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The Fifth Child
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Plot Summary of The Fifth Child
"Harriet and Her husband have five kids her fifth child is a pain. She is torn between a child destroying her family and love for her child."
Christopher M, Resident Scholar

"A middle-class couple becomes social parasites living off the money of his father to be a happy, perfect family living in a mansion paid for by the father. All goes as "planned" with their first four children but with the pregnancy of the fifth child the mother turns psycho and the child becomes a "freak" to the family. It is a constant struggle between the main family and the extended family on how to go back to normal with a weird child."
Stephen Futral, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of The Fifth Child
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1960's-1970's
Family, struggle with Yes
Struggle with: - Son
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Pregnancy/Child rearing Yes
Major part of story: - general child raising

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - homemaker
Age: - 20's-30's
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Eccentric: - eccentric - emotionally unstable
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American) - British
How sensitive is this character? - soggy whimpering jelly muffin - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique - physically sick

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - a kid
Profession/status: - student
Eccentric/Smart/Dumb: Yes
Eccentric: - wild - emotionally unstable - dumb
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a substantial amount - throughout most of the book.
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Retarded - Average intelligence
Physique - bulging muscles - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 (a fair amount)
United States Yes
Europe Yes
European country: - England/UK
Small town? Yes
Small town people: - sinister, like an X-Files Gomer Pyle

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - impregnation/reproduction - descript. of female anat. (the big B's)
Unusual Style: - No single main character?
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to The Fifth Child
Woman Running in the Mountains by Yuko Tsushima
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The Good People of New York by Thisbe Nissen
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Greenwichtown by Joyce Palmer


Click here for more information about this book


Doris Lessing Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Miranda SMITH  

SCHOLARS:
Stephen Futral  Christopher M  


Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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