Fifth Business summary

The universe really did not want this to be posted.

Dunstable Ramsay is a disgruntled retiring professor who decides to write a letter to the head master of the school. The book spans his entire life, but continually relates back to the incident as a child were he dodged a snowball thrown by his frenemy Percy. The snowball struck Mary Dempster and caused the premature birth of her son Paul. Dunstable is an unreliable narrator who continually props himself up but tries to claim that he is humble, he is very dedicated to Mary Dempster but has an issue with female authority figures. Mary Dempster is perceived by Dunstable to be a saint and is the closest thing to a mother figure that can be seen in the novel. Percy, who later changes his name to boy also factors in significantly, he constantly provides help to Dunstable but he is very obsessed with social status. Liesel is the only one who is shown to truly understand Ramsay, giving him the title of Fifth Business.

The theme of Fifth business is:  until humans can accept their individual roles in the world and learn how that effects their relationships with others, they will never be truly satisfied.

The tone of Fifth business is often passive and narcissistic. As is is Ramsay telling his own life story he will sometimes embellish some of the tales. But he will often brush over important thing like his time in WW1 like it was nothing.

The setting of the novel is in many places but the key areas are the town of Deptford, the circus with Paul, and war hospital after he is wounded.

The major symbols in fifth business are biblical and are in direct relation to the saints. the major one being Mary Dempster. She symbolizes how even though something may be miraculous it may not be in fact saintly, it could be normal. It is up to humans to discover what is truly divine an what is just coincidence.

“The inevitable fifth, who was the keeper of his conscience and the keeper of the stone.” This quote by Liesel describes Dunstable's role in the novel on society and his reluctance to embrace this fuly is the source of much of his lack of satisfaction.