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Fifth Business Quotes

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Although the position of Fifth Business as created by Robertson Davies is fictional, it adds validity to the usual consolatory statement expressed to secondary characters that every role, no matter how small, is significant. Robertson Davies successfully portrays Dunstan Ramsay as “Fifth Business” in his novel Fifth Business which enhances the theme that everyone has a significant role to play in the lives of others even if their own life seems insignificant. The novel Fifth Business is about a man named Dunstan Ramsay who is writing to the headmaster of the boys’ school, where he has spent his life teaching, to express his dissatisfaction about the send-off article that was written about him in the school paper. The letter goes on to describe …show more content…

Admittedly, Dunstan is not the only character in the novel who knows the secret of the hero, Paul’s, birth. Boy also knows this secret because he is the one who throws the snowball at Mrs. Dempster, and so, also knows that this is what causes Paul’s premature birth. Since both Boy and Dunstan know the secret of Paul’s birth they could both be Fifth Business. However, there can only be one Fifth Business. Also, a secret can be shared between two people and Dunstan is the only character who fully carries the burden of this secret throughout the novel; Boy seems to bury it and/or forget it. Boy’s denial of the snowball incident is first noticeable when Dunstan first confronts Boy a day or two after the snowball is thrown. Boy replies to Dunstan’s accusation by saying, “I threw a snowball at you […] and I guess it gave you a good smack” (Davies, 23). Somehow, Boy has totally disregarded the matter and so does not carry the secret of Paul’s birth in the same way as Dunstan. It is also evident that Boy somehow buries his memory of that snowball when, quite a few years later, Dunstan, Paul, and Boy are talking in Dunstan’s room. Dunstan comments to himself about Boy’s lack of memory of the incident by saying, “I had to accept it as a fact that he had so far edited his memory of his early days that the incident of the …show more content…

The revelation of Dunstan’s secret causes the death of Boy, in one way or another. When Paul, Boy, and Dunstan are talking in Dunstan’s room Dunstan admits to Paul, “Staunton and I robbed your mother of her sanity” (Davies, 263). Dunstan’s admission and further explanation of the snowball accident leads to Boy’s death. If Paul is the one who kills Boy, it is Paul’s vengeance against Boy, for robbing his mother of her sanity, which Paul would not have known about if Dunstan had not revealed his secret. If Boy commits suicide, it is because Dunstan’s admission makes him realize that the past is not as buried as he has hoped. Thus Dunstan’s admission leads to Boy’s death, no matter how it occurs. Liesl, the voice of the Brazen Head during Paul’s Soirée of Illusions, also reveals that Dunstan’s admission about the snowball incident leads to Boy’s death. Liesl divulges Dunstan’s role in Boy’s death during the performance after one of the audience members asks about Boy’s death: “by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone” (Davies, 266). It is Dunstan’s release of Boy’s conscience, by reminding Boy and telling Paul about the snowball incident, that is the final straw which leads to Boy’s death. This event also reinforces the theme that although Dunstan’s life seems insignificant, he plays a

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