Guilt stemming from traumatic childhood experiences is a theme that runs throughout both The Fifth Business and “The Manticore”, both by Robertson Davies. As this essay will argue, although nearly all of the main characters have ties to this theme, in “Fifth Business”, Dunstan is most significantly affected by it and even more importantly, the guilt that stems from events in youth seem to shape the entire course his life takes. While Dunstan attempts to reconcile past events with the overwhelming guilt that encompasses much of his identity, other characters such as Paul and Boy Staunton attempt to deal with their guilt and negative childhood experiences as well, albeit in quite different ways.

What emerges by the end of “Fifth Business” is a pattern of experience, guilt, and then reconciliation that resurfaces throughout the following book in the series, “The Manticore”. If there is any general statement to be made about guilt and its impact on the lives of the characters in both “Fifth Business” and “The Manticore”, it is that reconciliation is essentially before true identity can be revealed. Although it sometimes takes death or other extreme measures to reach such a state, without making peace with it one’s life can never be fully realized. This is certainly true with Dunstan and the theme continues with David Staunton.

At the beginning of “The Fifth Business”, there is a brief argument about a sled that takes place between a group of boys living in a small town. This is an innocent introduction to the characters but things take a dramatic turn when Percy (later known simply as “Boy”) throws a snowball with a piece of granite as Donny but it hits the pregnant Mrs. Dempster, causing her to go into labor prematurely with her son, Paul, as well as begin the slow decline into insanity. This event, which was a complete accident, has an incredible impact on Dunny and causes him to be plagued with a guilt that he carries with him to an old age. It is clear from the very moment the event takes place that a guilt cycle is forming when Dunstan states in one of the important quotes from “Fifth Business” by Robertson Davies, “I was contrite and guilty, for I knew the snowball had been meant for me, but the Dempsters did not seem to think that” (Fifth Business 3). Dunstan’s initial guilt stems from the fact that he inadvertently caused Paul’s early birth and subsequent ill health.

When Paul is born, he is a pathetic creature and “his cry was like the mew of a kitten” (Fifth Business 13) which makes the reader begin to understand (at least in part) the circumstances which warrant so much guilt from such a young boy. Furthermore, even after he was asked repeatedly about what happened he could not bring himself to reveal who threw the snowball in the first place. This was added on top of the fact that Dunny felt that he was also responsible for causing the ensuing insanity of Mrs. Dempster and explains why, throughout various stages of his life, he gave her so much thought and was so mystified and enthralled with her. In addition to this, the guilt that Dunny harbors leads him to go to war, especially since he is also faced with even more guilt about so close to Mrs. Dempster. The fact that he sees her in his vision as a saint is also important because it does not allow him to sever his connection with his past (and its associated guilt) but rather, it perpetuates it and leads him to an ever deeper study of saints and mysticism (Wood 24) It is also Dunstan who introduces the young Paul to magic tricks which sparks an interest that will eventually lead him away from his mother and into a life far away. This guilt is even further carried out when, after taking care of Mrs. Dempster throughout her life, he stops visiting her and feels responsible for her death. In short, there is no aspect of Dunstan’s life that is untouched in some way by guilt. Everything that he does is either something he does to consciously or unconsciously perpetuate the endless cycle until his life begins to lack an independent meaning or value.

It should be noted that although Dunstan is most affected by guilt in Fifth Business, other characters are shaped by it throughout the novel as well. For example, because of his mother’s insanity (which in Dunstan’s mind is all still perpetually linked to the snowball incident) Paul can never quite feel comfortable in the small town, especially after his mother is caught with the tramp. Furthermore, his painful and guilt-ridden youthful experiences eventually lead him to become the carnival attraction that he is and even more importantly, come into play when Boy is found dead with the piece of granite in his mouth. In other words, for Paul and Boy these early experiences caused a chain and cycle of continual guilt and although the results of these old but powerful feelings are not resolved until the characters are much older, it is clear how important guilt is in both of these novels.

