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<title> THE SERPENT IN THE GARDEN: THE UTOPIAN DREAM RUINED BY HUBRIS </title>
Doris Lessing's novel The Fifth Child (1988) is set in a small town, not far from London. In the late 60s, David and Harriet Lovatt, moves into a large Victorian house in one of the quiet parts of the town. This is the outer setting of the novel. However, the outer setting of the story is not very important. The story could, with minor adjustments, be set anywhere in time. However, the Lovatts belief that they can create the perfect family is very important. Their ignorance brings them to the verge of hubris, and is the cause of their downfall and the destruction of their self-made Utopia. This utopian world is, for reasons I will state further on, important for the hubris theme, which I believe is central for the story. The similarity between Lessing's text and Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818) also suggests the importance of this theme.
	Committed to create the perfect family and to raise even more perfect children, the Lovatts do not pay much attention to the outside world. They read newspapers and watch the News on TV just because they "at least ought to know what went on outside their fortress, their kingdom, [...] where so many people came to immerse themselves in safety, comfort, kindness." (p. 30)
	There is, I believe, a rather unsympathetic streak of self-righteousness in their thoughts about other people and the world outside their own "kingdom". When Harriet's sister Sarah and her husband get a baby with Down's syndrome, the Lovatts secretly blame the parents unhappiness for it, and concludes that something like this could never happen to them, because they are so happy. It is, however, a mortal sin to be presumptuous, at least in the world of fiction, and the punishment comes quicker than they ever would have expected.
	You can compare Lessing's novel with Shelley's Frankenstein, to bring out the hubris theme of the text. When Frankenstein decides to create the perfect human being, we know that he will be punished for it. God does not look favourably on those who flout his laws. The Lovatts do not only strive to get a perfect family and a flawless home. They actually believe that they are chosen to succeed. In a larger perspective, that makes them guilty of hubris, and they are punished accordingly by the birth of their fifth child, Ben.
	Just like the very process of creating the monster turns Frankenstein from his family and friends, Harriet is estranged from her family while carrying Ben. When the monster stalks Frankenstein, and drains all joy out of his life, Ben's presence quickly makes the utopian family life in the haven of the Victorian villa unbearable. Friends and family almost disappear completely, as no-one seems to be able to cope with Ben. The warm caring atmosphere of the Lovatts home is transformed to a tense, unhealthy environment. The shift is total. One after the other Ben's sisters and brothers desert the family home, because they can't stand Ben. Left in the ruins of what could have been are David and Harriet, trying to understand what has happened. At the end of the novel when the destruction is irreversible Harriet sums her thoughts up. Family and friends are gone, she knows that not even Ben will stay for long. "We are being punished, that's all. [...] For presuming. For thinking we could be happy. Happy because we decided we would be." (p. 141) Further on David continues her thoughts and thus touches on the hubris theme. "Punishing gods, distributing punishments for insubordination..." (p. 142) 
	All their dreams have been shattered, the lovely Victorian house that once was filled with laughter and joy is now empty and quiet. Ben is rarely at home. The other children never come home. David and Harriet decides to sell the house that once was the symbol and very heart of their Utopia. It has become a constant reminder of what they have lost forever. Just like Frankenstein, they leave their family mansion, but not to track down their monster, but to avoid it, hoping it will never find them. Frankenstein's monster is out there searching for one of his kind, and in the very last sentence of Lessing's novel Harriet predicts that she will one day turn on the TV and "see Ben, standing rather apart from the crowd, staring at the camera with his goblin eyes, or searching the faces in the crowd for another of his own kind." (p. 159)
	In this essay I suggest that the hubris theme of Lessing's novel is one of the most important aspects of the text. David and Harriet start out believing that they can create the prefect family and a perfect home. Ben's arrival to their utopian world, shatters all their dreams and ruins the family. Comparing the story to Frankenstein, we find many similarities that might suggest the importance of the hubris theme. Lessing's story is fixed in time and place, but the story could have been set anywhere at any period in time. The fact that the Lovatts live more or less in their own separate world shows this. The violent shift from Utopia to total ruin does not constitute any threat to this theory as they live quite isolated from the outside world both before and after Ben's birth.
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