The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
"The Fifth Child" is a novel by Doris Lessing that explores the complexities of family life, parental expectations, and societal norms. The story follows Harriet and David, a couple eager to start a family in a large Victorian home in suburban London. Initially, they celebrate the joy of parenthood with the arrival of their first four children, but their happiness is disrupted by the birth of their fifth child, Ben. His unusual behavior and physical attributes lead Harriet to perceive him as a "monster," causing a rift in the family dynamics.
As Ben grows, he becomes increasingly isolated and feared by his siblings, who struggle with their mother's fixation on him. The family's cohesion deteriorates, and Harriet ultimately makes the heartbreaking decision to send Ben to an institution after failing to manage his behavior. Upon witnessing the harsh treatment he receives there, she brings him home, leading to further strain on her relationships with her other children.
The novel addresses themes of alienation, the pressures of motherhood, and the societal judgments surrounding family and disability. As Ben's life unfolds, Harriet reflects on the changing nature of her family, culminating in a poignant exploration of belonging and the search for identity within a fractured household. "The Fifth Child" raises questions about love, acceptance, and the limits of familial bonds.
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The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
First published: 1988
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Allegory
Time of plot: 1960’s to 1986
Locale: Suburbs of London
Principal characters
Harriet Lovatt , a mother of five childrenDavid Lovatt , her husbandLuke , ,Helen , ,Jane , ,Paul , andBen , the Lovatt childrenDorothy , Harriet’s mother
The Story:
Harriet and David meet at an office party. In no time, they find that they both want to start a family. Harriet is a virgin, despite her friends’ sexual promiscuity, and David has had only one long relationship with another woman. Harriet and David decide to marry. Then they purchase a large Victorian-style home in the suburbs of London, planning to have many children. On the day they take ownership of the house, David and Harriet have sex in a bed left by the previous owners. Harriet becomes pregnant and is now a stay-at-home wife. David continues his work as an architect.
David’s mother, Molly; his stepfather, Frederick; his father, James; and his stepmother, Jessica, visit the couple’s new home. James, a wealthy shipbuilder, agrees to pay the mortgage. Harriet’s mother, Dorothy, also visits and agrees to stay and help Harriet through the pregnancy and to help raise the child. Luke is born in 1966. Three months after Harriet gives birth to Luke, she again becomes pregnant.
Meanwhile, Harriet and David’s extended families visit and stay at their large house over Christmas and Easter holidays. Harriet’s sister, Sarah, and her husband, William, struggle through marital problems, and Sarah gives birth to a baby with Down syndrome. Harriet has her second child, Helen, and soon thereafter her third, Jane. Despite Dorothy’s protests that Harriet is having too many children too quickly, the Lovatts think of themselves as a perfect family that deserves its happiness. Harriet believes that Sarah and William had a child with Down syndrome because of their quarreling.
Harriet gives birth to a fourth child, Paul. David’s parents and Dorothy continue to protest the number of children the Lovatts are having and question how they will afford to send them all to school. After Dorothy leaves to take care of Sarah’s children, Harriet gets pregnant again and soon realizes the pregnancy will be exceptionally difficult. The fetus kicks early in the pregnancy, and Harriet becomes convinced that it is trying to tear out of her womb. Dorothy returns and chastises the couple again for being irresponsible.
The couple’s marriage begins to deteriorate as Harriet becomes increasingly upset by the painful pregnancy and secretly takes tranquilizers. She begins to think of the fetus as a monster and, after giving birth, calls the baby a troll, goblin, and alien. Ben, the newest child, repulses the entire family with his abnormal strength, troll-like looks, and lack of affection. Harriet thinks she is a criminal for having given birth to a monster. Years later, the family suspects that Ben is guilty of killing pets that relatives bring over during holidays. The other children attempt to teach Ben some manners. He copies their behavior, but the children become afraid of him and lock their doors at night.
