Summary 6: Fifth Business

In an attempt to prove himself and his work with saints, our main character Dunstable Ramsay writes this novel-length somewhat ranting letter about his life to the current headmaster of the school he had taught at. His story begins with his youth with a cold winter day and a friend yet also enemy named Percy Boyd Staunton. In a childish quarrel with Percy, Percy throws a rock containing snowball at Dunstable. He ducks, and this snowball hits the Baptist minister Amasa Dempster’s pregnant wife Mrs.Dempster. She falls to the ground, and prematurely delivers a boy named Paul, who is frail and weak. Dunstable feels guilty for ducking, and this guilt haunts him for the rest of his life. Over time, Mrs.Dempster becomes mentally unstable and the town shuns her as improper for a minister’s wife. Dunstable’s guilt, however, drives him to constantly visit Mrs.Dempster and care for her. He gets picked on at school for helping the “crazy woman”, and continues to see her despite all the town criticism. Dunstable gets a job at the library, and he reads encyclopedias and magic books. He demonstrates all these tricks to the young Paul Dempster, who ends up being better than Dunstable.  Dunstable also becomes obsessed with saints, and many years later he believes Mrs.Dempster to be a saint. One of her miracles is that she somehow brings a dead Willie back to life. She does a number of other things that cause her to be alienated, one being that she has sex with a tramp. This tramp, however, later becomes an extremely charitable person because of her, so this is also one of Mary Dempster's miracles. Dunstable goes off to war for a few years, and also sees her face on a Virgin Mary, and so this becomes the third miracle that he thinks she performs. Dunstable ends up in a hospital for a few years where a woman named Diana cares for him, who gives him his first sexual experience and a new name: Dunstan. After his recovery, he continues to be Percy Staunton, or now Boy Staunton’s, friend. He lives through their entire relationship, from their wedding to the eventual death of both of them. He becomes Mary Dempster’s caretaker, and while traveling he encounters Paul Dempster again in a circus troupe. Many years pass, and Dunstan spends a majority of his time traveling to find information on saints for his research papers. When in South America, Dunstan stumbles upon Paul Dempster again, this time with the name Magnus Eisengrim and an absolutely stunning magic show. He soon joins the magic troupe and with the convincing of Eisengrim’s ugly assistant Liesl, agrees to write a falsified autobiography of Magnus Eisengrim. During his time with the troupe, he spends a lot of alone time with Liesl, and she is the one who tells him he is fifth business: the important yet insignificant role in an opera or drama. She asserts that he has been living his life by not living it, as the person who does everything for other people and never really does anything else than be the “Fifth Business”. They then make love, and despite her roughness, he feels healed from the experience. The troupe makes an appearance in his native Canada, where after one of the shows Boy, Dunstan, and Eisengrim have a discussion. Here, Dunstan confesses his inner guilt and tries to get Boy to admit his guilt as well; he pulls out the stone that was in the snowball but Boy still refuses to confess to anything. When they leave, Dunstan discovers that the stone is missing. Boy eventually dies by driving his car off a bridge into a river, which many suspect to be a suicide. There is a stone that is found in his mouth, which is very similar to the one that was in the snowball. At a later magic show, someone asks “Who killed Boy Staunton?”, and at that same moment Dunstan gets a heart attack. Backstage, Liesl says he was killed “by himself, by the woman he knew, by the woman he did not know, by the man who granted his wish, and by the inevitable fifth, who was the keeper of his conscience and the keeper of the stone.”  Dunstan wraps up his novel with “And that, Headmaster, is all I have to tell you.”

Just like how Dunstan is obsessed with saints, the author Robertson Davies fosters a lot of Carl Young’s work into his novel. The Youngian concepts of the ego, the shadow, and the persona are constantly reflected through the character of Dunstan with an emphasis placed on persona. Dunstan is never really true to his ego as he tries to manipulate his persona and project himself as an omniscient walking encyclopedia.

A theme that Robertson Davies explores is that one must forgive and forget; and one must espeically forgive themself. Dunstan lives his entire life in the shadow of feeling responsible for Mary Dempster’s mental instability, causing him to never really live a life of his own. He constantly flashes back to that memory, and his guilt grows into a weird obsession about Mary Dempster. His association with her causes his school mates to pick on him and also causes a rift with his mother. Indeed, the message that we must vanquish guilt in order to live happily is heavily implied with Dunstan’s rather dismal life.

The snowball repeatedly comes up, and could symbolize many things such as Dunstan's guilt. All of Dunstan's life is troubled by the guilt that comes from the actions of the stone and snowball combination, and he keeps the stone with him for the rest of his life. Literally, he is carrying that burden and he only starts to sort of live once it goes off the bridge in Boy's mouth. 

Some quotes to pass along:

'It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way.” This quote captures how Mary Dempster is the town outcast, but not because she is crazy or completely senile. The sentiment expressed here implies that she is simply misunderstood by the small town that Dunstan lives in. This could be worked into an essay about society and how it affects a specific character.

“I cannot refrain from boasting that it was I who provided the idea for one of the illusions that made Eisengrim the most celebrated magician in the world.” Indeed, Dunstan is kind of full of himself and inflates his image quite frequently. In the beginning of the novel, he feels liable for Mary Dempster’s incidence and Paul’s premature birth. He esteems himself so highly that the guilt he initially fosters somehow turns into unnecessarily forcing duties upon himself.