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<title> Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child The Happy Family </title>
Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child is about a family that is faced with many problems when the fifth child, Ben, is born. He doesn't fit in with the rest of the family and the idyllic environment. He is rejected by the other children and soon also by his own parents. The family values are challenged when the situation keeps getting worse. I think the main theme in this novel is that you can't force happiness and there are no guarantees in life. No matter how hard you try to keep it at bay, your share of unhappiness will catch you up.
	This theme is quite obvious in a few places in the book. For instance on page 28: "The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved". They think that if they just choose happiness and try to live up to it, their family will be happy. And those who are not happy have chosen that or "attracted" bad luck, like Harriet's sister, who has a bad marriage. Harriet thinks that quarrelling and unhappiness is the reason for them getting a sick child.
	Ben becomes the symbol for all unhappiness in the family. He is big and ugly and impossible to handle and understand. They try to hide him in a room but he still manages to destroy family holidays and parties, and soon the family is torn apart. Harriet tries to "cure" and help him but the rest of the family wants to send him away and ignore his existence. The other children, representing happiness, are pushed aside and begin looking for other alternative homes. In the end of the story, all children have left, both good and bad.
	The setting is very important in this story. David and Harriet do everything they can to create happiness in their "kingdom"; they buy a big old house in a nice neighborhood in a quiet little town. The setting within the house is almost the same. The main room of the house is the kitchen, where there is a great wooden table with heavy chairs around it, a big stove and old furniture. These things can all be seen as symbols for the stable and old-fashioned life they wish for.
	Another important part of the setting is the time in which most of the events in the story take place. Before Ben is born everything happens around big family holidays, like Christmas and Easter, when the Lovatts have huge parties for all relatives and friends. All children are born around these occasions and everything is perfect. David and Harriet love these festivities, and everybody else does too. Harriet values happiness after how many people come to the parties, and when they stop coming after Ben is born she is very upset.
	At the same time as the Lovatts' happiness begin to change, the little town they live in begin to change as well. There is a lot of brutality and crime and David and Harriet have to try even harder to close the door to the rest of the world. They don't want to hear anything about all the bad things going on outside. There is also an indication in the book that something bad is going to happen to the family. "There was an ugly edge on events: more and more it seemed that two peoples lived in England, not one - enemies, hating each other, who could not hear what the other said" (p.30). I see this as the differences in opinions within the family after Ben is born. Ben hated everybody and he and the rest of the family could not understand each other.
	In the end all children move and David and Harriet are left behind, alone in the big, empty house. All their dreams and plans are shattered. I think the author is trying to say that if you force happiness and try too hard at achieving it, you might be left without any happiness at all. Life isn't always fair. You can't decide that you are going to have a happy and successful life no matter what, because sad and difficult things can happen to the best of people, whether they deserve it or not.
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