The Fifth Child Essay Example for Free

The Fifth Child EssayThe main characters in this novel are Harriet and David Lovatt. They met each other at an office Christimas party, where they see each other from across a room crowded with dancing, drinking people and recognize, as they study each other, that they are fundamentally quite similar. In 1960s they define to marry and invest everything they have into a rambling Victorian house. Both of them have ideals like fidelity,family life and a permanent house.Harriet and David Lovat are a formal couple in 1960s England. Their only oddity seems to be their desire for a large family, and when they produce four children in quick succession, they seem to be building the happy family they want. The Christian connotations of the names of the male children, Paul and Luke, are unmistakable, and this layer of meaning is reinforced by the way the entire family regularly assembles from cold and wide to celebrate the great festivals of the religious year.Even they are happy with their four children, she gets pregnant again with the fifth child, further she has a strange musical note that this child is different from the others. She feels the unborn baby to be a savage thing, and baby Ben emerges like a beast of the Apocalypse, an anti-Christ. He started to move violently and overly early inside Harriet. The birth is one month early and very difficult. After half a year he is able to walk without help, but its not only very strong, he is also extremly aggressive too.Over the next few years they are forced to recognize that modest Ben is more like a monster, not a child and his violent behaviour produces some horrifying accidents. He often beats his brothers and sisters. Harriet was wondering wherefore she was always treated like a criminal. Ever since Ben was born its been like this, she thought. Now it seemed to her the truth, that everyone had silently condemned her. I have suffered a misfortune, she told herself I seaportt committed a crime.