Surprise Ending (An analysis of the ending of Rocking Horse Winner)

Surprise endings have always intrigued our reading and watching ability. The endings of books and movies can safely be said is the best parts of the movies or books. The endings offer the reader or watcher some sort of closure, some sort of unrecognized ending, or in some cases, a surprise ending. Surprise endings offer some sort of twist to the story line, offering an unexpected sort of closure to the story. This sort of surprise endings are nothing new to the movie or novel industry. These sorts of endings have been used by British writers at the beginning of the twentieth century. Author D. H. Lawrence is one of those writers who use surprise endings in his writings. From the two texts found in our literature book, the stories entitled, “The Rocking Horse Winner” and “A Shocking Accident” both capture the reader at the end of the story with a surprise ending. The D.H. Lawrence text entitled, “The Rocking Horse Winner” is a text that posses the best surprise at the end with the death of a child, the revelation of his secret to winning and the amount of money he won.

The first big surprise from the text entitled, “The Rocking Horse Winner” is the unexpected death of the young boy. Toward the end of the story, the mother finds her son furiously rocking on his rocking horse. Soon after this the boy collapses off his horse and falls unconscious to the ground. The story states, “Then suddenly she switched on the light, and saw her son in his green pajamas, madly surging on his rocking horse,” (Lawrence, The Rocking Horse Winner, page 1259) Some may speculate from reading this part of the story that the boy, Paul, may have fallen off his horse because of exhaustion, since he obviously has been riding his rocking horse for quite some...

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...oney would be a God-send to any family rich or poor.

The surprises of the boy dying, the amount of money made by the boy, and the secret of his rocking horse rides all give the ending of “The Rocking Horse Winner” a surprise to the reading. The death of Paul was the biggest surprise that was experienced by me and most readers. Followed by the fact that magic was used to determine to winner of the horse race. There was always a story of hint throughout the story that there was some sort of magic at play in the determination of the winning horses at the race, but the end of the story sealed the deal that magic was used by Paul. This along with the incredible amount of money that Paul had won and collected was a very big surprise to myself and other readers. Over the story of “The Rocking Horse Winner” was a story filled with surprises and sudden, abrupt endings.