The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies

First published: 1983: includes Fifth Business, 1970; The Manticore, 1972; World of Wonders, 1975

Type of work: Novels

Type of plot: Moral

Time of plot: 1908-1971

Locale: Canada, England, and Switzerland

Principal characters

• Leola Cruickshank, a small-town beauty
• Mary Dempster, a minister’s wife
• Paul Dempster, her son, a magician with the stage name Magnus Eisengrim
• Liesl Naegeli, Eisengrim’s lover and assistant
• Dunstan Ramsay, a schoolmaster
• Percy Boyd “Boy” Staunton, a wealthy lawyer
• David Staunton, Boy’s son, a criminal lawyer
• Dr. Johanna von Haller, a Jungian analyst
• Willard, a circus magician

The Story:

Fifth Business. Even as a child, Boy Staunton plays dirty. He puts a stone in the snowball he lobs at Dunstan Ramsay’s back. His friend ducks, and the snowball hits Mary Dempster’s head, throwing the minister’s wife into premature labor. Paul Dempster weighs only three pounds at birth. He lives, but his mother is “soft in the head” ever after. The ten-year-old Dunstan knows that his fate is inextricably linked to that of Boy and the Dempsters. The snowball was aimed at him, and he feels guilty for having ducked it. He saves the stone as a reminder.

As he reaches puberty, Dunstan is tormented by desire for the town beauty, Leola. Ridden by guilt, he seeks escape in books on magic and fancies himself a magician. He performs tricks for young Paul, but he lacks dexterity. Dunstan’s parents forbid him to visit the Dempsters after the young wife is caught in the arms of a tramp, on whom she says she took pity. On another occasion, Dunstan is severely reprimanded for bringing her home in a moment of panic when he should instead have called the doctor. He is, however, convinced that she worked a miracle when his brother came back to life.

Dunstan comes to think of Mrs. Dempster as a saint when he fights in France during World War I. He is hit by shrapnel and crawls to a ruined chapel, certain that he is dying. A bomb explodes nearby, lighting up the statue of a saint. It is Mrs. Dempster’s face. The vision stays with him while he convalesces in England and returns to Canada. Back in Deptford, he learns that Mrs. Dempster has left town; her husband died in the swine flu epidemic, and her son ran away with a circus. Dunstan’s parents are dead; his brother died in the war; and Boy, back from private school and a desk job in the army, has won Leola.

Dunstan leaves Deptford, takes a degree in history, and begins teaching at the private school Boy attended. One day, he meets the tramp who got Mrs. Dempster in trouble; the tramp, who became a minister to the homeless, credited Mrs. Dempster with having saved him. Dunstan takes summer vacations in Europe, where he studies saints’ lives and writes books on saints and myths. At a circus one evening, he sees Paul, who becomes a great stage magician.

Boy and Leola raise two children, Caroline and David. Boy is egotistical and Leola, unhappy, attempts suicide. When she loses her will to live and dies, Boy remarries. Dunstan makes a small fortune on investments, thanks to Boy’s advice, so he is able to maintain the aging and demented Mrs. Dempster in a nursing home and to continue his studies and travels. In Mexico, he again meets Paul, who is now performing under the name Magnus Eisengrim. Dunstan writes Eisengrim’s “autobiography,” a total fiction. Together with Eisengrim’s lover, Liesl, he devises a fortune-telling act to be performed by the “brazen head of Friar Bacon” as the finale of Eisengrim’s show on his first Canadian tour.

During the Toronto engagement, Dunstan arranges a dinner with Boy and Eisengrim. He reveals the fateful connection among the three of them and produces the stone that Boy threw sixty years before. Boy and Eisengrim leave together. Later that night, Boy’s car is fished out of Lake Ontario, with Boy at the steering wheel and the stone in his mouth. “Who killed Boy Staunton?” someone cries out during the “brazen head” act on the closing night. Everyone, the answer seemed to say.

The Manticore. It is David Staunton, Boy’s son, who shouts the question. The occasion makes him realize that he is uncontrollably angry and needs psychological counseling. He flies to Zurich the next day and begins therapy with a Jungian analyst. He recounts the events that followed his father’s death: his quarreling with his stepmother; his drinking too much; his fuming about the will. He cries for the first time in years. Despite an initial resistance to self-revelation, he launches an exploration of his personal history over the past forty years and recounts his childhood in Deptford and Toronto. He remembers his parents’ estrangement; his first night of drinking after his mother’s death; his one true love, which was broken off by his overly protective parents; his one sexual encounter, which his father arranged for him behind his back. He tells of his legal studies in Oxford, his practice of criminal law, his father’s remarriage, their growing separation. The analysis continues three times a week for the next year, and Dr. von Haller plays many roles as David projects one archetypal image after another onto her. She becomes the Shadow, the Friend, the Anima, and he begins to understand his inner cast of characters. Before the Christmas holiday, she says he is ready for the second stage of analysis, which will move into the transpersonal realm.

