<doc.id=0121.a4>
<title> The Management of Happiness </title>
In this essay I will describe what I consider to be the main theme of Doris Lessing's novel The Fifth Child, and then discuss the importance of the setting for that theme. In order to make the latter part easier to grasp I have chosen to split the setting into different aspects.

Apart from other themes underlying the text, I regard aspects of happiness as the main one. If conveyed as a statement, the theme would be "Happiness is fragile, and difficult to create and control.". Throughout the novel, Harriet is searching for happiness. Never giving up, though sometimes close to do so, and sometimes no longer aware of what is happiness to her and her family, she always does what she thinks will make her happy, trying to control her happiness. It is the longing for happiness, the vision of a big and happy family that makes Harriet and David to devote their lives to trying to make their dream come true. It is likewise their dream of happiness that makes them consider killing Ben the best solution to their problems. Thus, as the case is, when Ben has been sent to the "institution" to die, the idyll is, for the family as a whole, somewhat regained, but for Harriet, whose maternal feelings are too strong for her to be able to stop herself from going to get Ben, the situation is still unbearable. She is not happy neither with Ben, nor without him. Her family are suffering from her being afraid of getting more unhappy, from her trying to control her own happiness.

Thus, the theme is underlying the story as such. But also the setting Lessing has chosen for the novel is of major importance in conveying the theme. To begin with, I will deal with the aspect of the setting that has with the social condition outside the Lovatt family to do. Lessing writes (p. 29): "It had been hard preserving their belief in themselves when the spirit of the times, the greedy and selfish sixties, had been so ready to condemn them, to isolate, to diminish their best selves. And look, they had been right to insist on guarding that stubborn individuality of theirs, which had chosen, and so obstinately, the best - this." In other words, The social condition and the people outside the Lovatt family do anything but encourage the kind of life Harriet and David have chosen to live. They are regarded as odd and are thus somewhat isolated. It is not conveyed through the text that the Lovatts have much of a life at all outside their own family, and thus the Lovatt's can be seen as an solitary "island" in a sea of "normal" people. An island on which the only important thing is family life. An island on which the Lovatts try to make their own happiness. A happiness which, when destroyed by the appearance of Ben, shows to be very fragile. With the contrast between the once so happy and blooming Lovatt "island" and the fierce and cold society, Lessing gives the reader a picture of the family's isolated situation when Ben is born. In other words, the setting in time is of some importance to the conveying of the theme. 

Another aspect of the setting which is of some importance to the theme is the social environment within the Lovatts' kin. After Harriet has given birth to her third child Sarah and Willam bring their "mongol" child to the Lovatt's at Easter. At that time the Lovatts are still a very happy family. Lessing writes on page 29: "Sarah joked dolefully that she and William attracted all the ill luck in the clan. Harriet said to David, privately, that she did not believe it was bad luck: Sarah and William's unhappiness, their quarelling, had probably attracted the mongol child...". Harriet, though David dislikes it, thinks that the mongol child is a sort of punishment to Sarah and William. Thus can Harriet see the Lovatt family as normal (since they have not been punished) and she can feel that she has control of her happiness. Though, when Harriet is expecting Ben, she is getting "punished". She no longer has control of the situation and the struggle to regain happiness for her and her family begins. It seems, though, to be a hopeless situation for Harriet as her family is getting shattered, unhappy and decreasingly popular among their kin. 

There is though a change in setting that makes Harriet realise that there is still a chance for her family (Ben excluded) to be happy. That change in setting is when the Lovatts, except Ben, go to France. Lessing writes (p 78): "They went to France, with the car. For Harriet it was all happiness: she felt she had been given back her family -- - - They were a family still! Happiness...they could hardly believe it, any of them, that Ben could have taken so much away from them." and further down (p 80): "Having been reminded, by the week in France, what their family life really was, could be, Harriet was determined not to let it all go. She found she was again silently adressing Ben: 'I'm not going to let you destroy us, you won't destroy me...'". This finally leads to sending Ben away. In other words, the change in setting reminds Harriet of what family happiness is, and of the fragility of happiness. But when she tries to control happiness by locking up Bill and even sending him to die, she cannot be happy. 

As a summary, one can say that the fragility of happiness and the fact that happiness is difficult to create and control, is a theme underlying the text. Different aspects of the setting, such as the social conditions in England in the sixties and the social conditions within the Lovatt's kin, are of some importance to the theme, but on the whole, I regard the setting to be of minor importance to the theme.
</doc>