Within the story entitled The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence, the audience is divulged into the sordid family life of a adolescent boy named Paul, where there are three obvious morals told through the story’s style and symbolism. Also present within The Rocking Horse Winner are elements of supernaturalism and cold harsh reality.
The first distinct moral in The Rocking Horse Winner is that we must not let ourselves be succumbed to greed and the need for materialistic items over our responsibilities in life. The mother and father’s obsession with wealth and material items is at battle with their parenting responsibilities within The Rocking Horse Winner. The mother and father have replaced love with the constant, overwhelming desire for additional money. It is the responsibility of the parents to provide for the children in their family. Especially, where as young children are concerned, they should never feel the need to provide for their parents. The Rocking Horse Winner portrays the financial destruction of an upper class family struggling to maintain their high level status while regularly spending beyond their means. The mother and father have expensive tastes that can not be supported with their mere common jobs. In order to give their family the best and retain their illicit status, both parents embezzle all of their resources to
-1-
purchase materialistic things. The Rocking Horse Winner depicts how greed and the need possessions and money drives a member of this upper class family to resort to drastic measures.
(Lawrence; The Rocking Horse Winner Study Guide)
The second obvious moral to The Rocking Horse Winner is that often one does not realize what they have and how they we feel about it until it is gone. Early on within the story we learned that Paul’s mother had attractive, bonny children. Yet, “when her children were present she always felt the center of heart go hard”. She knew “that there was a place in the center of her heart where she could not feel love for anybody, not even her children”. Later on in the story, the mother goes on to show her emotions and love when she has “seizures of uneasiness” about Paul and finds him fiercely riding his rocking horse into unconsciousness and finally plumaging to his death. When she is presented with losing her child, she realizes what she had, a little too late. (Lawrence p.980, 988)
The third apparent moral to The Rocking Horse Winner is even if you have good luck, eventually it will run out.
“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.
Luck and love have always been two very important and contradicting themes in many stories. Children and adults would go above and beyond to receive their parent’s affection and approval even to the point of death and isolation. At times this creates a dysfunctional aspect in the family’s lives. “A Rose for Emily” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” have very similar symbol meanings and themes explaining the dysfunctional family, love and luck.
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.” This quote, said by Gordon Gekko in the 1987 blockbuster hit Wall Street, perfectly displays how the society today has been overcome by greed and materialism. In this quote Gordon Gekko explains how greed is what makes mankind and the “manufacturing corporation called the U.S.A” work. The short story Rocking Horse Winner, by D. H. Lawrence, also exhibits the extensiveness of greed and obsession with material goods in society today; this is shown through the characters Hester, Uncle Oscar, and Paul.
S.E. Hinton’s novel, The Outsiders, is at first a narrative of Ponyboy, a young outcast boy who later becomes a young man filled with identity. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that the narrative is actually Ponyboy’s autobiographical account of his quest for a place in society. The symbols and motifs of The Outsiders contribute immensely to the novel’s most prominent theme: Commonality between the rich and the poor is camouflaged by economics and socialism.
The way jealousy is portrayed throughout this story is through greed as the characters all agree, “Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money” (Lawrence 1223). As a whole, the lack of money causes the entire family to be jealous of other families and ultimately cause unexpected actions. For instance, when Oscar discovers his nephew always gambles and wins on horse races, he is skeptical of the idea of gambling at first, but eventually the narrator states, “He became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on, Paul was sure about Lively Spark, which was quite an inconsiderable horse…Paul had made ten thousand…Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand” (1230). This explains how Oscar’s covetousness for money causes his mindset to change for not punishing his nephew for deliberately sneaking out to gamble, continues to let him do so, and begins to participate in this outrageous activity himself. This imparts readers that being desirous can cause irresponsibly, but more importantly, cause a mental mindset to change. In the same way, Paul is resentful of the absence of money in the family, riding his magic rocking horse for as long as humanly possible. One day, he is trying to discern the next winner to the race after losing when his mom sees him yelling, “’It’s
The author of “The Lottery” wrote this story “to shock the story’s readers with a graphic demonstration of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives” (Jackson 211). This story reflects human behavior in society to show how although rules, laws or traditions do not make sense, people follow them. Throughout the story the three main symbols of how people blindly follow senseless traditions were the lottery itself, the color black, and the hesitation that people had towards the prize.
