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	I have read the book The Fifth Child by the author Doris Lessing. It is a strong text full of feelings and bad conscience of the lack of feelings. But this is not a book review; through this essay I will look upon one thematic aspect and give examples of three different settings supporting it.
The thematic aspect I have chosen is longing for the safe, the known, and how the unknown, the unexplainable, is not comforting. The three different settings I have chosen to support this thematic aspect are a socio-cultural setting, a physical setting and a psychological setting. I will look into these different settings in the order I just mentioned them in. 
Firstly, I will start with an example of socio-cultural setting supporting the theme I have chosen.An example of such a setting is the conflict between the young couple, Harriet and David, and the society they are living in. They meet in the sixties - the age of flower power and casual sex. Both Harriet and David feel as if they do not fit in, so when they meet at a party they are the perfect match. Harriet and David share a dream, a dream of a big house filled with children. This is not the usually thoughts of a newly met couple in the sixties. Their surroundings look upon them as strange, people cannot understand them. 
	"But while Harriet could say to David, David to Harriet, six children at least, they could not say this to anyone else." (p.14)
	"Perhaps we ought to have been born in another country. Do you realise that having six children, in another part of the world, it would be normal, nothing shocking about it - they aren't made to feel as criminals." (p.22)

This is Harriet speaking. Of the two of them Harriet is the one most effected by people's thoughts and remarks they slip out through half closed mouths. People do not understand them, they look upon the couple as odd and crazy - not belonging to the normal pattern. 

The second setting I have chosen is an example of physical setting. I have chosen the House since it is such an important setting in the book. 
	"At least they ought to know what went on outside their fortress, their kingdom, in which three precious children were nurtured, and where so many people come to immerse themselves to safety, comfort, kindness." (p.30)

The house is a palace of safety and in it people are very happy, at least the think they are. Harriet is tired and a bit short-tempered during her pregnancies but still the house breathes happiness. There is a U-turn in the story: there is a before and after Ben. When Harriet becomes pregnant with Ben the atmosphere changes, and when he is born it is getting worse. People stop coming to the house and empty, it loses its purpose. It is no longer a kingdom, it is a prison. A wrecked shell of a lost dream. In the end of the book they decides to sell it. 
	 "She wanted to be done with this unhappy house, and the thoughts that went with it." (p.153)

Harriet is longing for the day she can start a new life and in this new life with its new house she is hoping to be able to gather some pieces of her dream. She hopes that her children, her first four children, would come back into her life, she is hoping for a new start with David. She is hoping that happiness will come back. 
As a third example of setting that supports this thematic aspect I have chosen a psychological setting. I have chosen Harriet's feelings towards Ben and the impact he has on the families life. 
	 "...they both felt - secretly, they were ashamed of the thoughts they had about Ben - that he had willed himself to be born, had invaded their ordinariness, which has no defences against him or anything like him." (p.70)

Ben wrecked the family and pushed his brothers and sisters out of the house - like a cuckoo. David loathes him. Harriet cannot feel anything she thinks she should feel - no love, no affection. She can only feel pity. Harriet has always been the motherly person; she has loved all her first four children and it came to her naturally. With Ben it is different. She wants to dislike him as David does, but she feels as if she cannot because she is the mother. Harriet knows she has to feel something for him.

	 "This afflicted Harriet with remorse: poor Ben, whom no one could love. She certainly could not!" (p.69)

The normal thing is to love your children, she thinks she is not normal. She feels very bad about herself and tries to cuddle Ben to try and bond, without any result.
These are my three examples of settings supporting the thematic aspect the safe Vs the unexplainable, how the unknown is something you fare.
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