The Presence and Justification of Autoeroticism in The Rocking-Horse Winner

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.

Chief in the comprehension of Paul’s longing for motherly affection is having an understanding of Paul’s mother. She is generally a detached woman. Cold by most accounts, even her own, “only she herself [knows] that at the center of her heart [is] a hard little place that [can] not feel love, no, not for anybody” (Lawrence, 559). Paul’s mother feels the three children are a burden on an already cash strapped and unfulfilling relationship with her husband. Therefore, she is phony and removed where they are concerned. “She [has] bonny children, yet she [feels] they [have] been thrust upon her, and she [can] not love them […] when her children [are] present, she always [feels] the center of her heart go hard” (Lawrence, 559). Symptoms of post-partum depr...

... middle of paper ...

...nt Psychology: Individual Bases of Adolescent Development. Ed. Richard M. Lerner and Laurence D. Steinber. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2009. 576-81. Print

Gioia, Dana. "The Rocking-Horse Winner." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. By X. J. Kennedy. 11th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2010. 556-63. Print.

Isaacs, Neil D. “The Autoerotic Metaphor in Joyce, Sterne, Lawrence, Stevens, and Whitman.” Literature and Psychology. 15th ed. 1965. 98-102. Print.

Kazdin, Alan E. "Oedipus Complex." Encyclopedia of Psychology. Vol. 5. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000. 494-96. Print.

Lamson, Roy, et al., eds. “Critical Analysis of ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner.’” The Critical Reader. Rev. ed. New York: Norton, 1962. 52-6. Print.

Widmer, Kingsley. The Art of Perversity. Seattle: Washington UP, 1962. Print.