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Date Posted: 14:00:11 01/15/01 Mon
Author: Anne-Marie Pion
Subject: Re: Fifth Business
In reply to: Cynthia 's message, "Re: Fifth Business" on 17:37:00 09/23/00 Sat


Hey there... I'm no teacher, but am writing an essay on FIFTH BUSINESS at the moment. I haven't edited it yet, so sorry for the lack of structure and all that junk. It's for my English 12A class... Anyway... just thought it might help you out...


Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business has become an important part of Canadian literature, presenting the reader with new themes that he or she can relate to. From events that can alter your life’s direction, to finding your role in society, Davies has a way of making readers dive into the analysis of their own lives. This life analysis is exactly what the protagonist of Fifth Business does throughout the novel.
Written with a strong narrative force, Fifth Business tells the story of the life of one man. The protagonist and narrator, Dunstable Ramsay, uncovers his life as a letter to a director; therefore, the reader. As the result of a condescending article about Ramsay’s retirement, the letter gives a sense of reality to the novel. Ramsay writes the letter to prove his own life was eventful while discovering the importance of his role in society.
The plot of the entire novel revolves around one single event. Davies sets off Fifth Business with this life changing event. The outcome of the incident guides and dictates Ramsay throughout the his life, blinding him of any other possible paths. Ramsay’s life is thus a sequence of one single episode that happened at the age of ten.
Ramsay’s guilt resulting in this occurrence is what guides him throughout his life. He and his long-time friend and enemy, Percy Staunton, aged of ten, had been arguing over a sled race. Ramsay had won, making Staunton angry and jealous, for Staunton had a new and expensive sled. Out of this bitter jealousy, Staunton throws a snowball within which he had inserted a rock at Ramsay. Keen as he was, Ramsay stepped in front of a couple, the Dempter’s, as they were walking on the street. The snowball hit the pregnant Mrs. Dempster, making her hysterical.
I was sure that he would try to land one last, insulting snowball between my shoulders before I ducked into our house. I stepped briskly – not running, but not dawdling – in front of the Dempsters just as Percy threw, and the snowball hit Mrs. Dempster on the back of the head. She gave a cry and, clinging to her husband, slipped to the ground.
Mrs. Dempster was immediately rushed to her home. Ramsay and Staunton also go home directly. Mrs. Dempster later that evening goes into labour. She delivers her child seven weeks premature. The child suffered deformities and health problems due to this prematurity.
Ramsay, feeling immense guilt for this incident, will further on let himself be guided by it throughout his life. He will feel entirely responsible for Mrs. Dempster’s son’s health issues and deformities until he can find peace with all the people involved, and above all, with himself.
I was perfectly sure, you see, that the birth of Paul Dempster, so small, so feeble and troublesome was my fault. If I had not been so clever, so sly, so spiteful in hopping in front of the Dempsters just as Percy Boys Staunton threw that snowball at me from behind, Mrs. Dempster would not have been struck. Did I ever think Percy was guilty? Indeed I did. But a psychological difficulty arose here.
Although Ramsay is not altogether responsible for throwing the snowball, he deeply feels he is to blame for the consequences that resulted of it. Although, he never admits this guilt nor his part in the event to anyone but himself. Staunton, likewise, does not reveal to anyone his share in the incident, but unlike Ramsay, does not confess to any guilt.
“You threw that snowball.”
“I threw a snowball at you,” he replied, “And I guess it gave you a good smack.”
I could tell by the frank boldness of his tone that he was lying. “Do you mean to say that’s what you think?” I said.
“You bet it’s what I think,” said he. “And its what you’d better think too, if you know what’s good for you.”
We looked in each other’s eyes and I knew that he was afraid, and I knew also that he would fight, lie, do anything rather than admit what I knew. And I didn’t know what in the world I could do about it.
So I was alone with my guilt, and it tortured me.
Looking for peace with the guilt he felt, Ramsay devotes his adolescent years to helping the Dempster’s any way he could. On his mother’s demand, Ramsay completed chores for the poor Dempster’s weekly. Ramsay also spent his days secretly visiting the poor feeble-minded, Mrs. Dempster. While working in the library in later years, Ramsay tutored the young Paul and educated him well.
Directly resulting Ramsay’s focus on the Dempster’s, he became a social outcast, very much like Mrs. Dempster. Ramsay lost his sense of community with his family and his peers. Realising he did not fit in, he attempts to find his place in society by enlisting for the army, who was at the time participating in the First World War. Ramsay, in pursuing the search for his role in society, leaves his family behind.
This aspect of Fifth Business supports Davies’ view on the parental bond and finding your role in society. To Davies, the parental bond exists as nothing more than an obstacle to an independent and successful life. Bringing up the issue of the coming-of-age, Davies clearly indicates that this bond can prevent a certain personality to find his or her place in society.
