The assertion of Magnus Eisengrim near the conclusion of The Manticore, "I am what I have made myself," and Liesl's postulate in the same chapter that "the modern hero is the man who conquers in the inner struggle" crystallize the theme which underlies all five novels of Robertson Davies from Tempest-Tost (1951) to The Manticore (1972). It is the theme of psychological growth toward wholeness which is based on the existential struggle carried on in the interior spaces of the mind and culminates in the fulfilment of the "yearning for greater enlightenment through mystical experience." (Tempest-Tost)

This theme runs through the five novels in a three-fold manner. In its most obvious form it serves as the framework in which the events and the characters evolve and progress within the boundaries of each novel. Whether the inner growth of the principal characters is painfully slow and barely recognizable as in the early novels, or far-reaching and symbolically significant as in the later ones, it is embodied in a specific way in each of the five books.

The series of novels viewed as a whole reflects the same theme in the progression from its embryonic expression in the form of unrest and dissatisfaction and the "yearning for greater fulfilment" through various stages of development toward levels of insight and into realms of wisdom and serenity.

Thirdly, as manifestations of a creative consciousness as it has found expression in and through language, the novels reflect the existential struggle and growth not only of their principal characters but also, and more importantly, of the author himself….

Robertson Davies has posited in his novels the patterns and the essences of his life in ways which enable the reader to take part actively in the developmental processes of the author's consciousness and to follow his quest toward the realms of fulfilment, self-realization, and mystical revelation. (p. 59)

The processes of psychological growth are not directed toward definite goals which can be attained and directly comprehended, but rather into higher, more complete and more spiritual realms of awareness and wisdom which can be glimpsed in moments of fulfilment and totality.

Nor is it a quest for happiness, because happiness is a state of repose and therefore stagnation. Self-realization is a dynamic process which for ever reaches beyond itself in often painful struggles with the confines of existence. None of the main characters in the five novels ever achieves happiness. Those among the secondary figures who appear outwardly happy and securely complete function as foils for contrast and often satire because they have ceased to become and therefore to be alive in the truest sense of the word….

[Davies's] characters are never capable of any significant kind of insight or growth. The novels therefore never conclude with a "happy ending" because at the conclusion of each book the main characters who are involved in the struggle, and who live because they grow, have not come to the end of their road but rather to a new plateau which points to a new height and not to itself.

As they in turn focus on different aspects of the theme of growth and at their conclusion point to the next step, to another Chinese box inside itself, to a new struggle and a new attainment, the novels form an ascending succession of stages representative of the many levels of individual strife. From one novel to the next, the main theme becomes more and more pronounced, its treatment more and more complex and refined, its boundaries more clearly defined and its components more sophisticated. It is in this respect that they reflect the psychological growth of the author. Attainments which are merely hinted at in the early novels are realized through later protagonists, and themes sketched out for the Salterton characters become fully developed in the lives of Dunstan Ramsay and David Staunton.

The basic movement in the psychological growth process is the progression from "confident innocence through the bitterness of experience toward the rueful wisdom of self-knowledge" (A Mixture of Frailties), in which the task of the seeker is to fuse the temporal with the eternal so as to posit spirit and acquire true individuality. The initial experience of a growing consciousness on its road toward self-realization is extemporalized in the conflicts arising from the restrictions and obligations caused by the parent-child relationship. Filial predicament and the guilt caused by the struggles of the young to liberate themselves from the parental bondage permeate all of the novels. (p. 60)

All the variations of the parent-child relationship are utilized in the novels to initiate the struggle of the main characters after their leap from innocence into experience. For the protagonists in the earlier novels it is also their last significant act; they are incapable of moving on to higher levels of liberation. For the modern heroes in the later novels it is merely a beginning, the first though deeply significant link in a long chain of traps which have to be recognized and overcome. (p. 61)

The majority of the characters in all five novels are frozen into [a] kind of spiritual immobility. The figures representative of the negative forces in life are incapable of developing psychologically and experiencing any deep kind of change. They are the foils against which the struggles of the heroes take place, the trolls with whom they have to battle, the Shadow figures which they have left behind. The personifications of the positive forces are immobilized at relatively advanced levels of development as they are deemed sufficient for the immediate purposes. These are the influential archetypes who guide the heroes on their quests, provide cues for their movements, and represent sources of insight and revelations.

In the first two Salterton novels the latter types are only rudimentarily developed while the former ones constitute the main content. The main protagonists are not significantly differentiated from them as yet, so that the theme of psychological growth is practically non-existent except in a few isolated cases. Yet it is contained in both and foreshadows its greater development in the later novels.

