The narrator states that he is ill-qualified to discuss the war
Fifth Business Significant Topics
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Fifth Business Significant TopicsThe Role of Women in Society The role of women in society is analyzed in the story from the point of view of a male narrator, Dunstan Ramsay. Dunstan minimizes the role of women in his own life by avoiding marriage and escaping his mother. He does this because of certain dark beliefs he holds about the negative power of women, beliefs he has gained through his upbringing in the psychologically twisted village of Deptford. It is certainly understandable why Dunstan fears women. He watches his own father be emotionally consumed and subsumed by his mother, much as a black widow spider physically consumes her mate. Mrs. Ramsay lays down rules and codes of conduct that are impossible to bear, and when either her husband or her children thwart these codes, her wrath is terrible. Mrs. Ramsay is only comfortable with, and loving toward, her son Dunstan when he accepts her opinions as his own. Dunstan, suffocated by his overpowering mother, spends much of his youth trying to avoid becoming "her own dear laddie." He instinctively understands that if he does not break away from her, he will lose his true identity, and become, instead, the puppet man child she wishes him to be. Thus Dunstan's fears about the suffocating love of women are perfectly understandable. However, as he only sees things from the male perspective, his views suffer from deep ignorance. Dunstan is under the mistaken belief that the women of Deptford rule the town with their moral authority. Their husbands always agree with the women's moral decisions, because, as the author states, the men know the price of peace. Yet Dunstan fails to see the obvious fact that the male-dominated religious "morals" of the town are what force the women to behave in this manner. The moral code which the women enforce on the men has been forced on the women in the first place, for it is the women who will suffer - at the hands of the men - if the code is broken. Witness the way Mary Dempster is tied up with a rope in her own house by her own husband, for years, because she commits adultery. Certainly adultery is considered a sin by most religions, and modern psychiatry supports the fact that adultery is one of the most hurtful things one person can do to another. But that's not why the women of Deptford judge adultery so harshly. They judge it so because they must, to survive. If a woman like Mrs. Dempster sins in this fashion, the male-dominated religious society of Deptford considers a lifetime sentence of bondage and house arrest to be appropriate punishment. Cruel and unusual punishment is deterred by the U.S. Constitution for precisely this reason. While adultery may be wrong, what was done to Mrs. Dempster is far more wrong, and certainly qualifies as cruel and unusual. Male-dominated religion - that is to say, not God, but Man - has meted out dire punishments for women who violate the moral law for millennia. This was true of Christianity in eras past, and continues today in the form of Islamic honor killings and genital mutilation. Thus it is small wonder that the women of Deptford use their influence with their husbands to enforce the strict codes of their religions. For their religions, which speak of mercy and forgiveness, offer neither to the women of the town. It thus becomes critical to the survival of women like Mrs. Ramsay to force their families to adhere to the moral code. Thus, Dunstan blaming the women for the codes they enforce is sheer projection. The women, above all, are subject to these codes, and have been forced by a male-dominated society to adhere to these codes - or else! It is an ironic and vicious circle. For millennia, men have subjugated women, forcing them to adhere to strict social rules or else suffer heavy consequences. Thus women have been convinced, over the years, that strict adherence to these rules is the only way they can be considered 'good' women. In turn, these 'good' women force these exact same rules down the throats of their men. The men, not liking it, seek out men's clubs and other places where they can safely avoid the watchful eyes of their women. Why did so many country clubs, until recently, prohibit women? Because men needed a comfortable place where they could drink, smoke, swear, and in short, 'sin', in a relaxing environment, away from the judgmental women. This attitude of segregation, which continues today, is sad because it allows men to relax and be human, to allow themselves a time and place where they don't have to be perfect. The reason this is sad is because only the men are allowed this relaxation of the rules which they themselves created. Women are never allowed to fall short of the mark of perfection; if they do, they stand to lose their reputations, their freedom, their safety, and perhaps even have their children taken away from them. Perfection is a tough line to maintain, as any man can attest. If society allowed women the same margin of error which it allows men, men would most likely find themselves under less pressure from women to act saintly all of the time. Boyhood Boyhood is a concept thoroughly explored by the author, in the guise of narrator Dunstan Ramsay. Fifth Business sheds some light on society's age-old quest to better understand its children, or, at least, its boy children, for the narrator admits to ignorance when it comes to the female gender. However boys, he understands. It is because of this understanding that Dunstan takes to teaching like a duck to water; as he says, teaching boys is something that comes naturally to