The Influence Of Childhood In Fifth Business By Robertson Davies

“I have never thought that traits that are strong in childhood disappear; they may go underground or they may be transmuted into something else, but they do not vanish”(Davies). Identity is the very foundation for expression and interpretation of the human spirit which comes from the experiences and influences of life. Failure to develop social skills in childhood such as self worth, morality, and emotional expression has a detrimental effect on adult life. Robertson Davies fully explores the nuances of identity and the influence of upbringing in his novel Fifth Business. The inescapable influence of childhood ultimately shapes identity in adulthood.

TRANSITION Feelings of inferiority developed in childhood lead to submissive tendencies in

adulthood. Without the development of self worth and self importance through childhood it is impossible to develop the skills to take control of the course of life and destiny. Throughout his childhood Dunstan does not participate actively in his own life but rather acts as a support to those around him. Effectively his life becomes “a spectator sport”(Davies) and he goes into adulthood without any sense of agency over his life. In Dunstan’s adult life he becomes “fifth business”(Davies 231) to his friends and acquaintances, most notably Boy Staunton who he acts as confidant to. In adulthood Dunstan allows Boy to take the girl he has loved since childhood from him because of his own lack of confidence developed in childhood. TRANSITION Exposure to overbearing and controlling authority figures in childhood leads to an attraction to similarly overbearing and controlling companions in adult life. In childhood Dunstan is subject to the strong will of an overbearing mother whose love has “a high price on it”(Davies). He feels compelled to earn her affection as any boy would but as she is impossibly difficult to satisfy he is left feeling that he never has earned her love. Shortly after his mother’s passing Dunstan finds himself drawn to another woman, Diana, who he comes to realize is very much like the mother he had so recently lost. Diana regards Dunstan “as her own creation”(Davies 85) and is the cause of his rebirth in adult life. Dunstan sees history repeat itself as his new love Diana is “too much a mother”(Davies 85) to him for her overbearing and controlling love reminds him much of his own mother’s love from childhood. TRANSITION A guilty conscience from childhood devours the truth in youth leaving fantasies to rule adulthood. The guilt that dunstan harbours from childhood is what leads him to view Mrs.Dempster as a saint. He feels that he “made her what she is”(Davies) and should thus take responsibility for her. This obsession with Mrs.Dempster is “virtue tainted with madness” and “dominates [Dunstan's] life”(Davies 252) in adulthood. A sense of guilt from childhood towards Mrs.Dempster shapes and distorts Dunstan’s views of her into adulthood. CONCLUSION

TRANSITION One's sense of morality is determined by one’s social class and social influences through childhood.

TRANSITION Failure to form meaningful relationships with women in adulthood is caused by failure to develop healthier relationships with women early in life. Boy Staunton failed to develop meaningful relationships with women in his youth as his mother doted on him endlessly and the girls of his childhood were nothing more than the fleeting infatuations of youth. This failure to view women as people carries over into maturity and creates the disposable views of women present in Boy as a man. It is doubted “if [Boy] ever knew much about women as people”(Davies) in manhood as he is only “fond of the sexual pleasure that women could give him”(Davies). In childhood Boy only ever saw women as giving and thus expects the same from them as a man. TRANSITION Children who want for nothing become adults who take for everything. Throughout his childhood Boy is seen as “the Rich Young Ruler”(Davies) who can take whatever he wants and thus wants for nothing. This attitude is carried into his adulthood as he lives believing that you must “let life know what you want”(Davies) and take it to be happy. He does this without any care or concern from those whom he effects by taking things much as he did in childhood. TRANSITION Young children emulate the authority and morality demonstrated in childhood in adulthood. Boy lives his life in very much the same pattern as his sole role

model, his father, did. Boy sees the actions of his father in childhood and emulates them becoming “something of a bully, a boaster, and...a bad loser”(Davies) just as his father was. Boy seeks to succeed his father in the role of “village Rich Man” in manhood. His father bought up created a sugar empire and “Boy, who had more vision than his father”(Davies) went into the secondary process which is more stable in the war times of his adulthood to become the rich man he strived to be in childhood like his father. CONCLUSION

Childhood social isolation leads to poor social and emotional expression in adulthood.

TRANSITION Escape mechanisms used in childhood become fundamental weaknesses in personality in adulthood. The use of preoccupations to distract from superficial problems in childhood is not inherently bad behavior however when the same escapism is used in adult life to avoid real problems then the behavior is destructive as in the case of Paul Dempster. Magic is introduced into Paul’s life at a young age by Dunstan who sees his teachings as an entertaining pastime and a form of charity work to “a thing such as Paul”(Davies). However through this childhood escape Paul begins to lose touch with reality and takes on multiple new personalities and names which he lives as “for more years than...he answered to his [birth] name”(Davies). Paul’s childhood fascination with magic was not inherently evil but the way he continues his obsession into adulthood is destructive. TRANSITION The expulsion from society as a child creates self destructive resentment of society in adult life. Paul was born into unfortunate circumstances and was treated poorly by the religious people of the village for his mother’s actions despite being “the unoffending son” of the sinner whom they despised. This social isolation and ridicule drives the young Paul to run away with the circus. This isolation as a child drives Paul to become Faustus and then Magnus creating his own worlds and perpetuating his isolation into

adulthood. TRANSITION Emotions and struggles suppressed in childhood prove detrimental and dangerous to adult life. Paul struggles with suppressed emotions throughout most of his life. As a child he is still too innocent to understand “the kind of guilt [that his] father wanted [him] to feel”(Davies) for his role in the decline of his mother’s sanity. This understandable failure to grasp adult emotions such as guilt at a very young age causes Paul to have a lifelong misunderstanding of his own emotions. He was forced in that instance to manipulate his own emotions to appease his father and by doing so begins to manipulate his own emotions to fit a character he believe the world would rather see than his true self. By the time Dunstan speaks to him about his mother Paul has manipulated his own memories and emotions such that he believes that his mother “is part of a past that cannot be changed by anything”(Davies) that he has of could have done. Paul acts irrationally and dangerously on these misformed emotions in adulthood potentially taking the life of Boy Staunton who he holds responsible for his own sorry state. It is his childhood experiences with emotions that left him so socially crippled driving him to become delusional and dangerous in adulthood. CONCLUSION

Identity present in adulthood is shaped by the influences of childhood. Adult life is detrimentally affected by the failure to develop self worth, morality, and emotional expression in childhood. CONCLUSION