<doc.id=0199.a4>
<title> The Dream-Main theme in Lessing's The Fifth Child </title>
The dream of a perfect life is what initially brought David and Harriet together, and the dream is also what I see as the main theme of Lessing's The Fifth Child. Harriet and David did not fall in love with each other, I think they fell in love with the dream of the life they both so much desired. David wanted his future wife to know "...where happiness lay and how to keep it" (p.13) and Harriet wished for a husband who "...would hand her the keys of her kingdom" (p13). The kingdom Harriet longed for was soon found in the Victorian house, the house of their dreams. This was the frame of their life and it showed the world a facade of a passed era, a period of strict morals and conservatism. Actually this was how the Lovatts wanted to be seen, as a happy upper middle-class family of high morals. Of course the big Victorian house was too expensive for the young couple, but they were blinded by their vision. The house was now their world and they alone would govern it. When people came to visit they saw a house "...they could not achieve themselves..." (p.32). Every Easter and Christmas was a proof of the Lovatts success and it gave them strength through the rest of the year. The house is an important setting of the theme, since it is where the whole dream takes place. Buying the house was the first step in the Lovatts future plan and the ground to a family.

Even though Harriet and David struggled for the perfect life, it wasn't always flawless. Harriet was tired from her pregnancies. Mr. and Mrs. Lovatts had longed for a big family, but they hadn't thought about its drawbacks. The world accused them for their dream and this put the Lovatts further away from society and closer to each other. Not many people except from relatives visited the house, which became more and more isolated. Still, David and Harriet did not feel lonely. What they wanted was a family, just as the family of Helen and the opposite of Davids'. The family should be a powerful and loving unity to derive strength from and this was what they both strove for, David at his work and Harriet at home. To have a big family was the central part of the dream. 

Each child was considered a God's blessing and a fruit of their upright life. You understand this way of thinking from when Harriet claims that the mongoloid child of Sarah and William was not bad luck but a creation of their unhappiness.
The Lovatts saw unhappiness everywhere around them. They lived, as it says in the book, in the "...greedy and selfish sixties..." (p29). Their dream of life didn't fit in this space of time. The society was under some major changes and new liberated ideas flourished. There were social and technological changes, women's liberation, first man on the moon, fashion, music, the Vietnam War and sexual freedom. Harriet and David were not interested in the new world, they preferred the old-fashioned way of living and tried as long as possible to preserve it. Their source from outside was through newspapers and sometimes Television; this was what they thought was expected from an ordinary citizen. Money and success did not attract the Lovatts. Success to them was a life in complete happiness; actually, this was something they thought they deserved. Living like others in the sixties was not the right way according to David and Harriet, therefore they had decided to brake loose and live the life they believed in no matter the prize. Their relatives in the beginning did not support their dream, but later on when they came to visit their understanding for the Lovatts grew. 

The dream they had tried to reach was shattered when Harriet got pregnant for the fifth time. Evil had reached the loving house of the Lovatts. Everyone felt it in Ben, that he was malicious in an inhumanly way. Still, no one wanted to confront the reality and analyze what he really was, the doctor just said he was a hyperactive child. Harriet believed in the good, and thought she could turn Ben from hell to heaven. This belief of hers eventually split the loving family. The house turned lonelier and the family more distant from each other, the perfect life was no longer reachable. Ben is an important part of the setting since he represents the fate of life and how different people react to the evil. The Lovatts dream of a perfect life changed into a cold nightmare without love.
</doc>