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Central theme of the rocking horse winner
How is materialism represented in the rocking horse winner
How is materialism represented in the rocking horse winner
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There are many differences and similarities between Graham Green’s “The destructors” and D.H. Lawrence’s “Rocking-Horse Winner.” “The Destructors” has flat characters, which strive to be the first gang to destroy a home, in efforts to prove themselves to other gangs in the area. In this story, they set out to demolish Old Misery’s gorgeous home. While in “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” Paul’s goal is to help his family become wealthy. Another difference is that the setting of "The Destructors" is in Great Britain. The story takes place after the bombing occurred during World War one, where many buildings were destroyed, and many families were forced into poverty because of the war. The setting of "Rocking Horse Winner" is a neighborhood near Baltimore, Maryland.
In both stories, the main characters are young boys, who have very different personalities. Paul, in "Rocking-Horse Winner" is an innocent boy, who does not know much about the world around him. Paul’s mother lacks the ability to love, and feels that she is “truly lucky in many ways” (Lesson 7 outline). Moreover, she had expensive taste, desired to have nice things, and wanted to maintain a good social standing in her community. His desire to help his mother was the driving force for her young son, Paul. His ambition, which was driven by his desire to be lucky, depicts a moral message for the Christian reader. Paul was a spiritually empty child, who could have turned to God, instead of relying on luck, to achieve his goals. In "The Destructors," the main character "T,” short for Trevor, was raised in a wealthy English family, but then was forced into poverty after the war. Because of the tragedies in his life, he joined a gang, and began a rebellious stage against all that h...
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...n’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15, NIV).
Works Cited
Berger, K. (2008). The developing person: Through the life span. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Greene, G. The Destructors. (PDF document). Retrieved from Lecture Notes Online Web Site: http://www.bb8.liberty.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp
Kennedy, X.J. and Dana, G. (2010). Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing: Compact Interactive Edition 6th Edition. New York, NY: Pearson.
Lawrence, D.H. The Rocking-Horse Winner. (PDF document). Retrieved from Lecture Notes Online Web Site: http://www.bb7.liberty.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp
Myers, D. (2010). Psychology 9th Edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers
The Holy Bible, New International Version. (1996). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishers.
“If the human race didn’t remember anything it would be perfectly happy" (44). Thus runs one of the early musings of Jack Burden, the protagonist of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Throughout the story, however, as Jack gradually opens his eyes to the realities of his own nature and his world, he realizes that the human race cannot forget the past and survive. Man must not only remember, but also embrace the past, because it teaches him the truth about himself and enables him to face the future.
War has been a constant part of human history. It has greatly affected the lives of people around the world. These effects, however, are extremely detrimental. Soldiers must shoulder extreme stress on the battlefield. Those that cannot mentally overcome these challenges may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Sadly, some resort to suicide to escape their insecurities. Soldiers, however, are not the only ones affected by wars; family members also experience mental hardships when their loved ones are sent to war. Timothy Findley accurately portrays the detrimental effects wars have on individuals in his masterpiece The Wars.
The conclusion of both stories is sad. In “The Destructors”, not only is Old Misery’s house destroyed, but also during the latter part of the demolition, the gang holds him captive in the out-house. The final humiliation appears when the lorry driver is an unknowing accomplice but still finds humor in Old Misery’s house being razed. In the “Rocking Horse Winner”, tragically although Paul selects the winning horse of the derby and brings wealth to his family, he dies in the end. Paul’s last words to his mother were “I’m lucky”.
Freedom is one of the many great qualities of life, but when it is taken away, life could turn out to be anything but great. Freedom to think, repent, and refuse should be incorporated in ones daily routine, but under an authoritarian dystopian society, these freedoms are only dreamt of. When society draws such attitudes and lifestyles upon its citizens, one adapts and accepts these requests, but not without a compromise. In Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece ‘The Lottery’ and Kurt Vonnegut’s exceptional story ‘Harrison Bergeron’, human life is so often sacrificed and withdrawn that is becomes a norm in society. Forcing people to agree with someone else’s ideology of harmony and success cannot be achieved without discarding the non-believers. Both dystopian societies possess excessive force on their civilians, with harsh consequences resulting in death. Traditional values and dictatorship laws forcefully overcome the mass population’s beliefs, resulting in obedience and respect to the laws of society. By comparing and contrasting the short story ‘The Lottery’ and ‘Harrison Bergeron’, it can be derived that these societies have strict rules and regulations, citizens of the society have become so adapted that they are afraid of change, and there is a severe lack of freedom.
