Fifth Business: Part 1 Summary & Analysis

The first chapter of the book is preceded by a quote attributed to “Tho. Overskou” which defines “Fifth Business” as describing those roles that are not of the hero or heroine, confidante or villain, but are nevertheless crucial to the unfolding of a drama. “The player who acted these parts was often referred to as ‘Fifth Business’”

1. The book opens with narrator Dunstan Ramsay accounting for the exact date and time that his “lifelong involvement” with Mrs. Dempster began. Young Dunny (short for Dunstable) has been spending the afternoon sledding with his friend, Percy, who is angry that Dunny’s sled is faster than his even though it is old and inexpensive. Dunny decides to simply ignore Percy’s taunts and heads home so as not to be late for dinner. Percy follows him through the streets, yelling insults. Dunny senses that Percy is about to throw a snowball, and he steps in front of Mr. and Mrs. Dempster, imagining Percy will not throw if there is a chance he might accidentally hit someone other than Dunny. He throws anyway, and Mrs. Dempster is struck in the head. Mrs. Dempster falls to the ground in pain, and Dunny immediately feels guilty. Percy is not seen.

Mr. Dempster asks Dunny for help and he agrees. Mrs. Dempster is put on the sled and Dunny pulls it as Mr. Dempster walks alongside it comforting Mrs. Dempster, who cries like a child. When they arrive at the house Mr. And Mrs. Dempster go inside and Dunny is not asked to join them. Dunny is late for dinner but has a good excuse, and tells his parents everything except that the snowball had been thrown by Percy, and was meant for him.

Mrs. Ramsay is interested in the condition of Mrs. Dempster. She decides to go over and see if she can help. Dunny recognizes this as a curious decision—Mr. Dempster is the Baptist minister in this small Canadian town of Deptford, and the Ramsay are Presbyterian. Usually a Presbyterian family would stay out of the business of a Baptist family, and vice versa. But Mrs. Ramsay’s unusual cleverness and competence has made her able to help in various medical situations before, and she has always felt sorry for Mrs. Dempster, who is not even 21 years old yet, and who is in Mrs. Ramsay’s opinion “silly” and “utterly unfit to be a preacher’s wife.”

Dunny stays up late and hears his mother come back to the house for supplies, saying that Mrs. Dempster has gone into premature labor, and that the birth is looking to be a difficult and dangerous one. Thus Paul Dempster is born.

2. Dunstan explains to the headmaster, who is the ostensible recipient of this letter, why he begins his account with the birth of Paul Dempster. He explains that he has been deeply offended about an article in the school newspaper that describes him in dull terms—he is a devoted teacher though with an old-fashioned view of history. He is not even particularly mad that the article neglected to mention the fact that he was a recipient of the Victorian Cross, the highest military honor in Canada. Dunstan laments that the article treated him as though he had never known love, excitement, or hate. He maintains that he has been cast in the “glorious role of Fifth Business” and scornfully maintains that the young author of the article probably couldn’t even comprehend the meaning of the Fifth Business if he tried.

Dunstan concludes to the Headmaster that he must lay down his strange life, its truths and its illusions, so that someone may understand he is not what his meager reputation among his students suggests he is. He writes that he hopes his account of the night of Paul’s birth has already started to convey the “extraordinary” nature of his story. He maintains that he will try to accurately describe his own boyhood, but notes that men are often incapable of being honest about their pasts, as their self-love skews their perception.

3. Deptford is a tiny Canadian village containing five churches: Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Roman Catholic. There are two doctors, Dr. McCausland and Dr. Staunton, Percy’s father. The village was built by the Athelstan family, who made their fortune in lumber some years ago.

Dunny’s father owns a paper, The Deptford Banner. This puts their family in a good social and economical position, and they live a modest but pleasant life. The family is known for its common sense and cleanliness, and they are generally respected by everyone in the town.

4. Mrs. Ramsay enjoys being able to help with the birth and care of Paul, because it puts her competence and ability on full display. Paul is born roughly 80 days premature, and when he is born, small and weak, Mr. Dempster wants to dip him in water to baptize him. Mrs. Ramsay and Dr. McCausland forbid this, and so the minister must settle for simply sprinkling some water on the infant’s forehead.