him. Having been a boy himself, he understands what boys are. According to Dunstan, boys are merely tiny men, trapped in boy's bodies. They are capable of extreme tenderness and mercy, just as are their adult counterparts. Yet boys are also capable of craven, miserable behavior, like lying and cheating and stealing. To Dunstan's way of thinking, boys do not fundamentally change as they approach manhood. Men learn to disguise their craven motives in order to succeed in life, just as Boy Staunton does, and thus adult men appear mature. But Dunstan believes that maturity is merely a socially acceptable front put on by these now-adult boys in order to fit into society. Further, as one ages, one cares less for appearing socially acceptable, and more easily reverts to one's natural, boyish personality. "I was going to be a sharp-tongued old man as I had been a sharp-tongued boy. And Boy Staunton had reached a point in life where he no longer tried to conceal his naked wish to dominate everybody and was angry and ugly when things went against him. As we neared our sixties the cloaks we had wrapped about our essential selves were wearing thin." Chapter VI, pg. 279 Man's Search for Meaning The contemplation of life and man's role in it are frequently on the narrator's mind as he retells his life's story for the benefit of his audience. Three strange and unusual occurrences happen to the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay, which spur him on his quest for meaning. As a young boy in Deptford, he witnesses Mary Dempster raise his brother from the dead. Later, of course, the village doctor insists that Willie had never died, and in this way tries to invalidate Mrs. Dempster's miracle. But Dunstan was there, and he is personally convinced that his brother had died and been brought back to life by the miraculous Mary Dempster. Thus Mary Dempster takes on a larger than life role in the narrator's personal universe. She comes to represent, for him, all things holy and miraculous. When he is in the thick of battle in World War I, and a shrapnel wound sends him to the brink of death, Dunstan looks up with his dying breath to see a Madonna and Child statue bearing the face of Mary Dempster. When he awakes in the hospital a few days later, Dunstan credits his survival as another one of Mrs. Dempster's miracles. It is not, however, until Mary's third miracle is revealed that Dunstan begins his true search for meaning. His search revolves around Mary Dempster, and what she means to his life. He has long wondered if the village of Deptford was fair to Mrs. Dempster, for the villagers considered her simple because of her kind nature and tendency to laugh often. After Mrs. Dempster engages in an affair with a vagrant, the village changes its opinion, labeling her a dangerous lunatic. Dunstan has a difficult time reconciling in his mind the saintly woman who brought his brother back to life with the now-dangerous lunatic who keeps company with vagrants. Yet when Dunstan stumbles upon the vagrant in question, several years later, he learns something surprising, which changes the meaning of the event for him. The vagrant, Joel Surgeoner, has miraculously turned his life around, and now runs a shelter for the homeless called the Lifeline Mission. To Dunstan's shock, Surgeoner tells him that it was his brief affair with Mary Dempster which brought him to his senses and caused him to turn his life around. Her decision to have sexual relations with him voluntarily, after Surgeoner had threatened her with rape, awakens in Surgeoner the knowledge of true compassion. Once Dunstan learns that the very act which had led to Mary's disgrace is actually a miracle in itself, he decides to view her as a bona fide saint; a woman who has performed the three requisite miracles needed for the church to declare her sainthood. Unfortunately, the Catholic priests with whom he discusses Mary do not agree with his view of her character. Ultimately, Dunstan decides that it does not matter if others share the meaning he has found in Mary Dempster, and thus Dunstan has found the value of personal meaning. He realizes that life has a different meaning for everyone. For him, life is about the search for meaning, which he comes to believe is more important than meaning itself. As age and wisdom catch up with Dunstan, he begins to realize that Mary Dempster is only playing a role in this world. It is not she who has provided meaning to his life, but rather he himself has found and attached holy meaning to her existence. In this way, Dunstan broadens his perspective on the search for meaning. Only after he has come to realize that true value is in the eyes of the beholder does fate allow him to find once again the Madonna and Child statue he had seen in the war. All these years later, Dunstan finally learns that it was not Mary Dempster's face on the statue. Yet having gained the wisdom of the years, Dunstan is not crushed by this hard reality. For Dunstan realizes the value of his personal belief system. Because he had believed Mrs. Dempster capable of performing miracles, by seeing her in his hour of need, he allowed himself to believe he might miraculously survive. It was this belief - and not Mrs. Dempster all - that saved him. Fifth Business Style Point of View Fifth Business employs the conceit of being a narrative written for an audience of one, specifically, the Headmaster of the Colborne College for Boys. The main character and narrator, Dunstan Ramsey, has recently retired from a forty-plus-year career as a teacher at Colborne. The novel is crafted as if it were Dunstan's response to a rather condescending article written about his teaching career upon the occasion