Fifth Business

Fifth Business
B. Shahid

Fifth Business is a novel written by Robertson Davies which follows the lives of two young boys from Deptford, Ontario. Dunstan Ramsay and Percy Boyd Staunton, at the mere age of 10, stripped away the sanity of Mary Dempster, the pregnant wife of a Baptist minister. It began when Percy Boyd Staunton threw a snowball concealing a rock intended for Dunstan Ramsay; however instead hit Mrs. Dempster in the head sending her into premature labour. Due to his religious upbringing Dunstan acknowledges his responsibility for this within himself; however Percy chooses to ignore it, leaving Dunstan the bearer of guilt during the transition of the boys growing up and becoming men with their own successes. Critical events from…show more content…
Percy came from a prestigious family in Deptford, with great expectations to live up to. When quarrelling, the snowball intended for Dunstan hit Mrs. Dempster instead, which resulted in the birth of premature Paul and Mrs. Dempster being “simple”. When he was approached about this incident, feeling guilty but more so frightened by consequences, he denied it. As a result of this, Percy became obsessed with being ‘perfect’, to not be from the most prestigious family in Deptford, but to be the most prestigious man in all of Canada, as if to make up for his mistake as a child,. “Boy seemed to have made himself out of nothing, and he was a marvel. He was a perfectionist, however, and not content.”(Davies 103)This addiction to become the absolute greatest in everything he chooses to do resulted from Percy being afraid of making a mistake as he did with Mrs. Dempster, however he does not acknowledge it. He is not merely satisfied with ‘good’; he needs to be superlative. The town of Deptford considered the relationship of Leola and Percy Staunton to be the finest and most cherished. Percy specifically chose and married Leola because she was considered the loveliest girl in Deptford, and Percy only wanted the best. When they married, Percy was “educating Leola” to become the wife his…show more content…
He confided that to Dunstan that, “My father always told me it was my birth that robbed her of her sanity. So as a child I had to carry the weight of my mother’s madness as something that was my own doing. And I had to bear the cruelty of people who thought her kind of madness was funny –a dirty joke.”(Davies 139) As a result of the teasing and guilt he consistently received Paul ran away at the age of 10 with a circus that visited Deptford. This would not have happened if Paul had not been treated with guilt from his father and been taunted by the residents of Deptford. Paul Dempster grew to be a wonderful magician who travelled the world to show his great talents and entertain the world. “His fame was now so great that he had once had his picture on the cover of Time as the greatest magician in history.”(Davies 244) If Paul had not run away due to the guilt he felt when he was younger, he would never have discovered nor honed his talents in magic. After running away from Deptford, Paul had changed his name; however was renamed once again as Magnus Eisengrim. He shed his identity as Paul Dempster and the guilt that came with it. “My real name is Magnus Eisengrim; that is who I am and that is how the world knows me.”(Davies 249) Paul’s new identity as Eisengrim came from the word wolf. He chose to be a strong fighter, rather than the guilt