Harriet and David exemplify a modern bourgeois ideal--lots of kids, big house, station wagon and such. But the ideal is built on dependency and is oblivious to the world around it.
BY focusing on the irresponsibility of the middle class, Lessing is able to comment on the nature of class conflict in Britain. most of the Lovatt children conform to society, but Ben's malevolent presence forces them out of the house to live with relatives. David and Harriet are left with only their youngest children--Ben and the sensitive Paul. Ben becomes a force for revolution within the home, and a window on the discontent around it. His rebellion causes Harriet to neglect Paul, whose quiet grace infuriates Ben. Lessing's parable of class conflict demonstrates that in a society which is determined not to accept deviance, everyone suffers.
The birth of this strange, violent, misfit child into a "normal" family is Lessing's way of observing that the middle-class is responsible for the existence of the underclass and must accept responsibilty for its behavior, whether brutal or apathetic. Savagery, according to Lessing, is a direct result of the selfishness and blindess of middle class existence. By choosing not to involve themselves in the social changes of their era, David and Harriet are guilty of an attempt to ignore the imperative for those changes.
"We are being punished," Harriet says, "For presuming. For thinking we could be happy, Happy because We decided we would be....And who paid for it? James. And Dorothy... We just wanted to be better than anyone else, that's all."
This selfishness is couched in a desire for so-called normality. The paradox that Lessing uncovers is that the violence and brutality of society, embodied in Ben, has its origin in the deceptive calm of the bourgeoisie.
Ben's 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 me."
An astute critic of a sedentary society that pretends to be perplexed by the problems of its underclass, Lessing offers a message that is both progressive and reactionary. Dorothy emerges as the hero, but she is a throwback to a time when women and the lower classes were, if anything, worse off. Lessing's depiction of the post-feminist world of the 1970s offers the vision of a grand-mother, rather than that of a young crusader. Lessing's nostalgic proposal looks backwards and is, ultimately, no proposal at all.