Doris Lessings The Fifth Child Essay -- Doris Lessing Fifth Child Ess

In her original The Fifth Child, published in 1988, Doris Lessing examines how one bring togethers search for happiness has tragic implications. In this case, the couple, David and Harriet, and the family are tardily destroyed by the presence of the fifth child, Ben, who is unattractive, shows no emotions or attachments to new(prenominal) people, and is destructive. The other children in the family seem to be adequate to cope on a normal, socially acceptable level, but Ben never seems to be able to grasp acceptable behavior. Significantly, the novel never explains the cause of Bens abnormalities. plot of ground Lessing does not supply the reader with a cause, one explanation I found is in psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, is explicit in his belief that neuroses, round of which are displayed by Ben, are generally developed in childhood and that they are the result of problems in the relationship between the child and the parents. This is clea r seen when he writes, The complicated emotional relation of children to their parents what is known as the Oedipus interlinkingwas the nucleus of every case of neurosis (25 Nicholi). In what follows, I pull up stakes show that the cause of Bens lack of development and social psychoses is caused by the way he is enured by his parents. Early in the novel we are told that Harriet and David meet at a business party and they cursorily realize they are ideally suited for each other. They soon bind and settle into a beautiful suburban home. They are also diligent to begin their family, having first a son, then two daughters, and another son. Their liberal country home becomes the center of family gatherings and parties, which Harriet particularly enjoys. She is worn out from her quadruple young chi... ...normal and pathological. While it is clear from a psychoanalytic standpoint that Bens condition is a result of his parents lack of love and nurturing, it is a lso important to look at what caused Harriet and David to treat Ben this way. In nerve-racking to form a perfectly happy life, they failed to account for things that were out of their control. They ab initio blamed the close ages of their children and Bens disposition, but it seems that their jaundice of Ben came from a deeper resentment of their own unfulfilled dreams of perfection. As their lives became less perfect, indeed, increasingly chaotic and tragic, they treated Ben with less love. Harried and David, and their four other children, may have had a better chance for happiness if Harriet and David had not made such an judge to achieve, and even force, a happiness that was absolutely perfect.