The coined phrase, “money can’t buy happiness” is an infamous saying that has pondered many minds. The debate over what wealth brings to a person’s life has been around long before currency became a way of payment. As long as money is made, there will always be people who have more of it than others. These people are the ones who attend the lavish parties, dress in clothes of gold, and drink water from the rivers in Fiji. These people are filthy rich, and although “money can’t buy happiness”, it sure can buy them everything they desire. In the United States, the 1920’s was a time full of dancing flappers, wealth, extravagant parties, and lots of fun. The 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the story of Nick Carraway, a young man who moves to New York City and becomes entangled in the mystery of Jay Gatsby. Throughout the novel, readers unravel the tragic tale of Gatsby working his way to winning back Daisy Buchanan, a rich, elite women who is married to the wealthy, Tom Buchanan. In The Great Gatsby, a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the use of Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby’s characterization helps to establish the importance of wealth in the novel demonstrating that the desire to be wealthy leads to decisions based on greed and materialism, making characters in the novel chose money over everything else.
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
Lawrence’s, The Rocking Horse Winner, exposes the negative qualities associated with modern society and specifically adults. Adults are corrupting children at a young age to believe ...
“All the Pretty Horses”, a novel written by Cormac McCarthy tells the tale about a man and his friend travelling the plains of Mexico after leaving their homes in Texas. As the novel’s name alludes to, horses are a central theme in the story as they represent manhood and freedom when John Grady, the protagonist, and his friend Rawlins get thrown in jail. McCarthy’s novel became critically-acclaimed which gained him more recognition, as well as a movie adaptation directed by Billy Bob Thornton. Even though Thornton’s adaption has the basics of the novel’s story it does not appropriately grasps its depth. While Thornton’s version stays faithful to the dialogue from the book’s included scenes it does fall short by having an erratic pace, having
The Rocking-Horse Winner is a story about a dysfunctional family. The father is largely ignored as he does not bring in the necessary funds to support the lifestyle the parents are accustomed to. The story only mentions the husband so that the reader knows he is present, and then put aside for the remainder of the story. Uncle Oscar and the gardener Bassett both serve as role models throughout the story in his place. Both parents seek to live far beyond their means, as a result of this the house echos with the words “There must be more money!” (890) This brings about the idea of the house being haunted although it is never voiced aloud. Paul attempts to fix the family money woes with the help of his rocking
Both stories are evidence of what happens when greed and materialism consume people. Greene made it clear that the Wormsley Gang hates Mr. Thomas for his greed, which eventually leads to their destroying of his home. Paul was not supposed to tragically die in “The Rocking Horse Winner”. If anything, Paul’s mother deserved a horrible demise, not her innocent son. These stories are a perfect example to the simple truth that greed can and will destroy the people and the things that we treasure the most in our lives.
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.
The Rocking-Horse Winner is a tragic story that demonstrates how materialism is very destructive in people’s lives. D.H. Lawrence uses one of the main characters, Hester, to symbolize how greed heavily affects the idea of materialism. Hester’s need for money develops the idea that happiness and love is destroyed by the need for money. Lawrence uses money in her short story to convey the idea of how neglect from a mother destroys an innocent, young child such as Paul. Lawrence’s symbolism reveals that children like Paul need love and compassion from their elders. Hester, Paul’s rocking horse and the whispering of the house represent greed, selfishness, and love. They also reveal the character’s real feelings and thoughts of neglect, detachment, greed and selfishness.
Everybody has, at one point in their life, had a desire for more money. D. H. Lawrence uses many symbols in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” to convey the fact that the pursuit of happiness through monetary gain ends in tragedy. The main symbol is the rocking horse, representing how the protagonist Paul is trying to win the affection of his mother. Next is Paul’s mother who demonstrates materialistic views. Finally, the voices in the house symbolize greed and corruption. Lawrence effectively uses these symbols to show how money destroys lives.