...re the reader is not able to make any solid connection with any of these characters. It is arguably only through the stories foreshadowing where both authors prepare us with little details like the mileage of the car written down by the grandmother in O’Connor’s story likewise the boys preparation of the stones in Jackson’s Lottery that would inevitably help the reader to comprehend how both these author’s reached the horrifically shocking climatic endings in both short stories. I believe the authors similar use of these three variables help the reader to understand the message being delivered through these stories of the human condition and its effects on a society that only embraces its traditional moral beliefs and values.
The Assault by Harry Mulisch, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and 1984 by George Orwell
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” is a short story about a young boy, Paul, who has the supernatural ability to choose a winning race horse. It is not clear how the boy has this ability but he hears his mother’s voice echo in his mind saying that they are poor and so he sets out to change that. Paul takes on the stress of his mother’s greed. This short story relates to the obsession of wealth which what motivates the characters aside of neglect, faulty sense of value, opportunism and deceit. Paul believes that there is more money to be made and thus goes on a frenzy to win more, but consequently dies after falling off his rocking horse due to convulsions of a fever.
Two great works known for irony, in one a great author, Albert Camus, creates a masterpiece and in the other, a masterpiece creates a great author, Shirley Jackson. Camus had been known to the world and his works had been studied even without the presence of “l’hote” or known as The Guest, but Shirley Jackson was a nobody till she wrote The Lottery and stunned the world.
Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.
D.H. Lawrence’s writings often mirror elements of his own life, though they contain decidedly fictitious components. The characters in Lawrence’s The Rocking- Horse Winner closely resemble his own family. Like Paul, Lawrence was seeking a way out of the misfortune of pre-war London living. Unlike Lawrence, Paul is already well-to-do. Paul’s search consists of a yearning for affection and acceptance. In The Rocking-Horse Winner a young boy finds a certain calling within himself that serves to vastly improve the standing of his entire family. However, Paul’s supernatural ability to choose the winners of horse races is but a cursory assessment of the story’s secrets. Digging deeper, the reader becomes aware of a darker meaning to Paul’s wild rides. There are two things are revealed throughout Paul’s character development; first, that he is seeking his mother’s affection. Secondly, in doing so, there is an apparent autoeroticism linked to his seemingly innocent rocking-horse.
In the short story “The Rocking Horse Winner” author D.H. Lawrence presents the main character Paul to be going through a tragic situation. Paul begins to believe that he is lucky after riding his rocking horse and predicting the racehorse winner after coming out of his trance. Being that both his mother and father have a small income when they come to realize he has a special gift they take advantage of it. Paul went to a lot of Derby Stakes races with his Uncle Oscar and every race he won. Once he made the big win all the riding of his rocking horse lead to Paul’s unexpected death. Paul made a statement to his mom saying he was a lucky person because God told him after his mom told him “That’s why its better to be born lucky than rich. If
Survival stories have many people facing lots of challenges. Today I will be looking at Brian from Brian’s winter by Gary Paulsen and Buck from Call of the Wild by Jack London. We are going to be look at how they develop the personal traits we all know as a characters traits. I will be discussing the way they act towards nature. Also how they act towards the cold. Finally I will be talking about how they are acting in their situations.
The short story, "Rocking-Horse Winner", and the movie based on it contrast considerably. When the written story has ended the movie continues with ideas, which may not come from the author. Three major differences of the two are: the mother, the father, and the ending. In the movie the mother, Hester, is portrayed as a loving and self-sacrificing person. While in the short story she is exposed to be a cold-hearted, and greedy person. Another instance where the short story and movie differ is the role of the father.
In Paul’s Case, a short story by Willa Cather, she shares the story of Paul. Paul is introduced as a boy who in the beginning is a suave young man, but we slowly come to realize that he is, in fact, flawed. Paul is a boy who’s struggles to separate himself from his every day, common life. As a young boy, Paul is taken with the opulence of the theater. He admires everything from the lights and wardrobe to the colors, perfumes, flowers and the champagne. He realizes that it isn’t possible to have all these things, so he throughs away his life. Paul’s character shows us that because he focuses on what he didn’t have, he couldn’t live at all.As we take a closer look at Paul’s character, we will see that he is driven to have these feelings by his misunderstanding of money his overpowering love of art and the alienation of his sexual orientation.
In the two texts being analyzed the main themes are social injustice and Materialism. Even though these themes are different they both deal with financial standing. This paper will be looking at two texts, ‘the lesson’ and ‘Rocking horse winner’ in order to generate a final conclusion as to why both of them relate to one another.‘Rocking horse winner’ is a short story about a Materialistic mother that eventually causes her sons death, in his attempt to win his mothers love. The texts closes in on a well off middle class family. An overly materialistic mother who neglected her children's need for love and a father who's ‘prospects never materialized’. Placed in this situation the children noticed that the mother had a personal problem and cared more for money than she did for them. Paul the son, is determined to win his mothers love.