if we, like Ross, understand how the masochists mind works. The masochist
does not believe that happiness is something he/she deserves. It can be made claim to,
but only after much suffering. The novel shows us this sort of process at work. Much
suffering, much failing afflicts the Bentleys. This accumulation amounts to a kind of
progression, however. That is, repetition, the losses the Bentleys suffer, of their adopted
son, of their dog, for instance, is not stasis. It is instead expansionan expansion the
Bentleys are well aware of, and which will at some point become large enough to
warrant their emerging from the Horizon wasteland which encloses them. Eventually,
after enough suffering, the masochist feels they have earned the right to some respite.
Ross is very aware of psychoanalytic theory. The encounters between the
Bentleys register his own awareness of the sadism and masochism in married life. My
own interest is in object-relations psychoanalysis, and Ross also seems to have an
intuitive appreciation of the sort of conclusions object-relations theorists have come to
concerning people (he for instance has Mr. Bentley note that it is important Judith not be
upset lest it negatively impacts her childs womb environment). Mrs. Bentley registers
throughout her entries, her husbands resistance to capture. He seems simultaneously
attracted to and repelled by his wife. Object-relations theory suggests that we relate to
our partners as we once related to our mothers. We desire to be close to them, but at the
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same time fear loosing our sense of selves as separate entities when were close to them.
We fear being engulfed, caught. Mrs. Bentleys opinion, which some feminists might
identify as Rosss sexist assumption concerning womens ostensible needs, that she needs
her husband to be stronger than she is (she has a conversation with herself throughout her
account which addresses her need to conceive of her husband as a natural leader), to be
able to resist her, is also not a surprise to those familiar with object-relations theory; for
this theory holds (at least according to one of its foremost theorists, Margaret Mahler)
that women, more than men, have difficulties separating themselves from their same-
sexed mothers, and seek out strong men to assist them in managing this. Latched on to
strong men, that is, they feel less likely to being overwhelmed by feelings of
powerlessness, of being forever trapped in the maternal matrix. In short, if we are being
offered sexist fair in this novel, it is at the very least updated, sophisticated sexist fair.
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