When David shouted the question, Dunstan had a heart attack. Liesl took him to a hospital, then disappeared. When Dunstan hears from her next, she is at her castle in Switzerland, where she invites him to join her and Eisengrim. He quits his teaching job and sorts out his thoughts in a long letter to his former headmaster. He becomes a permanent guest at the castle. When David joins them for Christmas, they are able to cast light on the words that the “brazen head” spoke in answer to his question. Liesl takes David to an ancient cave where bears were once worshiped. David knows he will continue his quest, whether in analysis or on his own.

World of Wonders. Liesl’s castle becomes the scene for a television documentary on a nineteenth century magician, whose show Eisengrim is to re-create. During the filming, Eisengrim agrees to tell his real life story as the subtext for the documentary. He tells of Dunstan’s first lessons in magic, of his abduction by a magician named Willard, and of his work in a traveling circus called the World of Wonders. He reveals the backstage life of a circus troupe and tells of Willard’s sad decline into drug addiction and total dependence. He tells of his first magic shows, his work in the theater in England and Canada, and his liaison with Liesl.

The film crew moves to London for final shots, and the three friends gather in Eisengrim’s bed at the Savoy for a final discussion. Dunstan still wants to understand the answer that Liesl spoke through the “brazen head” after David shouted his question. Eisengrim explains to Dunstan, more fully than he did to David, exactly what happened on the last night of Boy’s life. Boy confessed that he dreaded the political office that he long sought and finally won. Eisengrim remarked that he could always resign, not realizing that Boy’s great hero was the prince who became Edward VIII and was forced to abdicate in 1936. He recognized the suicidal thoughts that crossed Boy’s mind and did not try to stop them.

Bibliography

Cameron, Elspeth, ed. Robertson Davies: An Appreciation. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1991. Provides an interview with Davies and seventeen essays, some by such Canadian authors as John Kenneth Galbraith and Joyce Carol Oates.

Chorney, Tatjana Takseva. “The Myth and Magic of a Textual Truth and/or a Metaphorical Reading of The Deptford Trilogy.” In Robertson Davies: A Mingling of Contrarieties, edited by Camille R. La Bossière and Linda Morra. Ottawa, Ont.: University of Ottawa Press, 2001. An in-depth interpretation, in which Chorney applies Davies’ ideas about the structure and themes of his novels, about his readers, and about magic and text to examine the trilogy.

Davis, J. Madison, ed. Conversations with Robertson Davies. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989. More than two dozen interviews with Davies, originally published in newspapers and magazines or broadcast on radio and television. Includes some reference to all the Deptford novels. Also provides a general introduction, a list of Davies’ books, a chronology of his life, and a helpful index.

Grant, Judith Skelton. Robertson Davies: Man of Myth. New York: Viking, 1994. The authorized biography, covering all but the last year of Davies’ life. Provides critical commentary on Davies’ novels as well as information on his dealings with publishers.

Lawrence, Robert G., and Samuel L. Macey, eds. Studies in Robertson Davies’ “Deptford Trilogy.” Victoria, B.C.: English Literary Studies, University of Victoria, 1980. Eight essays on Davies’ craft that discuss the author’s interest in folklore, psychology, and theater. Davies’ introductory essay, “The Deptford Trilogy in Retrospect,” gives a valuable account of the trilogy’s genesis.

Monk, Patricia. The Smaller Infinity: The Jungian Self in the Novels of Robertson Davies. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 1982. Discusses Davies’ knowledge of psychology, specifically that of Carl Jung. Contains a separate chapter on each novel in the trilogy, a bibliography, and an index.

Peterman, Michael. Robertson Davies. Boston: Twayne, 1986. The first book-length study of Davies’ life and work. Includes a long chapter on the trilogy.

Ross, Val. Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic. Toronto, Ont.: McClelland & Stewart, 2008. Ross compiled recollections of Davies from about one hundred people, including family members, academic colleagues, other writers, Hollywood directors, and his barber. Their combined comments create a portrait of Davies the man and the writer.