Paul's childhood in fifth business was not picture perfect. For instance, as Dunstan stated in the story is that "Paul was not a village favorite, and the dislike so many people felt for his mother - dislike for the queer and persistently unfortunate - they attached to the offending son." (34) This illustrates the struggle that Paul had dealt with at a young age. His father Amasa Dempster blamed Paul for his mother, Mary simple-mindedness; he constantly told him that it was his birth that brought misfortune upon the family. Furthermore, the people of the town also did not make it easier on him because of his mother's wrong actions; they put a great distance, and making him become the town's outcast. After all, the guilt, Paul felt for his mother pushed him to change his life for the better; More importantly, by running away with the circus he strived to become a famous magician. …show more content…
With this in mind, Percy master how to get what he wants in life and does not let the guilt from the incident empower him like it did to Dunstable and Paul. However, although Percy recreated himself as Boy Staunton, he always remained the same person who threw the snowball at Mrs. Dempster so many years before. As for Dunstan, he joined the war,"I liked the idea of a new name; it suggested new freedom and a new personality." (90) Dunstan being the main character of fifth business; he lived most of his life under the control of his guilt for Mary's ill condition. However, this quotation simply confirms that by leaving his name latebehind in Deptford it allowed him to finally grow up, and to transform into whomever he wanted to
Minor character’s come into a story to intrigue the audience and help the story remain interesting. In fifth business, Percy caused drama with Dunstan because they referred to each other as enemies. Percy wasn’t just in the beginning of the story and then gone as soon as Dunstan went to the war. When Dunstan came back from the war, he and Percy reunited and actually became friends until he passed away in a car accident. What is interesting about this particular death, is that Mrs. Dempster's son, Paul, might have been to blame for Percy or Boy’s
As soon as Dunstan realized that Eisengrim was Paul, he knew that he influenced his life and led him in the path he followed for his whole life. Body Paragraph 3: Point: A third character that sees Dunstan as a fifth business would be Percy Boyd Staunton. Growing up, Percy was Dunstan’s best friend and enemy (there were ‘foils’ for each other), and as time went on they grew apart from each other when Dunstan went to war. However, they never forgot about each other.
Percy Percy provides the novel with the perfect parallel to Dunstan. He does, however, contrast in many ways to Dunstan. They are best friends, but Percy rivalry results in the formation of the main setting of the novel. Percy also feels more of an attachment to material goods than Dunstan does. He thinks only of himself and is in constant pursuit of total and utter control. Percy was low moral standards in comparison to Dunstan and in some ways, feels he is of a higher stature than other human beings. This awkward relationship between him and Dunstan forms the basis of the novel.
...ts suicide at the end of the book. As with Dunstan, Percy is influenced by the powerful motivator of guilt. He felt so overpoweringly guilty because of what he did to Ms. Dempster that he committed suicide. If the motivator of guilt had not been present, he would have kept on living.
Every encounter Paul has with someone he creates a new identity to bond and connect with them. Throughout the play Paul creates multiple personas for himself, he realizes that he is an empty vessel with no past and only memories of what he has done during his different personas. Paul loses control over his multiple personas which cause them to overlap with each other. Which causes him to feel lost and in search of help, when Ousia offers this help he gladly takes it which end up putting him in prison and never to be seen in New York.
In A Separate Piece by John Knowles, it is about a boy named Gene Forrester who becomes friends with Phineas (Finny). They are best friends and roommates in Devon School in New Hampshire during the 1940’s. They decide to make a secret society (Super Suicide Society) which turns jumping out of a tall tree into a river a ritual. Gene starts envying Finny and wonders if Finny is trying to ruin his grades since Finny only exceeds physically and not mentally. He soon starts to hate Finny and think differently of him. After a while, Gene realizes that he was wrong about Finny trying to sabotage him. They decide to make amends by jumping off of the tree together. When Finny is about to jump off, Gene bends his legs which caused Finny to fall off and break his leg. After his leg heals, a trial is held to figure out if Gene is responsible for Finny’s broke leg. Finny runs out and trips over marble steps. He breaks his leg again and gets surgery which leads to his death. Gene should be held legally responsible over the death of Finny. He was the cause pf the first fall and he has guilt over his death. Finny would not have died if it wasn’t for the first fall that tragically broke his leg.
Percy Staunton is a rich, popular boy who is able to do whatever he pleases without consequences. He always has to be at the top of the social pyramid and is able to conquer anything by doing nothing. Percy is the one who threw the snowball at Mary but he never took any blame and even denied ...