of his retirement. With Fifth Business, Dunstan intends to set the record straight for his former boss, the Headmaster, by revealing, at long last, his side of the story. In addition, the narrator promises his audience, the Headmaster, that he will endeavor to chronicle his life objectively, withholding nothing. This conceit, employed by author Robertson Davies, is a clever way of intriguing the reader, for it gives the story, from the very beginning, the feel of a salacious, clandestine memoir. Dunstan's promise to reveal the full truth implies that there has been some sort of cover-up, and the reader is about to get the real scoop. Not only does this first-person narrative conceit provide instant intrigue, but it is also necessary given the character traits which the author assigns to his protagonist, Dunstan. The narrator is a man best known for his ability to keep a secret. Because of this gift, Dunstan, throughout his life, has been trusted with many confidences. The narrator would not, as a rule, ever betray these confidences. Thus the author is forced to concoct the narrative conceit as a means for opening Dunstan's vault of secrets. The narrator makes it clear that his words are intended for the Headmaster's eyes only, and that the manuscript will not be revealed even to the Headmaster until after Dunstan's death. Another important facet to the narrator's character that also affects the point of view of the story is the fact that Dunstan Ramsay is a history professor. In fact, he is not only a professor, but an author as well. Dunstan has published ten scholarly works in his lifetime, each dealing with the lives of various Catholic saints. As such, his books are researched from the historical perspective; Dunstan then translates the historical details into a narrative story. Naturally this life experience, attributed to Dunstan by the author, makes Dunstan an ideal narrator for his own life story. Dunstan is able to convey the historical perspective as he looks back upon his life from the viewpoint of an old man, and he incorporates many true facts from history in this fictional account of his life. Setting Fifth Business is set in three distinct milieus. Given author Robertson Davies' well-known interest in Jungian psychology, it is interesting to note that each milieu can be said to represent a different aspect of the psyche. The first and most well developed of the three settings is the tiny village of Deptford. The portrait painted of this village is rich with dark imagery, and in Jungian terms could be considered the darkness of the subconscious mind. Deep in the dark heart of Deptford lurk the secrets which Percy, Paul, and the narrator, Dunstan, think long buried. But like subconscious emotions, these secrets drive the adult characters' actions long after they have escaped the tiny confines of Deptford. Both Percy and Dunstan escape to Toronto, a major city in Canada. The city is not well described in the story, but it does serve to represent the conscious mind. Here in this well-populated milieu, Boy and Dunstan create and live out their public roles. Dunstan, a disciplined man who has long suppressed his emotions, must travel to South America to encounter his emotional side. In Jungian dream interpretation, this part of the world signifies man's uncontrolled, undeveloped emotions. In the story's climax, the dark secrets buried in Deptford finally emerge, as Dunstan, after spending time getting acquainted with his emotions in South America, finally integrates the buried pieces of his psyche with his conscience world in Toronto. In addition to the richly symbolic physical settings, the author has introduced the actual events from history, which take place simultaneous to the story. The stock market crash of 1929 and the abdication of King Edward both affect the characters in the novel. Both World War I and World War II are accounted for as well, although only World War I is discussed in detail, as it was the war in which the narrator actually participated as a young man. The narrator's war experience is central to the story, as it leads to one of the three miracles supposedly performed by Mrs. Mary Dempster. Boy makes his fortune during the post-war boom, and later uses his industrial capability to feed the hungry populace of Canada and England when food supplies become limited by the war. Without this historical backdrop, Boy's character could not have become a captain of industry. And had their not been a convenient war to enlist in, Dunstan would perhaps have never made it out of Deptford. Thus these historical events help set the stage for the dramatic roles played by the characters of Boy and Dunstan. Language and Meaning Fifth Business is written in a manner befitting the narrator's character. Dunstan Ramsay, the first-person narrator and protagonist of the story, is a thoughtful, fair-minded man. The prose reads as if it were written by a thoughtful and fair-minded man, and as the reader learns at the end, by a secretive man as well. Dunstan is careful with his words, and often reveals important facts obliquely. For example, when he speaks of what the villagers did to Mrs. Dempster, Dunstan does not indignantly state that she was kept, quite literally, on a leash by her husband, as a prisoner in her own home. Instead, the cautious narrator reveals this fact as a rumor, and indirectly confirms the rumor later in the narrative with an off-handed comment: "I got so that I did not notice the rope she wore (it was actually a harness that went around her waist and shoulders, with the horse-smelling hemp rope knotted to a ring on one side, so that she could lie down if she wanted to), or the raggedness of her clothes, or