Tuesday, 22nd, November, we corrected a little summary about life during the sixties, that you can see in clicking here : . Are you a hippy ?? lol

Then we started with a new couple of lovers who are David and Harriet from The Fifth Child a novel written by Doris Lessing in 1998.

We read the first pages of the novel and had a little comprehension quest about them.

Here, a summary of this part of the story : The main charcters are two lovers, Harriet and David, who met at an office party for the end of the year. People were dancing while the two characters were looking at each other, thinking about who they were. After, they came out from the danceroom and went to an office where they stayed for the night. First they talked, sometijmes kissed and felt asleep. At the end of this extract, they both knew they would get married at spring.

Now a little description of these two characters, made by quotations from the text :

Moreover, other peoples see them as conservatives, old-fashionned, abscolescent, timid and hard to please : THEY ARE DIFFERENT.

After the reading of this part of the novel, we studied different front covers trying to find the integral story and who could be the fifth child ...

1) We can see a pram, the mother is "motherly" holding her children.

The pram takes all the place and hide a mystery, as if the child was special.

It also seems to be a "baby factory", there is no joy, like in a nightmare.

2) We now see a pair of shoes belonging to a young child, maybe 1 or 2 years old.Will he die ? Is it a metaphore meaning he doesn't feet anything, which means that he is different ?

3) A baby's chair is showing from above, and there is a raise a light which suggests something magic. It could also suggest bad things, devil, gap between society.

4) It's a typical vistorian house surrounded by trees which is mysterious.

5) Here we see a child locked behind a window, aged of 6 or 7 years old, and so much sad. He seems to want to go out but maybe his parents sid something to him. He looks sick and aware of secret he can't tell. That's why he also looks older than he is.

6) The child looks here devilish, there are the color of the devil and a strong feeling of agressivity.

7) We are now sure that this child is different, he looks dangerous, like he was a beast. The shadow and the fire bring an impresson of danger, stronger because of the fact wa can't see his face.

Indeed he is sometimes a child, sometimes a beast. It's a strange story coming from a strange love story ...