Fifth Business
Dunstan Ramsay as Fifth Business
In Roberston Davies’ novel, Fifth Business, as Dunstan Ramsay narrates his life story, the reader becomes aware of the pivotal role he plays in the lives of the other characters, the role of ‘Fifth Business.’ As Liesl explains the purpose of Fifth Business in classic European opera, it is almost uncanny how accurately it describes his life. It leaves no question that Dunstan Ramsay is the baritone, he is Fifth Business.
Who are you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? I think you are Fifth Business. You don't know what that is? Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna -- always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor. So far, so good. But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex. And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business! (217-218)
Throughout most of the novel, Dunstan fulfills his role unknowingly. Over the course of his life he has been the outcast, never fully socially accepted, but the confidant of many and always bearing the burdens and guilt of others. However after this encounter with Liesl, he embraces the role and
In Roberston Davies’ novel, Fifth Business, as Dunstan Ramsay narrates his life story, the reader becomes aware of the pivotal role he plays in the lives of the other characters, the role of ‘Fifth Business.’ As Liesl explains the purpose of Fifth Business in classic European opera, it is almost uncanny how accurately it describes his life. It leaves no question that Dunstan Ramsay is the baritone, he is Fifth Business.
Who are you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? I think you are Fifth Business. You don't know what that is? Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna -- always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor. So far, so good. But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex. And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business! (217-218)
Throughout most of the novel, Dunstan fulfills his role unknowingly. Over the course of his life he has been the outcast, never fully socially accepted, but the confidant of many and always bearing the burdens and guilt of others. However after this encounter with Liesl, he embraces the role and