Feminism In Fifth Business, By Robertson Davies

Feminism is the act of achieving equal rights between men and women in the political, social, personal and economic aspects of life. The inequality between females and males has been an issue since the beginning of time and can be observed in many types of literature. Throughout the novel Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, it is quite evident that feminism is not practiced as the female characters are often subservient to the male characters. Furthermore, the female characters are portrayed as having less equality than the male characters when they are described as being manipulative to obtain the things they would like, when they are held to stereotypical responsibilities of a woman or when their sexual activity and performance is not …show more content…
Mary Dempster is the first example of a female character that is held to stereotypical female responsibilities and ridiculed when she cannot perform them in the way Deptford “expect[s] a nursing mother to” (21). Mrs. Ramsey has to help teach her the “feminine ropes” (20) of motherhood and even after the help “[she] was tardy… and did little cleaning and [only] some inept cooking” (21). The duties that Mary Dempster is failing to complete are very stereotypical female jobs and are even described as being strictly feminine. The second incident to which female responsibilities are brought up are when Amasa Dempster is humiliated in the town for “looking after the domestic affairs” (21) in which his wife is supposed to be completing. Consequently, the village “grew tired of pitying the Baptist Parson… and began to think that he was as simple as she” (22). This part of the novel provokes the Dempster’s to be labelled as even more odd, simply because of a man performing the stereotypical female duties. The final event in the novel that labels women with caregiving and cleaning jobs is when Diana takes care of Dunstan in the hospital. Diana “washed [him], attended to the bedpan and urinal, and continued to do so” (73). The hospital consists of only female nurses such as Diana to perform these tasks, proving that the jobs are only meant …show more content…
The female characters are not given equal opportunities in the political, economical, social or personal areas of their lives. With the enforcement of stereotypical female duties, the obvious use of female characters using manipulation to achieve their desired outcomes and the lack of support for women to sexually express themselves without a man’s say, equality is poorly represented between the sexes in the