A baby has never been born so prematurely in this town, and many expect that Paul will not survive. Dr. McCausland and Mrs. Ramsay do everything to keep Paul healthy, keeping him warm and feeding him while Mr. Dempster prays over his barely conscious wife as though she is about to die. He also prays that God will, if necessary, accept both his wife and son into heaven, though they are still both alive. Finally Dr. McCausland tells him he must stop with such nonsense. Mrs. Ramsay shakes her head sharply when she tells the rest of her family about Mr. Dempster’s behavior.

The Ramsay’s house becomes disheveled and disorganized as Mrs. Ramsay spends long days at the Dempsters, but Mr. Ramsay thinks his wife is a wonderful woman, and would never “do anything to prevent her from manifesting her wonderfulness.” The hard work pays off, and Paul is finally able to keep milk down. He begins to put on a modest amount of weight and grows slightly stronger, though it is doubted that he will ever be fully healthy. Mrs. Ramsay maintains that he is a fighter, and believes he will grow to be strong.

All this time, Dunny is convinced that the premature birth of Paul Dempster is his fault. He talks to Percy about it, but Percy tells him that the snowball hit his head, as it was supposed to, and not Mrs. Dempster’s—threateningly adding that Dunny ought to believe this story, too, or else. Dunny knows from the look on Percy’s face that he is afraid, and that he will do anything to prevent the truth from coming out. So Dunny is left alone with his guilt, which makes it all the worse. His religious upbringing combined with the fact that he is just starting puberty makes his mind one in which guilt can utterly take over, and this is what happens. He lives with a persistent fear of sex, of his parents finding out about the smutty conversations he has with other boys, and feels responsible for “a grossly sexual act—the birth of a child.”

One night a few months after Paul’s birth Dunny overhears his mother telling his father that Paul will likely survive—but that Mrs. Dempster seems to be permanently mentally impaired from the blow to the head. She’s “gone simple.” Mr. Ramsay wonders who threw the snowball, and Mrs. Ramsay supposes that whoever it was, the devil guided his hand.

5. As time passes, Percy’s refusal to accept guilt eventually translates to Dunny’s inability to blame him anymore—he comes to find himself alone responsible for Mrs. Dempster’s condition.

Even before Mrs. Dempster suffered the blow to the head, she was perceived to be “silly” or strange. She smiled too much, and was often out in public even when she was pregnant. She seemed improperly happy when she was meant to be the shy and modest wife of a preacher. And Mr. Dempster was far too fond of her, helping her too willingly and sometimes even taking chores off her hands and doing women’s work around the house.

Mrs. Ramsay always tried to help Mrs. Dempster learn how to do feminine work. She’d had a servant as a child and was not good at keeping house, mending clothes, etc. But Mrs. Ramsay agrees with the townspeople that Mrs. Dempster has become even more inappropriate after Paul’s birth, going so far as to breastfeed him in front of Mr. Dempster and houseguests. Though they agree she is a good mother, they think she does not take it seriously enough.

Dunny is tasked by his parents with looking after Mrs. Dempster and Paul most afternoons after school when Mr. Dempster cannot be there. The house and grounds are neglected, and Mrs. Dempster often gets into trouble by giving away too many of her belongings to neighbors or beggars, giving compulsively even when it is unnecessary or inappropriate. While the rest of town becomes increasingly off-put by the Dempsters, Mrs. Ramsay’s compassion does not waver, and the Ramsays take care of the Dempsters in every way they can.

6. Dunny faces some social rejection due to his time spent with the Dempsters, but he has a quick wit and a way with words, and is able to defend himself against taunts. He has an insult saved for Percy should Percy ever give him any trouble: Mrs. Staunton calls her son “Pidgy Boy-Boy”—this would be a terminal embarrassment for Percy, and Dunny enjoys knowing he has the power to humiliate him. Dunny feels he needs this sense of power, as his duties at the Dempster’s house are depriving him of certain parts of his childhood—he is not playing games after school or dating girls, though he does have a slight crush on Leola Cruikshank.