After seeing Ben’s unruliness and Harriet’s fatigue, relatives stop spending their holidays with the Lovatts. The other children, especially Paul, begin to feel neglected as Harriet, in spite of her repulsion for Ben, spends most of her time taking care of him. Under the advice and financial help of friends, Harriet and David send Ben to an institution, where “freak” children will eventually die under extensive drugging. Harriet feels guilty for sending Ben away. Against the wishes of David, she visits Ben at the institution. She discovers that he has been strapped in a straitjacket, drugged, and left to sit in his own excrement. By this time, Ben has lost all knowledge of social behavior and must be drugged to stop screaming. Upset by how the doctors have been treating Ben, Harriet takes him home and spends all her time rehabilitating him.
Harriet becomes increasingly distanced from her other children. They choose to attend boarding school and decide to spend their holidays with David’s parents and stepparents. Paul becomes withdrawn and resentful of the attention given to Ben. After school, Paul spends his time watching television. The Lovatts send him to a psychologist, and he spends time with the psychologist’s family instead of his own.
Meanwhile, Harriet asks the errand boy, John, and his friends to take care of Ben after school. Ben emulates John and his friends and, for the first time, seems to belong to a group. After John leaves for vocational school and Ben starts school, Ben becomes the leader of his own gang. His teachers tell Harriet that he is a slow learner but that he tries to learn. Harriet is content as long as Ben gets along with other students. Ben and his gang start joining in riots across England, and Harriet suspects that he and his friends are responsible for local robberies and a rape. Ben is eleven years old.
Harriet and David decide to sell the house now that all five children no longer spend much time there. Harriet gives Ben their new address, but he leaves it behind and disappears with his gang. Harriet reflects on the loss of her family through the years and wonders if Ben finds his own kind. She imagines that he meets members of his own “alien” race underground.
Bibliography
Bloom, Harold, ed. Doris Lessing. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. A collection of essays examining gender in Lessing’s novels. Considers gender in terms of Lessing’s relationship to her African past, to women’s authorship, to psychoanalysis, and to the British feminist tradition.
Greene, Gayle. Doris Lessing: The Poetics of Change. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. Provides a concise biography of Lessing, as well as excerpts from her radio interviews. Looks at Lessing’s fiction through the lens of contemporary social issues and her conflicted politics.
Kaplan, Carey, and Ellen Cronan Rose, eds. Doris Lessing: The Alchemy of Survival. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988. A collection of essays discussing Lessing’s representation of radical ideology (for example, communism) and examining her subversive rejection of a single coherent definition of humanism and her documentation of British imperialism and social change.
Klein, Carole. Doris Lessing: A Biography. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000. An unauthorized biography (Lessing specifically refused to cooperate with Klein) that nonetheless draws on interviews with Lessing’s acquaintances and makes connections between events in Lessing’s life and episodes in her novels.
Pifer, Ellen. “New Versions of the Idyll: Lessing’s The Fifth Child and Kundera’s Infantocracy.” In Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000. A unique study examining Lessing’s The Fifth Child as a story about the failed promises of domesticity, bliss, family, motherhood, and childhood. Part of a larger study on the complex depiction of children and childhood in modern culture and literature.
Rubenstein, Roberta. The Novelistic Vision of Doris Lessing: Breaking the Forms of Consciousness. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979. Looks at Lessing’s development of a theory of consciousness in her novels. A focused, detailed consideration of both form and thematic development.
Sage, Lorna. Doris Lessing. London: Methuen, 1983. A concise biography, accessible to students and general readers, which focuses on the development of her fiction.
St. Andrews, Bonnie. Forbidden Fruit: On the Relationship Between Women and Knowledge in Doris Lessing, Selma Lagerlöf, Kate Chopin, Margaret Atwood. Troy, N.Y.: Whitston, 1986. Places Lessing in context with other writers who use myth and the fairy tale form to explore gender and the feminist implications of women’s knowledge.
Saxton, Ruth, and Jean Tobin, eds. Woolf and Lessing: Breaking the Mold. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Useful collection of essays for students of canonical literature. Compares Virginia Woolf’s and Lessing’s use of multiple voices in their novels, their representation of subjectivity, and the importance of place and gender in their novels.