Throughout Fifth Business, the guilt is always present but it isn’t until the actual physical manifestation of this entire legacy of bad feelings, past experiences, and overwhelming guilt (the piece of granite itself) that things can begin to come to a close in the first book. While each character deals with guilt in his own way, it is significant to think about how Boy Staunton’s guilt is manifested not through an outward attempt to reconcile the past but to turn to stone in order to prevent it from getting to him. For example, as the narrator states, he had very little compassion and thrived on tough situations—as long as they weren’t his own. “Boy Staunton made a great deal of money during the Depression because he dealt extensively in solaces.

When a man is down on his luck he seems to consume all he can get out of coffee and doughnuts. The sugar in the coffee was Boy’s sugar, and the doughnuts were his doughnuts” (Fifth Business 149). In other words, he profited while the world suffered; much the same way he was able to survive and achieve great things (money-wise) while “weaker” and more morally-inclined people like Dunstan did the suffering. In short, the differences between the ways the two characters, Dunstan and Boy deal with guilt can be summed up by Boy’s assertion, “Nice, nice, nice! Of course it isn’t nice! Only fools worry about what’s nice” (Fifth Business 157). At this point the reader must question who the fool is and wonder if it is all three of the boys to much the same extent.

Before moving on to discuss how the theme of guilt associated with early childhood experiences has an effect on the characters in the next book in the series, “The Manticore”, it is important to establish the reason for the title Fifth Business as it relates to guilt. The reason why Dunstan is this person who is not a hero or significant causation for action is because he has been stunted throughout the course of his lifetime by guilt. He has been rendered completely unable to act according to his own wishes and desires because of a constant, almost obsessive desire to make things right and find a way to reconcile the past with who he has (or wants to) become. Some of the tension with Boy Staunton is that he, if anyone, should be feeling the same kind of crippling guilt but instead seems to thrive while under its weight. While this is not fair in many ways, it offers readers a more complex understanding of how traumatic experiences that cause guilt can be handled in life.

Interestingly, the book does not seem to favor the way either man handles his feelings; the story simply unfolds and the tragic consequences of harboring deep-seated guilt are revealed in an almost allegorical fashion. With this in mind, it is important to think about this aspect of the book in terms of how it plays out in “The Manticore” since the main character comes from a legacy of guilt and negative experiences. Like Dunstan, he tries to overcome this overwhelming nature of personal wishes for some kind of spiritual or personal reconciliation but is not always successful or even sure how to proceed. In short, it seems that by basing his next book on a character struggling with essentially the same issues that those in the first book dealt with (albeit under different circumstances) the author is trying to reveal something even more potent about guilt and its manifestations and cures than he could do with the characters of Dunstan, Boy, and Paul.

When at the beginning of “The Manticore”, David Staunton says about his treatment “Why was I so hostile to a course of action I had undertaken of my own will? There was no single answer to that” (The Manticore 6) the reader cannot help but realize that the hostility was based on guilt—guilt because of the way he had been raised by his father to shut out emotions and real ways of dealing with things.In many ways David Staunton is the continuation of his father’s failed attempt at making peace with a past that had plagued him with more guilt than he could ever quite reconcile or take in. The legacy that started with the snowball continues because David begins to realize how he is so angry and cannot come to terms with the way he feels without help. This is the case because throughout his life he had been a victim of his father’s outlook on life and when he began fighting with his stepmother and drinking excessively he realized that he was reaching the same point-of-no-return that his father had.

Through his deep psychoanalysis he is, unlike his father, man enough to confront the childhood issues that have plagued him and riddled him with guilt and fear and as a result, this is a “happier” book than the one before it simply because the protagonist is not quite as frustratingly unaware of what he is feeling. The picture that develops after these stories is that guilt is something that perpetuates itself if allowed to go unchecked. While David Staunton (unlike his father and Dunstan) can resolve his issues it is not something easy to do and even though he does resolve his past issues, his life has still been shaped by guilt and past experiences as have the character’s lives in the other texts.

More essays and articles on other literary topics can be found in the Literature Archives at Article Myriad •

Works Cited

Davies, Robertson. Fifth Business. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1977.

Davies, Robertson. The Manticore. Toronto: Penguin Book, 1981.

Wood, Barry. In Search of Sainthood, Magic, and Myth in Fifth Business Critique 19.2 (1977), 23-32.