But Dunny believes he is truly in love with Mrs. Dempster. He loves her not in the way young boys often love older women, in a trivial, confused sort of way, but in a painful, real way. He believes he has made her into what she is, and this makes him love her (for he believes his only other option is to hate her.) Because he loves her, he defends her against the insults of his classmates, especially Milo Papple, a class clown who possesses very little wit. Dunny hears him insult Mrs. Dempster and insults him cleverly. His classmates then refrain from talking about Mrs. Dempster in front of him, but he knows they do it behind his back, and this makes him feel all the more isolated.

7. Dunny is thirteen, and should be getting the hang of the printing business. But he is clumsy with his hands, and does not excel at the job like his brother Willie does. Useless in the print shop, he instead gets a job at the front desk of the library, a job he much prefers. He likes helping other kids find what they are looking for, and when no one is at the library he can spend the afternoon reading. He becomes especially enamored of books about magic, and studies them devotedly, admiring and believing in the work of famous magicians throughout history.

Dunny becomes especially interested in slight of hand tricks, partially because they are the only ones that require few supplies. He practices with an egg stolen from home, and has some success, until one day he puts his thumb through it. His mother demands to know where the missing egg has gone, and he lies, claiming ignorance. She finds the yolk on his pants in the laundry, and she gets out the whip and strikes him on the shoulder. He commands her not to touch him. She becomes furious, chasing him around the house and beating him. They both cry, and she yells about how ungrateful he has become, how strange and arrogant his intellect is.

Mrs. Ramsay locks herself in her room and cries after this episode. When Willie and Mr. Ramsay come home to find that no dinner has been made, they immediately side with Mrs. Ramsay, and Dunny is made to apologize to her. She forgives him, and hugs him and kisses him. Dunny does not know how to reconcile his mother’s violence with her affection. As an adult Dunstan thinks Freud might help him understand his mother, but as a child the episode simply convinces him that nothing is what it seems on the surface.

8. The incident doesn’t keep Dunny away from magic—in fact it makes him more enthusiastic. He takes up card tricks next, mastering a few simple illusions and sleights of hand. He chooses for an audience the young Paul Dempster—and displays his talent for teaching as he shows Paul how to do certain tricks.

Eventually Dunny progresses from card tricks to coin tricks, which are vastly more difficult. Dunny has clumsy hands and limited access to appropriately sized coins, but does his best anyway. One day Paul sees Dunny working on a sleight of hand trick that involves flipping a coin between two fingers and palming it—a difficult maneuver that Dunny struggles with. Paul listens to Dunny’s explanation and then performs the move perfectly on his first try, his small hands prodigiously dexterous and smooth. Dunny is jealous, of course, but knows he cannot change anything and continues to teach Paul. Besides, he knows Paul has no friends, as the rest of the village dislikes his “queerness.”

9. Dunny’s hatred is reserved for Mr. Dempster, whose first name is Amasa. Mr. Dempster’s devout religiosity is something Dunny and others find strange and out of place. The intensity of Mr. Dempsters prayers strike many in the town as “indecent.” Dunny often hears him asking God for strength in bearing his heavy burden—and knows he is talking about his wife. Mr. Dempster used to love her authentically; she used to be “the blood of his heart.” But now he seems to love her “on principle.”

One afternoon Mr. Dempster calls Dunny into his study and scolds him for bringing sin into his house by teaching Paul “gambling tricks” and making him into a cheat. What’s more, Amasa has heard that Dunny has been telling Paul stories about saints (about which Dunny has been doing some reading.) This is, according to Amasa, encouraging “vile superstition.” Mr. Dempster threatens to tell Dunny’s parents, and Dunny agrees that maybe he should, knowing this is not a threat he will likely follow through on. Mr. Dempster responds by saying Dunny is never welcome in his house or near his family again.

Dunny is angry with himself for forgetting how much Baptists dislike cards and card-playing. And as for the stories about saints: he found them to be entertaining diversions, compelling and amusing, not unlike Arabian Nights. He is also hurt that Mr. Dempster reduced magic to mere gambling and cheating.

