Paul Dempster Character Analysis

Paul was born prematurely as a result of the snowball hitting his mother Mary’s head. He is a frail child, who at an early age, and under Dunstan’s tutelage, displays a talent for magic tricks. Mr. Dempster believes magic is sacrilegious and will not allow it in the house. Paul eventually runs away from home after being lured into a circus by Le Solitaire, who is an implied pedophile. He becomes a famous magician and illusionist, going by the name of Magnus Eisengrim. He eventually reconnects with Dunstan, whom he hires to write his magic persona’s falsified autobiography. Through Dunstan he meets Boy Staunton again, whom he kills after learning that Boy threw the snowball that hit his mother and doesn’t remember the incident at all, leaving the stone hidden in the snowball that struck his mother in Boy’s mouth.