Abjection and Exclusion in Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child

Abstract

Doris Lessing’s 1988 novella The Fifth Child tells the story of Ben Lovatt, a so-called “monstrous child” in the eyes of his family. In light of Julia Kristeva’s illustration of abjection, it can be seen that Ben’s otherness has unsettled the conventional assumption about children, and his physical and behavioral differences, viewed as a threat to the idealized family life, accounts for his fate of being excluded and rejected. In consideration of the contextualized descriptions in the book and the political background in which the story is set, it is reasonable to assume that what happens to Ben is indicative of what the non-European immigrants went through in the post-war Britian. The exclusive attitude of the Lovatts towards Ben bears much resemblance to the nationwide rejection of the “dark strangers” who brought with them different customs and values. In this sense, the story of Ben, a heterogenetic other who challenges the fixed perception of what British children should look like, can be taken as a mirror which reflects, in the time of social change, how the British society tackled difference in culture.