The fifth child door Doris Lessing

Practical information

- Author: Doris Lessing
- Title of the novel: The fifth child (It’s a psychological novel)
- Publisher: Cape
- Place of publication: London
- First print:1988
- Number of pages: 131

Deepening

The main characters are

- Harriet, the mother of the five children, is the main character. She tries to educate her children as well as possible, but after the fifth child is born their aren’t five child any more, but one.
- David, the father of the five children.
- Ben, the fifth child, born in 1974 and a mistake. He’s a monster and is therefore done in an institut, but Harriet takes him back and he slowly burns into a criminal.
- John, a young man who helps in the garden, Ben likes him very much and they do a lot with each other.
- Derek, a friend of Ben on his second school.

Where does the story take place?

The story takes place in a town around London in a large Victorian house in an overgrown garden.

When does the story take place?

The story takes place from 1965/1966 – 1986/1987. The period covered by the book is from the meeting between David and Harriet, until Ben is 12 years old.

Description of the first scene

The story starts with the meeting between Harriet and David at an office party. It’s love at the first sight and they know they are made for each other.

Description of the last scene

The story ends with the fact that Ben is growing up and the rest of the children are gone. Harriet and David are going to sell their house and move perhaps to another country. In the new house, Harriet will see Ben on tv standing apart from a crowd, starring at the camera with his goblin eyes or searching the faces in the crowd for another of his own kind.

Where does the story reach a climax?

The story reaches a climax when Harriet has taken Ben home from the institution. Nobody wants Ben coming home and the atmosphere of warmth and happiness is immediately gone.

What is the theme of the story?

The theme is that our society is incapable of dealing with certain types of people living in their midst, that sometimes problems are insoluble, that happiness isn’t something one possesses and the road to disaster may be irreversible.

Explain of the title

The title of the book, “THE FIFTH CHILD” is based on the fifth child of the Lovatt family; named Ben. He was born when David and Harriet just wanted to wait with another child. On that time they had already four children and they could hardly menage it financially. This fifth child is different in all options. It grows faster and shows earlier signs of life. Harriet felt rejected by him, although she loved to feel the first movements of the other four children. She has a very hard pregnancy and is always tired. After the birth of Ben everything changes in Harriet’s and David’s life. They used to be so happy, but with Ben they feel different. Just like when he was in her belly, Ben grows much quicker than the other kids, and never shows love to anybody. Everybody feels rejected by him, and most of the people who came to their house in the holidays now stay away.

Who tells the story?

The point of view is told by Harriet, who thinks that everybody is against her because of Ben. She’s very confused and doesn’t understand why everbody blames her.

Which developements are going through the main characters(Harriet, David and Ben)?
In the beginning, Harriet and Ben were a very happy couple. They were almost the same and had a close relationship with each other, until the birth of the fifth child. Harriet waged war against Ben from the moment she was pregnant of him. Through this became the relationship between Harriet and David ever worse. When Ben was born, Harriet had to take care about him and David about the other four children. Ben made Harriet very tired, because he was a unmanageable child. Because of this, David decided to put him in an institution, but Harriet still cares about Ben. She decided to take Ben back and to educate him on her own, and hadn’t enough time to take care about her other children. But Ben didn’t like Harriet. The only one he liked was John, and Harriet decided to pay John for the time he spend with Ben. Through this, Ben slowly became a criminal and Harriet lost her control about him. She decided to spend her time with David and to let go Ben.

Is the story told chronologically?

The story is told chronologically and in the third person through the eyes of Harriet.

