The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing

Lessing, Doris. The Fifth Child. New York: Random House , Inc., 1988. Print.

Harriet felt as though she was the scapegoat of the family, the “destroyer of the family” It wasn’t in her nature to leave Ben in the institution and go on with her happy family. After the family drifted apart she focused more on Ben and Paul. Ben started to make friends at first and that relieved Harriet that he was socializing. But Ben was in the wrong crowd, doing things that were illegal. We see that in the end he was only on the search to find someone out there who was just like him. By appearing in the local news he hoped that someone, somewhere in the world, could see that he existed and to come and accept him.

After bringing Ben back the family started to drift apart. The children and David refused to get to know Ben and accept him. Instead of facing the problem they went to live with their other family. That left Harriet with just Ben and Paul who don’t get along well. The happy family that at once was “perfect” was ruined and we see how the perfect family failed. There are controversies that if Harriet did the right thing or not. By bringing Ben back she lost the rest of her family. By not bringing him back Harriet felt as if she failed on her child and couldn’t bear with the guilt. She went with teaching Ben still and using Paul as a mentor.

We see the hard work that Harriet puts in efforts to reach out for Ben. She neglects the other children so she could figure out how to be a good mother to Ben. She try’s to teach him things and spend a lot of her time with Ben. We see how she put special effort in Ben that she didn’t in her other children. She did have some success after a while of teaching Ben to be like the other children. For a while Harriet was just concerned in helping Ben but in the end it was just to make him turn him into the other children so he doesn’t stand out.

It was clear from the beginning, no matter how “nice” the family was to Ben that they didn’t accept him. Since the family couldn’t accept Ben for who he was and show him the love they send him to an institution. Harriet, although she disagreed to, agreed to send Ben to the institution in order to bring the “happiness” back to the family. Later she felt as if she gave up on Ben and couldn’t stand the guilt she felt for giving up. She did what any mother would have done; she brought Ben back from the institution, even though she rejected her family’s opinions.

Before the birth of Ben we see how Harriet doesn’t seem to like her child. She kept calling the baby a “monster” through her pain. After Ben was born Harriet didn’t seem to show love to her child. Even though he was different from the other children she didn’t show the same love to Ben as the other children. We also see how after Harriet’s comment towards Amy brought this in Ben. We also start to see how Ben starts to break apart this “happy” family.

Having four children all in 6 years was indeed too fast. Harriet was pregnant, once again, but this pregnancy foreshadowed the trouble that Harriet and David would face. Even after Harriet and David put off not having more children they ended up being pregnant. This pregnancy wasn’t as easy as the other ones which gives us a sense of panic about what might happen.

Sunday, January 31, 2010