the occasional spells when she was not wholly rational." Chapter I, pg. 56 Thus given the narrator's penchant for indirectly establishing facts, the reader must pay close attention to every word. In this way, the author woos the reader's attention, and keeps it firmly throughout the story. Even the climactic ending to the story is revealed indirectly. Dunstan never flat-out accuses Paul Dempster of killing Boy Staunton. The narrator mentions only that he noticed his stone paperweight - the murder weapon - had gone missing after Paul left his room in the company of Boy Staunton on the night of Boy's death. The Brazen Head confirms the identity of the murderer with a verse of theatrical doggerel. This theatrical accusation might easily be overlooked as unimportant, except for the fact that the Brazen Head's words shock the narrator into cardiac arrest. The devil is definitely in the details in this carefully worded story by Robertson Davies. Structure Fifth Business is structured as if it were a personal memoir, written by the protagonist, Dunstan Ramsey. The story's overt structure follows Dunstan's life chronologically, from his boyhood in the small village of Deptford, to his adult life in the large city of Toronto, incorporating his travels across Europe and the Americas as well. The purpose of Dunstan's life is to discover his purpose, and the book is structured in such a way as to gradually reveal that purpose to the reader. The story opens with a boyhood prank gone awry, referred to as the snowball incident; this childish prank involves both Dunstan and the book's other major character, Percy Staunton. As the years of Dunstan's life roll by, this incident, rather than being forgotten, becomes more and more important. By the end of the novel this incident is revealed as being Dunstan's raison d'etre, his purpose for living. Thus the author neatly ties everything back together at the end of the story by finally resolving the snowball incident, and revealing its true meaning to the characters in the book and to the reader as well. In addition to this overt structure, a theatrical, pseudo-structure lies embedded in the plot. The story's title, Fifth Business, refers to a key principle in the structure of operas and stage plays. One of the core characters, Liesl, has a theatrical background, and it is she who explains to Dunstan the structure of operatic plays, and how this structure applies to his life. In an opera, there is a main male protagonist, and his female love interest. Additionally, there is a female rival whose role it is to interfere with the lovers, as well as a male rival who generally plays the part of the bad guy. The fifth character in this dramatic structure is called Fifth Business, for he has no female counterpart. It is the role of the fifth man to keep the secrets of the male protagonist, and to reveal them when the time is right. Thus, the Fifth Business is the conscience of the protagonist, as well as the record-keeper of the events of the plot. Dunstan Ramsey plays the role of Fifth Business. Thus although he is the protagonist of the novel, in his own life's story, he is actually the odd man out, the fifth man. Dunstan is the conscience and the record-keeper for his friend Percy (Boy) Staunton, and in the end it is Dunstan who reveals the truth about the snowball incident at the propitious time. This pseudo-structure is a complex concept executed flawlessly by author Robertson Davies. As a result, Dunstan plays two distinct roles: within the novel, he is the protagonist; within his own life's story, he plays the smaller role of supporting character. The author meshes these two distinct structures seamlessly, and the resulting construction provides a satisfyingly comprehensive storyline.
Fifth Business Literary PrecedentsRobert Browning's The Ring and the Book (1868-1869) is one basic source for Davies's approach to the narrative material in this novel. In that poem the same events are presented from the viewpoints of different people. Davies takes that idea one step further by having his narrator write about himself. The story that we learn is incidental to what we learn about the character. Patricia Merivale has noted that in addition to being Dunstan Ramsay's autobiography, Fifth Business is also "Dunstan's 'lives' of the 'saints,'" and she relates the novel to two elegiac romances, Hugh MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night (1959) and Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus (1947) as well as Thomas Mann's "ironic Saint's Life," The Holy Sinner (1951). Michael Peterman finds several important antecedents to Fifth Business. He notes resemblances between this novel and John Henry Newman's religious autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864). Like Newman, Ramsay is offering a defense or justification for his life, for he is responding to Lome Packer's patronizing tribute to "Corky" in the College Chronicle which suggested that Ramsay's approach to history was fanciful and hopelessly dated. Peterman also points to links with J. B. Priestly's The Magicians (1954) and Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head (1961) noting that the choice Sir Charles Ravenstreet must make in The Magicians between "the power-wielding businessman Mervil" and "the three mysterious magicians, Wayland, Marot, and Perperak" resembles Ramsay's conflict "between the materialistic world of Boy Staunton and the religious realm of Mary Dempster" and that Honor Klein in A Severed Head plays a Liesllike role in appearance and counsel. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 178.73 Kb. Share with your friends:
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