The leading example, obviously being Ramsay enlisting for the war, demonstrates Davies’ view point. Ramsay’s escape to the war gives him freedom to live a more independent life, where he is free to succeed or to fail for himself. During his years of war, Ramsay kept no relationship to his parents, avoiding any form of communication with them. There is no more reference to Ramsay’s parents in the novel after this point, other than a mere mentioning of their death. “I was ashamed because I felt the loss so little.”
Having not found what he was looking for during the war, Ramsay returns to Canada. He pursues his education at the University of Toronto, studying history. Achieving a Masters in this field, Ramsay is introduced to Hagiography : the biography concerned with the lives of saints. This study of saints becomes Ramsay’s obsession and new attempt to defining his place in society.
Ramsay devotes his time to studying and researching the lives of these saints. Continuously trying to prove his life, Ramsay sees hagiography as his claim to distinction.
As an historian by training, I suppose I should have begun at the beginning, whereever that was, but I hadn’t time. Scenes from the Bible gave me no difficulty; I could spot Jael spiking Sisera, or Judith with the head of Holofernes, readily enough. It was the saints who baffled me.
Ramsay travels to Europe chasing these myths and legends. With time, his obsession results in a withdrawal from relationships, as he is constantly isolated from them. Through hagiography, Ramsay begins to reevaluate his life.
Ramsay’s special interest in hagiography leads him to seeing life through them. Relating every one of his own life experiences to the legends of saints, he reviews them, fragmenting and analysing his entire life. Hagiography enables Ramsay to study his life from a new aspect : an objective point of view.
Ramsay, unable to think freely and openly about many issues he has lived throughout his life, uses hagiography as his method of thinking. He finds comfort in these myths and legends of the lives of saints. Detaching himself from intimate life, Ramsay avoids personal conversations with other characters in Fifth Business. Instead, he cites legends about saints that correspond to the circumstances. Ramsay, in result, has few friends and lives an isolated life.
Davies’ view of life and on society are as William Shakespeare quotes : All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players : they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. The novel Fifth Business is written from this view point. In his life analysis, Ramsay comes to realise that he may not have had the leading role, but was regardlessly necessary in the development of the life-drama. It becomes clear to him that his place is not as the hero, but it is nonetheless important; he aids in completing the lives of everyone he is surrounded by.
Davies begins the novel with the explanation of his theatrical inspiration : the fifth business.
Those role which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were nonetheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the dénouement, were called the Fifth Business in drama and opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.
– Tho. Overskou, Den Danske Skueplads
As Ramsay takes on the quest for his own role in this life drama, he finds that he is Fifth Business. Reading the condescending article about his retirement, Ramsay decides to write to the director and make him realise what he had realised : the importance of Fifth Business.
Oh God! Packer, who cannot know and could not conceive that I have been cast by Fate and my own character for the vital though never glorious role of Fifth Business! Who could not, indeed, comprehend what Fifth Business is, even if he should meet the player of that part in his own trivial life-drama!
The novel Fifth Business is truthfully a novel about finding your own identity and your own role in the drama of life. Davies intended to make his readers realise that in life, incidents may happen that can alter the outcome of your life. Presenting common themes, the reader embarks in their own life analysis reading along as the protagonist, Ramsay, does the same.
Using a mixture of two literary devices to deliver to the reader a clear understanding of the purpose of this novel, Davies presents a rare form of romance and satire. Romance, being a protagonist’s quest for a certain distinction and his or her own place in the world while trying not to hurt others is intertwined with Satire : the differences between actual occurrences and what happens ideally. Throughout Fifth Business, Ramsay searched for this distinction and his place in society, as many people do today. The novel also demonstrates that in life, what is expected and planed on, may not exist tomorrow. Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous quote concludes it well, “Carpe Diem! Seize the day!”
Davies’ Fifth Business is a novel about one man’s quest for his identity and role. In his life analysis, he comes to realise that although his life was not the most eventful, he played his role, completing the lives of everyone he was surrounded by. Davies teaches the reader that regardless of the role you are given in life; hero, villain or simply Fifth Business, you are nonetheless required to complete the staged play of everyone else’s life.

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