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<title> AN ANALYSE OF THE FIFTH CHILD </title>
In Doris Lessing's novel The Fifth Child the main theme is how everything can change over one night and therefore how useless it is to plan one's life and consequently, how people deal with their new situations in different ways. This is perfectly illustrated in this novel about the Lovatt's family. Their lives changed from happiness to totally unhappiness. Harriet and David Lovatt lived a perfect life, but when Ben was born everything turn into the opposite direction. Ben did not suit either in the middle-class family or in the English society, which did not accept odd people. No one tried to handle with the problems Ben brought to the world, except Harriet, Ben's mother, who took her responsibility and helped Ben. 

In the 1960s there was not easy to be an odd person in England and especially not in such a little town. This is the situation for the Lovatts, who was an odd couple for that period. For instant, they did not share society's liberal opinion about sex, because Harriet was a virgin before she met David. In the beginning of the story, the Lovatts could lived with that, they did not care about that the other talked about them, nor what was happening in the world. This is described in the book (p. 30): "The young Lovatts made themselves read the papers, and 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..." They lived their perfect lives in their enormous house- their kingdom, which they could not afford. Which is another example of the materialistic world they lived in. After a while, they were totally under the influence of the surrounding, the Lovatts could not manage it any longer. This happened when the ugly and violent Ben; the fifth child, was born into the perfect family in a world where no odd things or problems were allowed. 

This story shows moreover, how useless it is to plan one's live, because the fate can change everything in any time. The Lovatts planned their lives in an old-fashioned pattern. Relatives and friends of the family came to Lovatt's house year after year, to spend their holidays at their lovely place in every Easter, summer and Christmas. They lived for these days. Before all the problems appeared, the celebrations were described like this (p.30): "The Easter festivities were the best ever: that year was the best of all their years..." and then it continues: "Easter went on for three weeks, all of the school holidays. The house was crammed". But after Ben had come to the world, no one visited them any longer.

To continue, David is a perfect example of a person who just shut his eye's to the difficulties. When it appeared that everyone disliked the family and that the family became more and more destroyed, he solved the problems in the easiest way; he sent Ben away to an inhumane institution, which was the same as sending him to death. A man at the institution told Harriet (p. 97): "When people dump their kids here, they don't come and see them after". In the 60s, they have the opinion that the retarded people could not being helped, so the institution was a solution to get rid of the infant without killing him by hand. 

As I mentioned above, Harriet was the only one that took responsibility for Ben. She acted completely in an opposite way than David; he on one hand, tried to put the family together again and Harriet, on the other hand, suffered everything to help Ben. This is well illustrated when Harriet and Dorothy have a conversation (p. 79) and Harriet said: "After a day with Ben I feel as if nothing exists but him. As if nothing has ever existed. I suddenly realize I haven't remember the other for hours". 

To sum up, Harriet finally realized that all her efforts to make a normal human being of Ben had not succeeded. Was she the one who had made the right decision or were David and all the other the winner? Her children had lost confidence in her and it seemed that Ben did not care about her at all. So, this story represents a difficult question, how far should one go to reach one's purpose?
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