Fifth Business Quotes

Dunstan was a soldier in World War I and during his time he took part in the Battle of Passchendaele. Here, Dunstan realized, “But what hit me worse than the blow of the shrapnel was that the face was Mary Dempster’s face” (68). By observing Mary Dempster’s face in the Immaculate Conception, it becomes known to the readers that Dunstan still feels guilty about what happened many years before that day. This also leads readers to believe that Dunstan joined the military to get away from the responsibilities his mother forced upon him (to take care of Mary). This allows readers to see that the guilt Dunstan felt from the day of the incident is no longer on his mind, but rests in a portion of the conscious mind that reappears.

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

Mary Dempster into premature labor and caused her to become 'slow' as a result. This sends Ramsay into a pit of immense guilt, whereas Staunton refused to acknowledge his part in the accident. This would leave Ramsay according to his words “alone with my guilt, and it tortured me.” (Section 1: Line: 168). As mentioned earlier this marks their divergence. Throughout the rest of the novel the guilt tears through Ramsay. He is in search of a way to cope with his guilt, but more than that; he's looking for redemption. As the story of Ramsay's life moves forward the sense of guilt over the Dempsters remains, he continues to care for Mrs. Dempster until her death. Though throughout it all he begins to see Mrs. Dempster as a saint for what he considered to be her three miracles reviving Willie, her face appearing on a statue of Mary and turning the life of a homeless person around . Perhaps this is just his way of coping with guilt. Making connections where there are none and viewing them as miracles to elevate Mrs. Dempster from a pitiable creature to sainthood. As the story continues the theme of guilt continues; transcending the Dempsters. Many years later into the story Leola the wife of Staunton attempts suicide after reaching her breaking point as Staunton drew farther and farther away becoming more and more abusive, and more and more engrossed with money and power. She leaves a note that states “Dearest Dunny: This is the end. Boy does not love me and you don’t either so it is best for me to go. Think of me sometimes. I always loved you Love, Leola”(Section: 4 Lines: 200-204). This sends Ramsay into another fit of guilt while Staunton attempts to draw away yet again appearing almost indifferent to the situation. This again forces a divergence between the two men. The entirety of the novel touches

In Chapters Four and Five of A Room of One 's Own,, the focus on Women & Fiction shifts to a consideration of women writers, both actual writers and ultimately one of the author 's own creation.

As a child, Dunny felt guilty for the accident, and its affect on Mrs. Dempster. As he sees the weak child, Paul, grow his guilt also

In contrast, when we interpret Mary Dempster along Jungian archetypes, we see her in various roles and see her as a dynamic character who changes as much as Dunny does in the novel since she is arguably, one of the active agents for change in Dunny's life. Firstly, she is the mother figure, bringing forth a weakened child into the world. She then becomes a type of a savior figure, not only because of her appearance to Dunny as he crawls through the mud in World War I, but also because she gave of herself unselfishly to the drifter in the grave pit. After this incident she is not crazy, but distracted. She becomes the Jungian outcast in the novel since the small town mentality cannot accept why she would ever prostate herself to a drifter. Mary becomes other things through the novel. This is just a start. The point is

In addition to his commitment to Mary Dempster, Dunstan felt responsible for the premature birth of her son Paul Dempster, which led him to also care for Paul.

In society, individuals are accustomed to the mistreatment of minorities. Racist jokes are of abundance, and women can easily find themselves to be the victim of gender stereotypes and injustices. Society has an evident lack of consequences for perpetrators of such mistreatment towards minorities, increasing the need for advertisement in favor of the minority. The novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies validates the mistreatment of the minority, whereas the novel The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe opposes such actions. Both authors create characters with sexist characteristics that reflect poorly on women. Characters in these novels also judge the minority solely by their gender.

The Wife of Bath’s Tale harbors a character that some would most likely pass over in terms of grandeur. This character, known as the “loathly lady”, isn’t as magisterial as Queen Guinevere, nor is she as perplexing as a predatory knight trying to save his life. The Devil Wears Prada and The Princess and the Frog are modern mediums that contain their share of “loathly ladies”. These characters come from unique tales, but they all show us how we may learn regardless of who the teacher may be.

