The fifth child

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The fifth child is a novel by Doris Lessing . It was published in 1988 under the English title The Fifth Child and has since been translated into numerous languages. The book describes the changes in the life of the Lovatt family after the birth of their fifth child, Ben. The book is a typical example of Gothic Fiction in some respects , but deals with various topics such as childhood, family, pregnancy and disability. The most important topic is - as in many horror stories - the universal fear of the human being of the unknown.

The sequel, Ben, in the World (2000), explores Ben's life as a young adult.

The text questions the traditional family and sees it as a construct of a patriarchal culture. Harriett is marginalized by her own family for having given birth to an abnormal child.

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Harriet and David fall in love in the roaring sixties and find that they share the same ideas about happiness: a traditional family with many children. First of all, with the support of their parents, they buy a large house and in the following years the children gradually join them. After four children, Harriet is exhausted and they decide to take a break - before the next four are supposed to join. But after a short time, Harriet becomes pregnant unplanned. It's a difficult pregnancy. Harriet is often bad, not feeling well and having no energy. The child becomes very lively earlier than expected and is so strong that his kicks in the stomach hurt the mother. Harriet can hardly stand the pregnancy any longer and has the doctor prescribe tranquilizers so that the unborn child can rest at least for a short time.

Finally, after eight months, the child is born: it is ugly. Harriet calls it her "little Neanderthal". The child has a yellowish skin color, bristly hair and an unusual head shape. The boy who gets the name Ben is always very dissatisfied and screams a lot, but develops unusually quickly. After a few months Ben can stand, a little later he almost climbs out of the playpen, and shortly afterwards he can run. The other siblings don't like the little brother because he's aggressive and breaks all toys.

Ben grows up and develops more and more into a dissatisfied, aggressive and destructive child. He kills a dog and a cat, the siblings are afraid of him. After all, the parents are so desperate that they have him picked up and taken to an institution. After a while, however, Harriet can no longer take it and brings Ben back; at the institution, he was kept in a straitjacket and immobilized with syringes that would ultimately have killed him. Her family cannot understand why Harriet chooses Ben and thus against the family. The children lock themselves in their rooms, leave the house as soon as possible and go to boarding school. The otherwise so numerous visits from relatives and friends are decreasing.

The family hires a young gardener to put the overgrown garden in order. The gardener quickly befriends the little "monster" and Ben becomes his companion. Harriet uses this as an opportunity to save her family life and makes an agreement with the gardener, which means that Ben now becomes a kind of companion of his. Of course, he receives good money for this.

Soon after, Ben goes to school and always spends the afternoons with his friend. Family life improves suddenly, especially the relationship between Harriet and her son Paul, who gets too little attention due to Ben's peculiarity and thus becomes tearful, clingy and disturbed.

Harriet and David suspect that Ben will leave with his gang. Then they want to move into a smaller house where they ultimately want to live alone. The end remains open.

Bibliographical information

  • The Fifth Child . Cape, London 1988, ISBN 0-224-02553-8 . (British first edition)
  • The Fifth Child . Knopf, New York 1988, ISBN 0394571053 . (American first edition)
  • The fifth child , translated from the English by Eva Schönfeld. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-455-01907-2 . (German first edition)

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