Fifth Business: Character and Narrator Analysis

Fifth Business: Character and Narrator Analysis

  • Submitted By: herrzy
  • Date Submitted: 11/13/2008 6:49 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 289
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 1

Dunstan does not talk a lot about Mary in this part of the book but I do think that he sees a lot in Leola that resembles Mary Dempster in the end. The narrator talked about how Leola basically tried to kill her self by opening the window and giving her the chill and it was a lot like Mary. “Although I cannot vouch for this, I have always thought it suspicious that Leola opened her windows one afternoon, when the nurse had closed them, and took a chill, and was dead in less then a week.” (pg.195) It just comes to the fact that so many of Leola characteristic’s near the end of her live resemble Mary Dempster, she was tired of being alone, did not want a social life and basically stayed in isolation as Mary did before she moved away. As the novel moves on deeper into Dunstan’s live we start to notice that he talks about Leola a little more then he used to. He feels sorry for her and at the same time I think he kind of wished that they ended up being together so that maybe she would turn out happier then she is now. The narrator says “Poor Leola had become more and more listless since the outbreak of the war; as Boy grew in importance and his remarkable abilities became increasingly manifest, she faded.” (Pg. 194) In a way she resembles the condition that Mary Dempster had and I think that’s why Dunstan starts to talk about her a little more then usual. Through out the book Dunstan has found the need to search for himself by finding saints and visiting where they were from.

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