Summary

In the unconstrained atmosphere of England in the late 1960's, Harriet and David Lovatt defy the "greedy and selfish" spirit of the times with their version of tradition and normalcy: a large family, all the expected pleasures of a rich and responsible home life, children growing, Harriet tending, David providing. Even as the day's events take a dark turn - an ominous surge in crime, unemployment, unrest - the Lovatts cling to their belief that an obstinately guarded contentedness will preserve them from the world outside. Until the birth of their fifth child.
Harriet and David are stricken with astonishment at their new infant. Almost gruesome in appearance, insatiably hungry, abnormally strong, demanding and violent, Ben has nothing infant-like about him, nothing innocent or unsullied - nothing normal by society's standards. Harriet and David understand immediately that he will never be accepted in their world. And Harriet finds she can’t love him. David can’t bring himself to touch him. The four older children are quickly afraid of him. Family and friends who once gravitated to the Lovatts' begin to stay away.
Now, in this house, where there had been nothing but kindness, warmth, and comfort, there is restraint, wariness, and anxiety. Harriet and David are torn - as they would never have believed possible - between their instincts as parents and their shocked reaction to this fierce and unlovable baby. Their vision of the world as a simple and benign place is desperately threatened by the mere existence of one of their own children. As the novel unfolds in spare and startling scenes, we are drawn deep into the life of the Lovatt family, and are witness to the terrifying confusion of emotion that becomes their daily fare as they cope with Ben - and with their own responses to him - through this childhood and adolescence.

Review

Recognizable situations

I can identify myself with Harriet and imagine her feelings. She saw her family falling apart. Therefore she puts Ben away, but she couldn’t leave him in the lurch. So she brought him back to their house, although her husband didn’t agree. I could imagine it’s hard for a mother to give away her child.

My opinion

There’s nothing strange about the language used in this book. The only thing I noticed was the way Ben speaks. He didn’t use whole sentences, but he spoke in words, for example he didn’t said: “Can I have milk?”, but ”Ben wants milk.”
The theme of this book is the relationship between a mother and son with social and emotional problems. I think Ben is an autistic child, what means you can’t make contact with people, because you are socially disturbed. I think the author wants to show with this story how difficult it is for a mother to raise a child that’s different from all other children. She has to handle with so much problems, she gets blamed for having it, and don’t wanting to put it away like the rest of the family. They blame her most for bringing him back in their lives, just when they got rid of him.
The criteria I would like to give to the story are: interesting, touching, astonishing, frustrating and unbelievable. Interesting, because I had never thought about this problem, and how hard it is to cope with. Touching, because everybody was against Harriet, and still she cared about Ben. Astonishing, because sometimes Harriet liked Ben dead, but she couldn’t led him go. Frustrating, because from David’s point of view it seemed that Harriet cared more for Ben than for him. David didn’t want Harriet to take Ben back. Unbelievable, because I don’t think there are such sorts of institutes where Ben lived for a while anymore.
I think this book earns a good note. It’s a touching book and it’s relatively easy to read. Because I was really gripped by the book I read it in no time. There is only one thing I have been missing. In the book you only see the story from Harriet’s perspective. I also would have read the story from other person’s point of view, like David or Ben.

Sensible passages

The 3 passages that touched me most are first of all the passage that Harriet and David met each other. You can say that they were both transparent, and that’s why they felt so attracted to each other. Their love was very strong.
Another passage that touched me is the moment that Ben killed at first a dog, then a cat and almost a child with the down-syndrome. It’s hard to believe that a little child could do this and it seems that Ben has done it intentional.
The last passage I want to mention is that when Ben is a puber and takes all his mates at home. I don’t understand why Harriet didn’t took action against this criminals. She didn’t say anything to them and became a sort of slave.

Comparable books, songs or films

I choose for this assignment “Brenda’s got a baby ” of Tupac Shakur. It is a song in which he tells the problems of a very young girl that also gets a baby, and can’t cope with it. She also puts it away (in a trashcan), but she also takes it back to keep it, and the whole world is against her. Nobody wants to help her, and she has to take care of herself, just like in the story, in which Harriet has to take care of Ben, and David looks after the other children with Dorothy.

Requisite time to make this readingreport

I have spend about 10 hours to read the book and make this readingreport.