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What characteristics make Boy Staunton a villain in Davies' Fifth Business?
Quick answer:
Boy Staunton is depicted as a villain primarily due to his selfishness and lack of remorse. His careless actions, such as throwing a snowball with a hidden stone that injures Mary Dempster, demonstrate his disregard for others. He never acknowledges or feels guilty about the consequences of his actions, instead denying responsibility and focusing solely on himself. This selfishness and emotional detachment, evident from childhood, solidify his role as a villain in the narrative.
Boy Staunton—Percy Boyd Staunton—is careless about his effect on other people. He doesn't care what happens to them. He's also selfish.
When Staunton is a child, he throws the snowball that Ramsay ducks. It hits Mary, sending her into early labor and then leaving her with a mental illness. He never seems to feel regret over this; instead, he can barely remember that this happened in later years.
When presented with the stone, he denies remembering it. Robertson Davies writes:
"Why should it? An ordinary bit of stone. You've used it to hold down some of the stuff on your desk for years. I've seen it a hundred times. It doesn't remind me of anything but you."
Ramsay replies, saying:
"It is the stone you put in the snowball you threw at Mrs. Dempster," I said. "I've kept it because I couldn't part with it. I swear I never meant...
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to tell you what it was. But, Boy, for God's sake, get to know something about yourself. The stone-in-the-snowball has been characteristic of too much you've done for you to forget it forever!"
The sneak attack and the dangerous response are what define Staunton. He acts on his emotions and is uncaring about the damage he does to those around him. When he leaves his family, he's only thinking of himself. When he hurls a rock at Ramsay disguised as a snowball, he's only thinking of himself. His selfishness and lack of remorse are what make Boy a villain.
I had been sledding with my lifelong friend and enemy Percy Boyd Satunton, and we had quarrelled, because his fine new Christmas sled would not go as fast as my old one.
Boy Staunton's early introduction into Fifth Business immediately sets him up as a villain through the narrator's choice in descriptive vocabulary: i.e., "enemy." Later, when Staunton appears again, his actions and attitudes confirm the reliability of the narrator's ten-year-old ("at which time I was ten years and seven months old") opinion of him as an enemy.
While the boys are returning from their quarrel over sleds, Percy aims yet another snowball at Dunny, the hero of the story, and, because Dunny dodges it swiftly, the snowball hits the pregnant Mrs. Dempster in the back of the head causing her injury and a fall.
While Dunny felt overwhelmingly guilty that his action had been the unintentional catalyst for Mrs. Dempster's injury and sorrow, Percy felt no guilt nor acknowledged any responsibility over the incident at all.
His brazen-faced refusal to accept responsibility seemed to deepen my own guilt, which had now become the guilt of concealment as well as action.
This effectively sets Percy Boyd (Boy) Staunton up at his introduction into the story as the villain--and his further actions take him downhill--just like his sled--from there.