The Unconscious in The Fifth Child Anonymous 12th Grade

In Doris Lessing’s novel The Fifth Child, there are two main characters that are unaware of some, if not most, of the things they do. This unconsciousness the characters experience is what leads to inevitable conflict in the story: the distance that grows between the members of the Lovatt family. These unconscious actions and thoughts in the characters that leads to the division in the Lovatt family also brings up the question in the novel of who is truly to blame for the misfortune in the previously supposed perfect family.

The most obvious character that is unaware of the entirety of his actions is none other than Ben. From the start, the boy seems to never know his own strength; Ever since conception, Ben has been harming Harriet by making her extremely moody and irritable, but also physically hurting her from the inside by supposedly kicking harder than a child should. As Harriet was giving birth to Ben, she noted that “she was bruised — she knew it; inside she must be one enormous black bruise . . . and no one would ever know,” (Lessing 48). It is an unspoken thought between every character in the novel that Ben is different - alien almost - however, this is not his fault. Neither Ben himself nor Harriet had any choice...