Dunny does not see much of the Dempsters after this. Every once in a while, he will see Mr. Dempster, looking more and more ragged and hunched. Mrs. Dempster will wander around town offering strange “gifts” of wilted garden vegetables to her neighbors—Mrs. Ramsay always accepts kindly. Dunny only sees Paul once, and he runs away crying. Dunny cannot see Mrs. Dempster or think of Paul without feeling guilt or sorrow, but he has no pity for Mr. Dempster.

10. On a night in October in 1913, Mrs. Dempster disappears. The village organizes a hunt for her, and Dunny is told by his mother to go help. Dunny feels he has been acknowledged as a man for the first time. They go to “the pit” a gravel yard owned by the railway company where tramps and other shady characters often gather. Dunstan has always considered the pit a kind of hell—as it is his wont to “point out the mythical elements that…underlie our apparently ordinary lives.”

The men spread out and begin to sweep across the pit in search of Mary Dempster. After about a quarter of a mile, Dunny hears a rustling in a clump of small bushes—he makes a sound that brings the men around him instantly. A light is shined through the branches, revealing a man having sex with a woman. He rolls off of her and the woman is Mary Dempster.

Someone points a pistol at the tramp and Amasa Dempster appears. He asks his wife, “‘Mary, what made you do it?’” Her simple answer becomes famous in Deptford: “‘He was very civil…And he wanted it so badly.’” Mr. Dempster takes her arm and walks her home.

11. Mr. Dempster decides not to press charges against the tramp, who is driven out of town and told never to return. Mr. Dempster resigns as minister at Sunday services the next morning. The town’s opinion of Mrs. Dempster has changed—she is no longer a benign if off-putting simpleton. She is a filthy adulteress. Even Mrs. Ramsay’s position has shifted—she and Mr. Ramsay get in a loud fight about it. Mr. Ramsay accuses his wife of not being charitable, and she responds that she is shocked the man she married would support such filthy, godless behavior. He calls her cruel, but eventually agrees that the family will provide no more help to the Dempster’s.

All of the women in Deptford seem to be horrified that Mrs. Dempster was not raped—decent women could be raped by tramps, but no decent woman would ever have consensual sex with one. Men who defend her are thought by women to be adulterers themselves. At school, boys pester Dunny about the details of what he witnessed in the pit, and Dunny tries to avoid the gossip but Cece Athelstan (the fat black-sheep son of the wealthy Athelstan family) and his crew of drunkards spread the story around. When the Dempsters move to a new house on the edge of town, a group of men with blackened faces throw a broom that’s been lit on fire on the roof, but it doesn’t catch. Cece’s voice can be heard shouting for Mary to come outside. Dunstan wishes he could say Amasa Dempster came outside and faced them, but he can say no such thing.

Mr. Dempster gets a new job as a bookkeeper at the sawmill. It is rumored that he keeps Mary tied up in the house, with a long rope that allows her to move from room to room but not go outside. Everyone in the town agrees that if she was not mad before, she is mad now.

One day Dunny goes over to visit Mary. She is uneasy at first but then warms to him and they talk eagerly—she knows nothing about the outside world because Amasa does not have a paper delivered. Dunny goes over a few times a week and reads to her from the Banner, stories he thinks would interest her and bits of town gossip. He plays with Paul oftentimes, too, knowing that Paul has no playmates to speak of. It is understood they must keep these sessions a secret from Mr. Dempster, who likely still considers Dunny a bad influence.

Dunny must also keep this secret from his mother, who would be furious if she knew. But Dunny begins to realize that Mrs. Dempster is helping him as much as he is helping her. He cannot fully explain it: she seems to him to be unnaturally wise, but she was not philosophical. Rather, it seems to be a religious wisdom—but not religion as her husband understands it. Mr. Dempster sees religion as a thing to be imposed on others, where Mrs. Dempster seems to “live by a light that arises from within.” Dunny thinks this light is akin to splendors he has read about in fantastical and mythical books.

