Imagination and Isolation: A Study on Robertson Davies' Fifth Business

According to writer Barry Wood, the central theme of Robertson Davies’, Fifth Business, can be characterized as “the plight of the imagination in this chilly cultural climate” (Wood 24). The theme of small town life and isolation serve as a common thread throughout the book, and Davies’ juxtaposition of the mundane with magic, sainthood and mythical transformation identifies both the narrative and the literary composition of the book itself. The trivialities of life in rural Ontario, contrast with this sense of creation, and mythic journey towards sainthood; a literary mechanism of which Davies develops in order to convey “the universality of the realms of imagination as against the parochial mediocrity of an ordinary world.” The

Furthermore, Mrs. Dempster’s “hysteria” and deviation from such society norms by way of abnormal sexual behavior, and wandering nature, are comparable with her journey to sainthood; and this is made explicit when Ramsay sees “Mary wandering by herself” (Davies 143). The act of wandering, according to Goldman, is a perversion of the proscribed female role in society, and is thus an affront (Goldman 992). Mrs. Dempster’s non-conformity is key to understanding her transformation with the process of sainthood, as her being seen as a simple woman, reduced to “a series of hysterical crying fits” after being hit by the snowball, essentially sets her down the path to social deviance and eventual sainthood in the eyes of the Ramsay. This notion of “hysteria” is attributed to Ramsay as well, and Goldman writes that the isolation and loneliness generated from Ramsey’s time in the army, causes him to suffer from a kind of

Thus, the fusion of the mundane and the magical perpetuate the narrative in a literary framework, which straddles this “borderland” of magic and mythic narrative. Furthermore, Davies’ cultivation of sainthood as a central theme of the novel is essentially a challenge to the proscribed social norms regarding femininity as masculinity, within rural Canadian society. The process of sainthood, in regards to Mrs. Dempster, adheres to this mythic trajectory of a fall from grace, or a “descent into the underworld”, or “hysteria”, resulting in an ultimate rise to sainthood. Finally, the dullness of life and the societal ideals of the male and female roles are challenged in the transformation of Mrs. Dempster in her respective process of sainthood. Abnormal behavior is looked down upon in rural Ontario; however, this process of “sainthood”, as a theme in the book, seems to assume that and individual rejection of social norms is a fundamental tenant of this transformation. Like Mrs. Dempster, Ramsay experiences a similar transformative trajectory, and the magic of this process is not necessarily magic in the traditional sense of the word, but related to a deeper sense of becoming. The magic manifests itself as a creation, and transformation, seeping out from