In her novel My Antonia, Willa Cather, while writing in a sexist time, calls attention to the power of the female in life and society through Antonia, Lena Lingard, Tiny Soderball and Frances Harling and accentuates and celebrates the significance of the matriarchal world by use of Jim Burden as the narrator. Jim holds an enlightened consciousness of the female because, after spending most of his life with these women, he sees how they started with nothing ended with a successful life. In a time when women were expected to be subordinate to men, Cather’s female characters defy the stereotype and prove their self reliance and independence with the accomplishment of a prosperous life. The strength of the female is primarily revealed to Jim through Antonia, whose determination and confidence show to him that despite her struggles, she continues to give birth to multiple children which further triumphs her challenges that led to successes. Since most women are accompanied by a male in life, Lena proves that even with their absence, success can come from female independence. Frances serves as a more obvious explanation to how females thrived in a non supported environment because she has the same job as many men, but victoriously triumphs over them. By declining the conform to the typical female role, Antonia, Lena, Frances, and Tiny advocate to the female character their importance in life and society, showing that their absence would be virtually useless to males.

Throughout Open Secrets, Alice Munro writes complex women characters that deal with heartbreak, loss, assault, and more. Some women flourish despite the restraints, while some struggle under their weight. Munro’s women also have to deal with the gender roles of their respective time periods.

In Susan Glaspell’s one-act play Trifles, the women become more privy of the circumstances surrounding John Wright’s murder than their husbands who are actually conducting the investigation. In the male-centric setting of the American Midwest in the 1920’s, the play addresses gender roles by placing the emphasis on the female characters in the play. While the men are hard at work, it is the women who emerge as the protagonists. In this essay, I wish to explore the gender roles developed by Glaspell in the house of John Wright, particularly their role in the home, finding their identities, and the stereotypes portrayed in literature. The gender role motif is important to explore because it is replicated in many texts including the literature of today.

Margaret Atwood’s novel The Robber Bride is a postmodern work of fiction which explores and unravels gender as a socio-cultural construct. It deals with how society and culture imprison both men and women into constructed stereotypes of masculinity and femininity attributing both men and women gender specific traits. The novel not only questions essentialist notion of gender identities as fixed and stable but also challenges the differences attributed to men and women owing to their biological sex. These biological differences in sex construct the gap between men and women’s position in patriarchal society exalting a man 's status and marginalizing women. In her novel, Atwood constructs the female character Zenia as a robber bride, a ‘man-eater’ and a trickster who embodies and represents the traits not only of femininity but also those that are associated with masculinity. The trickster figure can be defined in literature and legend usually as, “a male, who crosses boundaries, disrupts the social order, and embodies contradiction. He is a shape-changer and a liar” (Stein 143). It is through the character of Zenia, that gender identity comes out to be a “dynamic matrix of interrelated, often contradictory, experiences, strategies, styles and attributions mediated by cultures and one’s specific history, forming a network that cannot be separated meaningfully into discrete entities or ordered into a hierarchy” (Garland

Imagine having a hard life full of secrets and truth. This novel, written by Alice Walker, shows how a young lady, Celie, goes threw thick and thin only to ponder who she really is. In the beginning she is timid, submissive and passive. As the novel progresses, Celie transforms into a strong, independent, and outspoken woman. The technique that she uses throughout this novel is the fearing of God. Alice Walker takes her readers from low to high, with this powerful story, all narrated through letters to God.

“The Devil’s Wife” by Carol Ann Duffy is a tragic and powerful poem. Written in the form of a dramatic monologue, Duffy adopts the persona of Myra Hindley, the notorious Moors Murderer. The poem consists of five individually titled sections, each describing an individual part of Hindley’s experiences from meeting Brady to feeling sorry for herself while sitting in her prison cell. At the end of her life. Themes relating to avoiding responsibility, self-pity and her fear of society’s reaction to her crimes are explored as Duffy creates an effective persona.