Eventually Dunny becomes so comfortable he doesn’t even notice the harness Mary has tied around her, or the dirty raggedness of her clothes, or her momentary lapses in comprehension and judgment. Mrs. Dempster is his greatest friend, and their relationship amounts to nothing less than his purpose in life.

Though they grow increasingly close, Dunny can never bring himself to ask Mary about the night with the tramp. He notes that her sexual indiscretion was a particular “kind of reality” which his religious small-town upbringing had declared obscene. He sees in this act something unknown to him, something he cannot or will not recognize, and he decides this “unknown aspect must be called madness.”

12. Besides Mrs. Dempster, Dunny has no friends, and his life is lonely. Other kids at school accuse him of being a “know-all” and, though he knows it is meant to be an insult, he rather enjoys the title. He sets out to become a “polymath”—someone with extensive knowledge in many fields. He reads the encyclopedia, finding entries that are of particular interest to him.

Dunny’s father, in the aftermath of the mess with Mrs. Dempster, tries to befriend Dunny, and helps teach Dunny Latin. In addition, Mr. Ramsay has joined the school board, which makes Dunny’s attitude in school even more arrogant and argumentative. Dunny’s classmates have all grown up quite a bit—Leola is now the town beauty, and is known to be dating Percy.

In spring, the most significant piece of gossip in the town is that Percy and Mabel Heighington (a notoriously promiscuous young girl) have been caught having sex by Mabel’s mother. Dr. Staunton is thought to have paid Mrs. Heighington off. Percy is sent away to boarding school (Colborne College, where Dunstan will eventually teach), and despite his betrayal, Leola still pines for him, which makes Dunny “cynical about women.”

13. The following fall, Willie’s illness—the result of a childhood injury to his back—grows worse. He is having kidney problems, and has become delirious and weak. Dunny is asked to look after him one afternoon, and Willie begins moaning and thrashing. Dunny tries to comfort him, but Willie ceases moving and Dunny can hear no breath or heartbeat. Willie’s skin is cold—he is dead.

Without knowing why, Dunny feels compelled to get Mrs. Dempster. He brings her back, and she touches Willie and calls his name. Willie wakes up and moves his legs a little—Dunny faints.

Word gets out that Mrs. Dempster is in the Ramsay’s house, and when Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay get home Amasa is with them. Amasa takes Mary home and Dunny’s parents grill him about why he chose to get Mrs. Dempster and not a doctor.

When Dr. McCausland does arrive, Dunny tells him Willie died and came back to life. The Doctor dismisses this, concluding that Dunny is simply young and unscientific. Dunstan, as the writer of his letter, comments that causing Willie to rise from the dead is what Dunstan considers to be Mrs. Dempster’s “second miracle.”

14. Gossip gets out about Dunny’s story, and the fact that he believes his brother was brought back from the dead. People wonder if he has gone mad, and the Minister pulls him aside and tells him that it is blasphemous to believe that any mortal can bring someone back from the dead, let alone someone with a deficit of character like Mrs. Dempster.

Dunny’s mother, whom Dunny thinks understands loyalty to be the same as love, cannot understand why he would disobey her. He simply remains silent, and she correctly interprets that silence as resolve—Dunny will not change his mind about Mrs. Dempster. Finally his mother demands that he choose between her and “that woman.” Rather than choose, Dunny decides he will join the army. His mother is distraught and his father is disgusted, for he knows Dunny is joining in order to hurt his mother.

Though his parents are angry, his classmates admire Dunny for his brave decision. Leola, who still pines for Percy but who has not seen him since he left for school, makes it clear that she will be Dunny’s “on loan.” Leola is a lovely girl, and Dunny enjoys their relationship, though it is not particularly physical or intimate.

Dunny knows that he will be called to fight in WWI soon, and cannot bear to leave without saying goodbye to Mrs. Dempster. They had often discussed the war during Dunny’s visits. When he tells her he is leaving, she grabs his face gently and tells him “it does no good to be afraid.” He promises not to be afraid, and soon enough his call comes and he boards a train. Leola does not come to see him off, for fear of how it might look. But the night before he leaves she tells him she has forgotten Percy and now loves only him.