Liesl's surname is “Vitzliputzli”, which means “devil”. It is only because of Liesl, an extremely elegant and intelligent woman confined inside a deformed and gigantic body, Dunstan experiences happiness and ultimately a life well lived. Dunstan Ramsay carries the weight of Paul Dempster's premature birth on his shoulders his entire life. Out of all the archetypal characters in Fifth Business, Liesl plays a very important role by helping Dunstan to get rid of his guilt.

Thus the Jungian archetypes used in Fifth Business by Robertson Davies play a major role in the shaping of the characters in the readers’ minds. Moreover, Mary Dempster, Paul Dempster’s mother and Dunstan’s saint represents the archetypal Sacred Feminine or Virgin Mary. Also, Padre Blazon, a member of the Jesuit Bollandistes, the group who welcomes and aids Dunstan in his European saint research, has traits which resemble the archetypal Wise Old Man. Liesl, Paul’s business partner resembles the Shadow’s archetype. The characters in Fifth Business resemble important archetypal characters of Jungian psychology. The novel describes the implications of one single moment, which forces the characters over the next sixty years to confront their personal devil. The novel explores the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay. In his novel, Fifth Business, Robertson Davies addresses the meaning of life by exploring Jungian archetypes. Some of the archetypes described by Carl Jung are the Self, the Shadow, the Anima and Animus, the Devil, the Wise Old Man and Virgin Mary. In Jungian psychology, archetypes are highly developed elements of the collective unconscious.

Fifth business novel