Plot Summary: The novel “The Fifth Child” by Doris Lessing, is about two single adults, Harriet and David, who met at a party. David was divorced, and sleeping with different women every night, and harriet was single, and ready to settle down. As anyone could predict, the two fall in love and get married. Their lifelong dream was to raise a large, perfect family. They knew from the start that they wanted many children, “probably six”, Harriet suggested, although her mother in law
Dorothy thought that was an absurd amount. The Lovatts wasted no time, and sure enough, their first child, Luke, was born. He was an incredibly easy baby to care for. Soon after that, their second child,
Helen, was born. She was also extremely adorable, and caused the family no trouble at all. Jane is born two years after Helen, and then
Paul came along three years after that. With four children in the house,
Harriet and David were happy as could be, but they decided it was time to take a break. The house was unusually crowded and harriet was beginning to become extremely stressed out. The both decided they needed a few years before having any more babies. To no ones surprise, before Christmas of that same year, Harriet is pregnant again for the fifth time, but this time, it was different then ever! During pregnancy, Harriet was experiencing extreme discomfort, and a ton of pain. The pain was so terrible and unusual, she couldn’t barely cope.
Just about a month before Harriet was due, she began to feel like she was going into labor. David was out of town, so Dorothy rushed her to the hospital. While in labor, Harriet knew something was just not right.
She was having more pain than ever before, and the baby was impossible to push out. Unlike the other four children, who were about seven pounds at birth, their new baby boy, Ben, was an unusually large eleven pound baby. Not only was he excessively larger than the others, but he looked nothing like them. In fact,