Cycle of Rejection: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Doris Lessing’s “The Fifth Child”

Authors

  • Inst. Widad Allawi Saddam Open Education College
  • MA.Rasha Hatem Abed Ministry of Education

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36473/ujhss.v59i3.1147

Keywords:

Psychological studies, rejection, ego, Lessing, emotional abuse

Abstract

The children absorb the positive and negative conversation from their parents. Obviously, they  response according to their receiving conversations and feeling. Doris Lessing shows the social complex relations between of diverse social character classes and their relationships to social institutions.

Indeed, one of the messages of the novel is that the more individuals and society at large reject the dark side of human nature, the more they relapse into primitive barbarity. The mother in  “The fifth child” harbours the feeling of disgust and rejection towards the new born baby which results in more conflict and rejection in the novel.

This paper sheds the light on Doris Lessing’s psychological ideas that shape this novel. It contributes new reading of family psychic problems and circumstances. The rejection of family members of the new born child results in many defective characteristics of the fifth child. The child’s ego is the same ego of the mother.

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References

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Published

15-09-2020

How to Cite

Cycle of Rejection: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Doris Lessing’s “The Fifth Child”. (2020). ALUSTATH JOURNAL FOR HUMAN AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 59(3), 37-46. https://doi.org/10.36473/ujhss.v59i3.1147

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