Character Analysis Of Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child

INTRODUCTION

Doris Lessing was born as Doris May Taylor in Persia On October 2, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, Was a clerk at the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother was a nurse. In 1925, The family moves to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia. Lessing has described her childhood as a diverse mixture of pleasure and pain. The nature, which she explored with her brother Harry, was a retreat from an otherwise miserable existence. Her mother, obsessed with raising a proper daughter, enforced a rigid system of rules and hygiene at home and signed Doris up for a convent school, where nuns terrified their students with stories of hell and damnation. Lessing was later sent to all-girls high school from which she soon dropped out. She was thirteen then; and this was the end of her formal education. Frightened from her mother, Lessing escaped from home when she was fifteen and took a job as nursemaid.

ANALYSIS

Harriet and David were two people that practically knew each other before they met. They acted almost the same and had the same opinions about everything. Harriet is in sales department of a firm that designs and supplies building materials and david is an architect . They were so confident about each other

Some of the main characters of The Fifth Child are described as below.David Lovatt was Harriet 's husband and a father of 5, doesn 't care about Ben but is worried about his family 's safety. Hard to please , obsolescent, as well as conservative. He is emotionally fastidious. He works as an architect. Harriet Lovatt was Mother of 5, married to David at age 24. Has 5 children. He is, what others might say, stubborn, conservative, old fashioned. She shares the same dream as david; wanting many kids amd living in a big house.Dorothy Walker was Harriet 's mom, who feels like a slave by taking care of the children.Luke Lovatt was the first child of Harriet .Helen Lovatt second child .Jane