Word: harriet
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Thirty years ago, in the era of Ozzie and Harriet, two out of three American families consisted of a breadwinner, known as Dad, and a mother, known as Mom, and the children they both were raising. Today fewer than one in five families fits that description...
...presence shatters that calm, and awakens Harriet to the blindness and hypocrisy of her life. When her family casts out her child, duty forces Harriet to remain loyal. His rejection by society, by his family, brings to an end Harriet's illusions. Ben's marginalization mirrors Harriet's isolation...
LESSING is a canny observer of the role of Woman in society. As in her last novel The Good Terrorist, the female protagonist in The Fifth Child is unaware of her subjugated state. Harriet is the caretaker of the family. She is constantly pregnant, constantly trying to run the household and organize the endless stream of guests that come to stay in the spacious suburban paradise. She is sometimes "pale and strained because of morning sickness and because she had spent a week scrubbing floors and washing windows...
Unlike Alice Mellings in The Good Terrorist, however, Harriet comes to understand her mistakes. Children are a "challenge to destiny", a contract not to be entered into hastily. Lessing makes the point that that the profligate mating of David and Harriet's marriage was as wasteful as the excesses of the flower children...
Ultimately, Lessing sides with the Lovatts' all-suffering parents. It is hard to resist identifying Lessing with Dorothy, Harriet's mother. Dorothy, the kind, sage, grey-haired granny is forced to rescue her daughter from the implications of her fertility. Dorothy "knew the cost, in every way, of a family, even a small one." She dispenses advice just as Lessing provides us with a cautionary tale, a morality play. Lessing observes the irresponsibilty of her society and echoes the sentiment Dorothy has about her daughter. She says, "Sometimes you scare...