<doc.id=2048.a4>
<title> A Safe Place: The Importance of Setting in The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing </title>
Most people like to feel safe, secure, and protected from the things that may harm them. We put up defences, litte walls, to keep the bad things out. Mostly the things we try to keep out, the things that scare us, are things that are unknown to us. But what happens if the unknown creeps up within those walls, or even within ourselves? One of the main thematic aspects of the book The Fifth Child is the unknown - the Other - and our fear of it. It is represented in the book by many things, but above all, is comes to life through Ben: Harriet and David Lovatt's fifth child. In this essay I'd like to take a closer look at the importance three different kinds of setting have for the theme, and in what ways they relate to it. 

The first aspect of setting that we come across is time: when the story takes place. Throughout the book, everything that happens is linked to contemporary events, and to the ideals of that period in time. The book begins with Harriet and David meeting in the late 60s, a period filled with the urge to change society, and when openness, love and understanding were the keywords. They notice immediately that they share the same ideals, which in turn are at odds with the ideals of the time. They are both conservative and traditional, and don't like the revolutionary spirit of people around them. When they get married, they meet resistance everywhere, but after a few years of struggeling, they achieve the happiness and security they had strived for. They have four children, and the house is always full of relatives visiting. A very interesting aspect of the setting is that the exact time of these happy years of the family, starting in 1966 with the birth of Luke, reaching it's peak in 1970 when Paul is born, and ending abruptly in 1974 with the birth of Ben, are parallel with the political development in England at the time. After having ruled the country during the 1960s, the labour party had to make way in 1970 for a new conservative government, which lasted for four years: the exact same time as the Lovatt's happiest years. There is an obvious link between the Lovatt family and the conservative government at the time: both have traditional morals and an old-fashioned approach to things, and dislike changes.The happy family life of the Lovatt's starts to break down in 1974, when Ben is born, and that's also when the conservative government has to resign its power. The actual time setting, and the links between the conservative ideology and the beliefs of the Lovatt family, lay down the framework of the theme, showing how the Lovatts build a defence against the unknown and threatening outside world, in the form of a big family in a big house.

And that aspect of setting, the house, continues to develop and deepen our understanding of the theme. David and Harriet are working within the same company when they meet; David is an architect, and Harriet works in the sales department of a firm that designes and supplies building materials. Throughout the book they keep on trying to build things, and in particular the perfect family, based on traditional values and standards. The place they chose for this family to grow in, is very significant for the story. It is a huge old Victorian house situated in a small town outside London, and being Victorian, it is a towering monument of tradition, constantly referred to it as their castle, or their fortress. During the happy years, 1970 - 1974, when the outside world becomes more and more threatening, they feel lucky to be able to keep the cold, alien winds out. "The young Lovatts made themselves read the papers, watch the News on television, though their instinct was to do neither. At least they ought to know what went on outside their fortress, their kingdom, in which three precious children were nurtured, and where so many people came to immerse themselves in saftey, comfort, kindness..." (p. 30) But when Ben is born, the scene changes, and gradually the big lively house gets emptied of people, until in the end, Harriet is basicly living alone with Ben. He is the only child not born in the house, and as he grows older, he spends most of his time away from home. However, just by being a member of the family, and at the same time representing all the things that both Harriet and David fear, and try to keep out of their home, Ben provokes even more fear. Just because this alien being that he is came from within, from inside the family and the house, and from their own flesh and blood, he frightens them even more. 

At a first glance you might think this book is just about family life. But you soon realise that it goes further than that, and that the family and the house they are living in are just backdrops for a much bigger thematic aspect. However, the family as a sociological setting for the theme is very important. The family itself is the model of a traditional family, with the providing father, the nourishing mother, the happy, healthy children, and the caring and supporting relatives. When Ben is born, this picture of domestical bliss cracks, and he virtually destroys the family from the inside. Harriet is torn between the feeling of fear of what she has brought into the world, and the guilt that torments her for not being able to love her child unconditionally. David, who feels betrayed and let down, blames Harriet for destroying the family, since she was the one who gave birth to him, and later on, brought him back from the institution David sent him to. He took care of his part, ie. the providing, but Harriet obviously failed in doing hers. He says: "We have no children, Harriet. Or, rather, I have no children. You have one child..." (p. 150) 

People's feelings towards Ben, and their reactions to these feelings, really bring out the main theme of the book. The family and their relatives, the house that they all live in, and the time in which the story takes place, are vital for the development of the theme. All that is unknown is materialized in Ben, and the fact that he is born into this, up until then, safe place, into this family who believed themselves protected from all bad things, makes the story even more frightening and thought provoking.
</doc>