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<title> Civilization - A fragile painting (from The Fifth Child) </title>
Man today believes himself being a far superior being compared to everything else nature can offer. We look back at our ancestors, the Neanderthals, with the same eyes as we give monkeys and other animals. But are we that different? Has our new lifestyle and developed brain really changed us that much, or is there just a thin wall between Homo sapiens sapiens and its ancestors? We create a picture of how you should live and how you should behave so that you will have a "normal" life. But what happens if someone steps out from the frame of the picture?
In Doris Lessings The Fifth Child, a child is born who is full of prehistorical aggression and instincts. Ben has opened his eyes...

David and Harriet met each other and instantly recognized the other as being the Right person in their life. Together they tried to build their life as a beautiful painting. They tried to fill every inch of the painting with what they always dreamt of. By doing this, fulfilling their dreams, they really stepped out from the frame of a "normal" painting. They're looked upon as outcasts, some strange couple, who denies the rest of the world's demands of how to behave. (p.17 Flamingo) "David and Harriet stood together, feeling themselves even more preposterously and eccentric, and much too young, faced with these two elderly people who judged them". 

But soon people started to see them with different eyes and changed their opinions of David and Harriet. Instead of being looked upon as outcasts, they are looked upon as models of a happy family. (p.30) "/.../ it seemed that the whole year was a celebration, renewed from a spring of loving hospitality whose guardians were Harriet and David.../" This is symbolized even clearer at p.35: "-This is what everyone wants, really, but we've been brainwashed out of it." This shows how insecure many people feel when they're always forced to live a life they really don't want live. They want to break free from the civilization's heavy burden of "musts". 
Unfortunately, for David and Harriet, their "painting" is destroyed when Ben is born. They feel how wrong the pregnancy is right from the beginning. And when Ben is born their own world, their own civilization, starts to tremble in its foundations. Ben turns out to be another outcast of the common life. But opposite to the beautiful and admirable world of David and Harriet, Ben is a monster from ancient times, filled with hatred and destructive behavior. And just as a predator Ben sinks his teeth into his prey - the life of David and Harriet. 
"-Neanderthal baby, said Harriet". Ben has the looks of a Neanderthal, short and muscular with a leaning forehead. He seems to have severe difficulties to construct advanced sentences and therefore speaks in short inarticulate words.
They haven't got any defense against Ben, which shows how weak and fragile their life, their own small world, is. A "normal" family would not suffer equally because they don't believe their world is a paradise without evil. They still have some sort of system, protecting them, or at least warning them of signs when things are about to go wrong. Harriet and David meets Ben like innocent children facing their first (and worst) fears.

My conclusion of this is that our civilization isn't as advanced as we perceive it, no matter how civilized we feel. Just under the surface lies the primitive instincts which, not seldom, pop up to the surface causing reactions which we thought we'd left behind generations ago. I believe Ben symbolizes these reactions when David and Harriet tries to leave their primitive heritage and evolve one step further - creating their own little civilization. 
Ben can also symbolize their own conscience, reminding them of how close they still are to the primitive ancestors of mankind.
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