She defends the sex as an act of charity: "he wanted it so badly" Dempster is pressured to resign, the family moves to the outskirts of town, and she is kept locked in her house. Though Mrs. Ramsay forbids Dunstan to visit her, he does so secretly. The family is mocked and derided by everyone except for him. Dunstan begins to see Mrs. Dempster as a saintly figure. Her simple logic and innate spirituality seems to radiate from her, and he basks in her presence.
Dempster, who seems to bring him back to life by laying her hands on him. He considers this her first 'miracle. This time, when Mrs. Ramsay more forcefully forbids Dunstan contact, they have a terrible fight and he decides to enlist in the Canadian forces of World War I as a means to escape Deptford.
Before Dunstan departs, he becomes romantically involved with Leola Cruikshank, widely considered the prettiest girl in town and the fancy of Percy Boyd Staunton. It is a juvenile affair, but an enjoyable one. Dunstan leaves Deptford for the battlefields of Europe. While fighting in the fields of France, Dunstan single handedly destroys a German machine gun nest, although almost by accident.
In the process, he is seriously wounded. Lying bloody near a ruined church, he turns his head to see the statue of the Virgin Mary, and is shocked to see that the figure has Mrs. Dempster's face right before he is struck unconscious by a falling flare. Later, he wakes up in an English hospital, glad to be alive albeit with one leg missing.
He befriends and falls in love with a pretty young nurse named Diana Marfleet , who is a little older than him, but also quite witty. Dunstan has his first sexual relationship with her, but decides to end the relationship for fear she might smother him as his mother did. Before he leaves, she rechristens him Dunstan from his birth name of Dunstable. He has the sense that he has been reborn, and is free to redefine himself.
Once healed, Dunstan returns to Deptford, wounded but also honored with the prestigious Victoria's Cross medal. A flu epidemic had swept through the town a few years before, killing his parents and Mr. Dempster in the process. In Deptford, Dunstan learns that Paul Dempster had literally run away with the circus in order to escape his mother's reputation.
She has been sent to live with an aunt, Bertha Shanklin , who lives near Toronto. Percy - who has renamed himself Boy Staunton - enjoys reminding Dunstan of his romantic loss Leola even though Dunstan has long since lost interest in her.
Over time, Dunstan completes his degree in History, and settles into teaching at Colborne College for Boys. Soon enough, Boy joins the rich elite of Canada by building an empire in sugar and sugar related products. Unfortunately, Leola remains a small-town girl in many ways, and cannot ever live up to his expectations of a trophy wife.
Dunstan travels to find Mary Dempster in Weston. He endears himself to Aunt Bertha, and is permitted to regularly visit them. Dunstan also becomes a familiar fixture around the Staunton mansion. Boy has taken a liking to Dunstan as his one confidant with knowledge of his past as Percy.
In return, Boy provides Dunstan with stock tips that keep him financially comfortable, even during the Depression.
With that money, Dunstan travels to Europe, partly to study the saints who fascinate him, but largely to find the statue he saw on the battlefield.
His journey is the first of many, and he slowly becomes an author and world authority on saints, despite being Protestant.
Now deep into his research of saints, Dunstan suspects that his own Mary Dempster is a bonafide saint. This supposition is strengthened when he discovers her third miracle Catholic saints are required to perform three. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn't incorporate it into a modern state, because it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshiped security which is what a modern state is asked to give.
Wonder is marvellous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless. How does Ramsay present himself in correcting this account?
In what ways does the war change him? What is the most life-altering experience he has during the war? Padre Blazon asks Ramsay about the significance of Mrs.
Why is Mrs. Dempster so important to Ramsay? In what ways has his interaction with her changed the course of his life? Why does Ramsay think she is a saint? And are the marvels brought into being by their desire, or is their desire an assurance rising from some deep knowledge, not to be directly experienced and questioned, that the marvelous is indeed an aspect of the real?
How would you answer these questions? Learn More About Fifth Business print. Related Books and Guides. Independent People. Halldor Laxness. The Stone Diaries. Carol Shields. A House for Mr. The Conservationist. Nadine Gordimer. A Garden of Earthly Delights. Joyce Carol Oates. The Childhood of Jesus. Sometimes a Great Notion. Beatrice and Virgil. Angle of Repose. Wallace Stegner.
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