In Tempest-Tost it finds expression in the form of the embryonic externalization of unrest and dissatisfaction in the main characters, coupled with a longing for something more, something beyond the fruitless battles with the trolls, a "consciousness of a destiny apart from these unhappy creatures" and a "seeking for means by which he might be delivered from his fate". The author is groping for a resolution of the conflict, for a liberation from the confines imposed upon the Salterton characters, but is not yet able to actualize the longing, and the yearning is not fulfilled.

The same inability pervades most of Leaven of Malice. The characters remain caught in the absurdity of existence and … [the struggle] continues without bringing relief. (pp. 61-2)

The questing figures can liberate themselves, but they cannot assist others in the struggle. This function is carried out by the Magus in his many forms, those higher figures who have already attained levels of insight and can therefore give advice and guidance. But these figures do not come into existence in an effective way until A Mixture of Frailties. (pp. 62-3)

The Magus comes to maturity and full effectiveness in the figure of Sir Benedict Domdaniel. This new character possesses the attributes of the Wise Man: his personality has a controlled forcefulness which is awe-inspiring to those around him, his hold on life is firm and determined, and his philosophy of life is a creative union of imaginative and materialistic forces which alone can lead toward self-knowledge and fulfilment.

Robertson Davies is not yet able to create "one of the tiny minority of mankind that can grapple with circumstance and give it a fall" to match the dominance of Domdaniel, but in the character of Domdaniel's pupil Monica Gall the capacities for intellectual quest and awareness have been sufficiently developed to make A Mixture of Frailties a successful novel of growth. The novel is still rooted in Salterton and peripherally continues the analysis of Solly's and Veronica's conflicts with their world, but the main focus is on the more mature and psychologically more successful Monica. By exchanging the local scene for the international and the individual for a more universal theme, it moves beyond the restriction of the first two novels into realms of genuine discovery. (pp. 63-4)

The patterns of growth in Fifth Business and The Manticore follow veins essentially identical to those in the Salterton novels. The basic obstacle is once again the parental bond which must be broken in order to move from innocence into experience….

With Monica's liberation from her mother's dominance, two important elements were introduced into the struggle: the concept of guilt as an inherent aspect of the loss of innocence, and the ability to come to terms with that guilt by recognizing and accepting its source and integrating the experience in its fullest. The narratives of Ramsay and Staunton are built on this pattern, though the treatment of the theme is considerably more complex and allegorical. (p. 65)

The externalizations of the Magus figures and of the lesser types of Troll, Shadow, Anima/Animus, Friend, and Mentor of A Mixture of Frailties appear again in Fifth Business and in the Manticore. Where the narrative of Monica's artistic and spiritual education gathered together the possibilities and latent patterns of the first two Salterton novels and gave them new significance in a strictly controlled and purposefully directed framework, the two psychological novels refine the externalizations of the psychic forces and elevate them into symbolic realms in two further variations on the theme. (p. 66)

The anguish of existence, which created the dominant atmosphere in Tempest-Tost and Leaven of Malice but which started to lose its threat in A Mixture of Frailties, is finally overcome by the highly introspective and psychologically astute maturation processes of the two protagonists as they move into the realms of enlightenment and fulfilment. The yearning posited in Tempest-Tost is fulfilled in the spiritual re-birth of Ramsay and Staunton as they realize the unity of the infinite and the finite which transcends existence and arrive at a deeper understanding of themselves and of their role in the totality of existence. Their leap yields "some secret, some valuable permanent insight, into the nature of life and the true end of man" (Fifth Business) as they "learn to know (themselves) as fully human" and acquire "a fuller comprehension of (their) humanity" (The Manticore).

Robertson Davies has moved through the levels of externalization of the creative consciousness in the three Salterton novels, in the disguise of Actor, Editor, and Artist, and in that of Scholar and Initiate in the two psychological novels, in his search for the "flashes of insight (with which a great man) pierces through the nonsense of his time and gets at something that really matters" (Tempest-Tost). Over the course of five novels and a twenty-year process of growth, what really matters to him has clearly emerged and has found increasingly complex and sophisticated expression in the language of his books. It is the conquest of one's Self in the inner struggle and the knowledge of oneself as fully human. It is to be. (p. 67)

Peter Baltensperger, "Battles with the Trolls" (reprinted by permission of the author), in Canadian Literature, No. 71, Winter, 1976, pp. 59-67.