Fifth Business, told in the form of a letter to the schoolmaster, begins with a snowball that young Percy Boyd Staunton throws at Ramsay. The stone-in-a-snowball misses Ramsay but hits Mary Dempster, causing the premature birth of Paul Dempster. Paul grows up to be Magnus Eisengrim, a mysterious and graceful magician. Tormented by his guilt of avoiding the snowball, Ramsay makes Mary his personal saint and is weighed down by his conscience until Mary’s eventual death in an asylum. On the eve of becoming the lieutenant governor of Ontario, "Boy" Staunton is found dead in the Toronto harbour with the fateful stone in his mouth.
...iesl, Dunstan satisfies the role by knowing the secret birth of Paul Dempster, by witnessing Boy Staunton’s rises and falls, and by being the “odd one out” through achieving a bachelor status. Similarly, both characters were designed to be neither the protagonist nor the antagonist. Instead, Horatio and Dunstan Ramsay both play the secondary character role; the plot is not directly focused on them, but rather on the main characters that they interact with and influence. However, their fulfillment of Fifth Business has proven to be more than just a significant secondary role; they provide the necessary foundations for the development of both the main characters and the plot.
Percy’s and Dunstan’s characters contrast in many ways. The most prominent way in which they contrast is their values. Dunstan values spiritual things, while Percy values only material things. Percy is impressed by and yearns for money, while Dunstan could care less about it. Dunstan explains his lack of desire for materialistic things:
real reason he got blind. He knows that seeing the eclipse without protection wasn't the
He grows up in the family which is haunted by an evil whisper “There must be more money! There must be more money” (Laurence 1). There haunted house with a whisper asking for money symbolized the greed of the mother, who cares for nothing rather than money. She desires to have a luxury life and never expresses her love for the kids. Paul always wants to have his mother’s attention. He wants to be claimed as a lucky man, who can satisfy his mother. He takes the responsibility of a financial provider although it is too much for a little boy to handle it. The luck comes to him. Somehow, he can figure out the winner by riding his horse and earn money from the bet. Even when he brings a lot of money for his mother, he always feels anxiety and scares that this ability will be taken from him. The evil voice keeps whispering in every corner of the house "There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w - there must be more money! - More than ever! More than ever! (Laurence 10) Paul is too young to handle all of these stresses. The materialistic life drives him crazy. It haunts him and forces him to work harder and harder. Daniel P. Watkins analyzes the life of Paul in his journal “Labor and Religion in D. H. Laurence’s The Rocking Horse Winner” that “He is never satisfied with what he produces because it is no way relieve the pressure that his world place on him, and thus his
Fifth Business is a fictional memoir of Dunstan Ramsay, a small town boy from Deptford, Canada whom we get to see evolve into an intellectual man looking for meaning in life. Dunstan has an innate ability to read people upon first or second meeting, but never seems to get a true read on himself. He is relatively successful financially, and is proclaimed a war hero after receiving the most prestigious English award; the Victoria Cross. He was raised well, and has an intelligence that exceeds his small-town upbringing. All these things seem like they would lead Dunstan to a happy, satisfying life. However, at the beginning of the story Dunstan goes through a major life-changing event. His best friend and biggest rival Percy hits a pregnant woman with a snowball intended for Dunstan. This sends Dunstan into a life full of guilt, eventually leading him to a life without any significant other or true friendships.
middle of paper ... ... Since this family had no moral direction, it is clear that since the family needed more love than money, it suffered the consequences of it when they were constantly ignoring it, specially on behalf Paul's mother. As I read the story with no doubt in mind, the story clearly manifests a serious lack of love in the family.
In ‘Paul’s Case’ Paul has created a fantasy world in which he becomes entranced, even to the point of lying to classmates about the tales of grandeur and close friendships that he had made with the members of the stock company. This fantasy falls apart around him as “the principle went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house” (Cather 8). The fantasy fell apart further when the stories he had told his classmates reached the ears of the women of the stock company, who unlike their lavish descriptions from Paul were actually hardworking women supporting their families. Unable to cope with the reality of working for Denny & Carson, he stole the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank to live the life of luxury in New York. Only a person who felt backed into a corner would attempt something so unsound. After his eight days in paradise, he is again backed into a corner by the reality of his middle class upbringing, and the dwindling time he has before his father reaches New York to find him. The final way out for Paul is his suicide, for which an explanation would be “In the end, he fails to find his security, for it was his grandiose “picture making mechanism” that made his life so deardful.” (Saari). With all the securities of his fantasy life finally gone, his mental instability fully comes to light as he jumps in front of the train to end his