Fifth Business
By Robertson Davies
Essay Outline
Prompt: To what extent is a character responsible for his/her isolation from
society in Fifth Business?
Paragraph one: Introduction
Topic Sentence:
In the novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, a man by the name of
Dunstan Ramsay spends his years dedicated to a way of life that secludes
him from the rest of society.
Thesis:
As Dunstan ages he starts to realize that it is the extent of his own interests
and experiences which are keeping him in a state of seclusion with no
intimate interactions.
Directional Statements:
Dunstan’s obsessive nature, his guilty conscience and his irregular
experiences with women lead him to a life of seclusion.
Paragraph two: First Body Paragraph
Topic Sentence:
Dunstan’s obsessive nature leads him to be come engrossed in activities
that consume a lot of his time and ultimately result in his isolation from
civilization.
Support 1:
Dunstan’s obsession with saints leads him around the world and into his
own world.
“My preoccupation with saints was such that I could not keep it out of my
conversation, and Boy was concerned for me. ‘Watch that you don’t get
queer, Dunny,’ he would say” P129.
Support 2:
Dunstan’s determination to hold secrets and remain trustworthy greatly
alters his subconscious.
“I renewed my appeal again that afternoon, but she would give no
promise, and I don’t think I would have believed her if she had done so; I
was irrationally obsessed with an ideal of secrecy that I had carried for fifty
years, only to betray it now” P217.
Support 3:
Dunstan’s infatuation with Mary Dempster causes him to alienate himself,
focusing all of his positive feelings on one person.
“You despise almost everybody except Paul’s mother. No wonder she
seems like a saint to you; you have made her carry the affection you
should have spread among fifty people” P217.
Paragraph three: Second Body Paragraph
Topic Sentence:
Dunstan’s childhood causes him to have constant feelings of guilt which
causes him to live a life of servitude in which he tries to make amends with
his past mistakes.
Support 1:
Dunstan’s experience with Mary Dempster leaves him with a sense of guilt
because he feels partly responsible for her “simplicity”.
“As a child I had felt oppressively responsible for her, but I had thought all
that was dissipated in the war. Was not a leg full and fair payment for an
evil action? This was primitive thinking, and I had no trouble dismissing it so it seemed. But the guilt had only been thrust away, or thrust down out
of sight, for here it was again, in full strength, clamouring to be atoned,
now that the opportunity offered itself” P160.
Support 2:
After Mary Dempster prematurely gives birth to Paul, Dunstan feels guilty
because of his association with her accident.
“I learned all the gynaecological and obstetrical details as they were
imparted piecemeal to my father; the difference was that he sat
comfortably beside the living-room stove, opposite my mother, while I
stood barefoot and in my nightshirt beside the stovepipe upstairs, guiltridden and sometimes nauseated as I heard things that were new and
terrible to my ears” P19.
Support 3:
Dunstan’s war efforts award him the Victoria Cross. Dunstan feels guilty for
winning this award despite his courageous war actions. This demonstrates
Dunstan’s different state of mind as even though he deserves this award
he feels guilty.
“Here am I, I reflected, being decorated as a hero, and in the eyes of
everybody here I am indeed a hero; but I know that my heroic act was
rather a dirty job I when I was dreadfully frightened; I could just as easily
have muddled it and been ingloriously killed” P86.
Paragraph four: Third Body Paragraph
Topic Sentence:
Dunstan’s irregular experiences with women cause him to lose interest
and trust in them and lead him away from the life of a family and children.
Support 1:
As a child Dunstan was greatly influenced by his mother who created a
specific view of life for him.
“How could I reconcile this motherliness with the screeching fury who had
pursued me around the kitchen with a whip, flogging me until she was
gorged with - what? Vengeance? What was it? Once, when I was in my
thirties and reading Freud for the first time, I thought I knew. I am not so
sure I know now. But what I knew then was that nobody - not even my
mother - was to be trusted in a strange world that showed very little of
itself on the surface” P36.
Support 2:
Dunstan’s superficial relationship with Leola Cruikshank fuels his superficial
views and leads him to believe that women are not so important.
“On the fourth finger of Leola’s left hand was a large diamond ring… Was
I stricken to the heart? Did I blench and feel that all my glory was as dross?
No; I was rather pleased. There was one of my homecoming problems
solved already, I reflected” P96.
Support 3:
When Dunstan meets Diana Marfleet after the war he learns many new
things but most importantly that he does not yet know who he is.
“I agreed that I was sure there was more to me than that, but I didn’t
know what it was and I needed time to find out. Furthermore, I knew that
the finding out must be done alone” P92.
Paragraph five: Conclusion
Dunstan’s interests cause him to live a life of ‘solitude’ in that he has no
intimate relations of any kind and lacks trust and openness. His obsessions,
guilt and past experiences with women lead him into a realm of seclusion.
After fifty years Dunstan is still reminded of his past mistakes and guilt.
These thoughts don’t leave Dunstan causing him to near the final stretch
of his life in isolation and loneliness, unaware of the love and joy he could
be experiencing.