The Rocking Horse Winner Essay

Who Wins in “The Rocking Horse Winner”?

Many middle-class Americans would agree that there has been a time in their life when they have felt a “grinding sense of shortage of money” when examining their personal finances (Lawrence 1). D.H Lawrence’s short story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, was originally published in July 1926, in a magazine called, Harper’s Bazaar. The odd short story includes elements of fables and fantasies presenting morals and somewhat magical powers. Lawrence describes the downfall of an English family who focuses on money and luck rather than love and appreciation. Paul, the only son, searches to find luck to make his mother, Hester, “happy”. With the help of Hester’s brother, Oscar, and the family’s gardener, Bassett,

Hester and Paul discuss luck when Paul is very young, Hester states, “[luck] is what causes you to have money. If you’re lucky, you have money...it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more” (Lawrence 2). Here, Hester is teaching her son to value money more than anything else. She believes that money will bring her contentment. This drives Paul to search for “luck” to help bring his mother to a point where she is satisfied and can freely love her children. Hester is described as “beautiful [woman] who started with all the advantages” which she believes she was once lucky until she got married. (Lawrence 1-2). Paul claims God told him that “[he’s] a lucky person” (Lawrence 3). Hester starts out as a seemingly well-off young woman, but she had no luck. She is resentful to her husband and her family who took her luck away from her. She does not believe Paul’s claims and it angers Paul and makes him want his mother’s attention. Hester’s own beliefs heavily influence her son’s and it leads him to a similar self-destruction that she is experiencing on the

From the title, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, the reader may expect the story to be about someone who wins a rocking-horse or about someone who rides a rocking-horse and wins. Unfortunately, Paul does not win and tragically loses his life. When Paul wins the money and gives it to his mom, she is unhappy. Lawrence writes, “as [Paul’s] mother read it, her face hardened and became more expressionless” (Lawrence 10). Paul asks his mother if she has received anything nice for her birthday, and she responds, “ ‘quite moderately nice,’ she said, her voice cold and hard and absent “(Lawrence 10). Her response makes the reader question if she is capable of any sort of emotion or compassion. Her son gives her a substantial amount of money and ironically, her response is a cold and silent one. This is an example of verbal and situational irony because this is not how Paul expected the event to happen and when Hester responds, it’s not what she means at all. However, his mother claims to care too much about the races by stating, “ ‘I think you care too much about these races. It’s a bad sign. My family has been gambling family, and you won’t know till you grow up how much damage it has done’”(Lawrence 11). These sentences are loaded with foreshadowing and irony. It is ironic how, despite Paul doing well and making money from the races, his mother does not want him to care so much about it. The foreshadowing is found when she says, “you won’t