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  • Essay / How Guilt Reveals Characters' Personalities in Fifth Business

    Guilt was a major recurring theme in the book "Fifth Business" by Robertson Davies. The reaction of some characters to the novel's conflicts shows that morals and values ​​taught in childhood can reveal an individual's true personality. Davies showed this theme at the beginning of the novel. The snowball that was originally intended for Dunstan misses and hits a pregnant Mary Dempster. A simple snowball accident causes a major chain reaction that transforms Dunstan into an isolated, serious and complex person. Percy Boyd simply ignores the guilt and moves on. Thanks to his easy and wealthy lifestyle, he can solve anything with a little money. He is an everyday rich businessman, handsome, wealthy and intelligent. It is like an invisible and impenetrable barrier between him and the guilt due to his immense wealth which protects him verbally. His father always taught Paul Dempster to do whatever it took to make things right. The consequence is that as he grows up, he blames himself for his mother's madness. He has a slightly similar upbringing to Dunstan. He is also isolated and has been an easy victim of bullying. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Nevertheless, his mother taught Dunstan to fear all sins and to fear God. After the snowball accident, this indirectly forces Dunstan to take care of Mrs. Dempster and her newborn baby. He is ridiculed by his classmates and classmates in his early childhood, earning the name cripple for helping Mrs. Dempster feel guilty. This made it difficult for him to make friends, and as a result, Dunstan became a lonelier person. As the novel continues, people begin to open up to him, but he still thinks about his past and turns people away. He is not the “main character”. He wants, it's the fifth affair. A secondary character who helps and supports but never leads. He isolates himself from all possible events. When Leola asks Dunstan to sleep with him, he refuses for fear that the situation will escalate further. At the beginning of the novel, Dunstan says: “This is one of the cruelties of the theater of life; we all consider ourselves stars and rarely acknowledge it when in fact we are just supporting characters. and that's when he sees himself as a secondary character. The snowball accident turns his whole life upside down and he will never try to lead again. He has exactly the same state of mind throughout the novel. On the other hand, Percy Boyd comes from a rich family and is the person who hit Mrs. Dempster with a snowball. He is almost the exact opposite of Dunstan. The characters in the novel see him as an outgoing, handsome, and extremely wealthy politician. As he came from a rich family, whatever he did as a child was never managed by his parents. Therefore, he never indirectly cares about the acts he committed when he was a teenager. As an adult, he begins to manipulate and control every situation. She wants Leola to become the ideal wife in the political world, but she cannot cope with the constant pressure. As a result, Percy ends up neglecting her and her children. He took the lead role, unlike Dunstan who chose the supporting role. Paul Dempster is a character in the novel that no one wants because of his mother's madness. During his childhood, he blamed himself for his mother and his own misfortune. He never really knew what was going on in his life, he was optimistic and easily.