The Rocking Horse Winner

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The Rocking Horse Winner

When a person is lucky, it does not have to mean that they are fortunate with money. Luck is the chance for things to go the way you want them to go with out having any control over the situation. In The Rocking Horse Winner, Hester, the mother seems to believe that luck is strictly having money, and when there is no money, there is no luck. Hester's idea of luck meaning money brings forth the two ideas of greed and death throughout the story.

Money plays a huge part in this story. Hester, the mother, is obsessed with having more and more money. She lives the life of a woman with money, never allowing anyone to see past the family's small income, "The mother had a small income, and the father had a small income, but not nearly enough for the social position which they had to keep up" (435). The mother was incredibly selfish, having no love for anyone but herself. "Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody" (434). Her whole idea of money made her so selfish and hard, that she lost her husbands love, and there was no love between her children, either.

This obsession with money and luck becomes confusing to her son, Paul, who believes that he is lucky. His mother kept telling Paul that he wasn't lucky, but she didn't know why Paul kept saying that he was lucky. Paul heard whispering in his house "…the secret whisper in the house: 'There must be more money'" (435). This whisper made Paul realize that they needed more money. So Paul started betting on race horses, and began to accumulate some money. Paul said that he would ride his rocking horse until he heard the name of the horse that was going to w...

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...ul realized he could not satisfy his mothers need for luck any longer.

In one last attempt to try and make his mother happy, Paul sacrificed his life. Rage overcame Paul, trying to hear the name of the winning horse. In his indefinable rage, Paul fell off his rocking horse and knocked himself unconscious. In an unconscious state, Paul yelled out the name of the winning horse and ended up winning his mother over 80,000 pounds. In return, she lost her son.

The money that Paul won, was proof of his luck that he could give to his mother and earn her love. Paul is very unlucky in that he never got what he wanted even by trying to get it. That luck wasn't money to Paul, it was love. He never received love from his mother which he should have gotten by chance, and his mother ended up losing a lot more than Paul's money could have ever given her.

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