Rocking Horse Winner Criticism

The short story that has the best quality off literary fiction would be, The Rocking-Horse Winner by D H Lawrence, a story about a young boy trying to win his mother’s love by seeking the luck she thinks she does not have also, wanting to give her the luxurious lifestyle she dreams of by betting on horse races he begins to make money to hopefully make everything better. This short story represents setting, plot, theme, symbol and character very well. Without these main points of emphasis being made a short story would have no structure so that’s what I feel is most important.

According to Freud's psychosexual stages of development, successful resolution of the Oedipus complex leads to _____

Oedipus complex stage is a child’s desire of a sexual gratification of the opposite sex of the parental figure. To resolve tis unconscious conflict of fear and erotic desire within one must characterize themselves with whom they want to be and what they desire. Sigmund Freud believed that little girls had penis envy. In later days men had higher rank than women. Girls were thought to first have a sexual attachment to their mother which eventually transferred to the father in hopes to somehow obtain a penis. According to Freud “Classic Theories and Modern

Oedipus Rex, an ancient Greek tragedy authored by the playwright Sophocles, includes many types of psychological phenomena. Most prominently, the myth is the source of the well-known term Oedipal complex, coined by psychologist Sigmund Freud in the late 1800s. In psychology, “complex” refers to a developmental stage. In this case the stage involves the desire of males, usually ages three to five, to sexually or romantically posses their mother, and the consequential resentment of their fathers. In the play, a prince named Oedipus tries to escape a prophecy that says he will kill his father and marry his mother, and coincidentally saves the Thebes from a monster known as the Sphinx. Having unknowingly killed his true father Laius during his

In order to completely understand Oedipus and his actions, we must first understand the basics of Freud’s theories. One of the most well known aspects of Freudian theory is the Oedipus Complex. We can already see a relationship between the Oedipus

In “The Rocking-Horse Winner” we are introduced to a woman who author D.H Lawrence states, “was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them.” When I dive into the psychology behind that statement, I come up with a thought that this beginning draws similarities to Lawrence’s own upbringing with his coal miner father and schoolteacher mother. Similarly the mother in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is disenchanted with her marriage and the way her life

The Oedipus conflict or complex is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud to explain the origin of certain psychological disorders in childhood. It is defined as a child's unconscious desire for the exclusive love of the parent of the opposite sex. This desire includes jealousy toward the parent of the same sex and the unconscious wish for that parent's death. Horney states that it is not a “biologically given phenomenon” but rather a response to the “provocation’s” of the outside world.(Horney)

There are people in this world who think that money can give them anything. This can be food to water to ease and joy. Consequently, they comprehend that money will have a life filled with ease and happiness. But what you don’t visualize is that building these thoughts will lead to an obsessive, joyless, person going the extra mile to get that cash. Why this is unacceptable I might add is where is the ease and the joy you endured obsessively to have? Suffering long hours so you have ease but have no time to rest. Tolerating days of labor to find happiness, but find yourself empty when you have nothing to show yourself for it. D.H. Lawrence demonstrates this perfectly in his short story by including foreshadowing and symbolism, “The Rocking

One of the emotional essentials of life is to be loved, and there are quite a few cases where material things can hinder receiving this much-needed love, the greatest culprit of all being money. D. H. Lawrence’s short story “The Rocking Horse Winner” tells of a boy, Paul, who desires love and affection from his mother, Hester, but she is so wrapped up in her concerns with money that she does not display any of this needed affection toward her son or any of her children. She has grown unloving and bitter due to her husband’s inability to meet her expectations, and she tells Paul his father is unlucky. Full of curiosity, Paul asks his mother what luck is, and she tells him, “‘It’s what causes you to have money. If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why 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 money” (Lawrence, 2). Paul is quite intuitive and interprets that the only way he can finally obtain love from his mother is if he is lucky, much unlike his father. He proudly shares with his mother that he is lucky, but when she does not take his word seriously, he falls into a blinded rage as he madly rides his rocking horse, hoping it will take him to where the luck is, “‘Now take me to where there is luck!’” (3). By riding his rocking-horse, he knows which horse will win the derby. The association of love with money brings about the idea of a love for money, or greed, which is one of the seven

This brings the audience to the third and fourth characteristics of Aristotle’s tragic hero: the reversal of fortune and the recognition that it was self-inflicted. In a rush of realization, Oedipus sees the truth that was in front of him and the audience throughout entire play. Oedipus, in utter agony, cries out and starts cursing the shepherd who had freed his ankles as a child. (lines 1481-1487) He then sees the correlation that marks him the killer of King Laius. The most horrifying realization to Oedipus was that he in fact had wed and procreated with his own mother. At this point heroic Oedipus has been

“The author's work is known for its explorations of human nature and illustrates the nature of materialism” (Jones). Throughout life, we are constantly developing who we are as people. As we grow, we grasp hold of things we wish to portray ourselves with. In doing so, we create ourselves as humans. In this philosophy that has been developed, we base how we are raised in order to develop who we become in the long run. Over time, we receive knowledge pertaining to who we wish to become. In the story story “The Rocking Horse Winner” written by D. H. Lawrence, we are taken to a questionable development of humans in an equally disturbing adventure. In this short story, there are many messages that can be traced throughout.

Bronislaw Malinowski, in his book ‘Sex and Repression in Savage Society’ says that it is wrong to assume that Oedipus complex is universal. He argues that this complex only “corresponds to the patrilineal societies” (5) in the world. He says that since “the constitutions of the family” goes under changes related to power, settlement, housing, sources of food, labour etc from time to time, and the “passion and attachments within the family vary” (4). Some critics connect this theory with Freud’s complex family structure. In his book, his father was twenty years elder than his mother and had a grandson when Freud was born (Afroz 9). M. Young, in his book “Whatever happened to Human nature?”, present Freud’s words from his letter to a friend where he says that he remembers falling in love with his mother and being jealous of his father and thus he “regards this complex as universal” (Afroz 9). Thus critics criticize him of regarding his personal experience as a universal one. Michel Juffé, a psychiatric says that “He [Freud] could not accept that parents - including his own parents - could be responsible for the psychic problems undergone by children. In

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.

Abel imposes the idea that in Oedipus the King, Oedipus’ personality and course in life was dictated by his father’s intoxication during conception, rather than destiny. The author explains that the play was performed in Ancient Greece as a religious practice devoted to Dionysus, the god of fertility, wine, and drama. He made the connection between the indirect worship of wine, to Oedipus, which Abel claims to have suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Sophocles incorporated wine in this sense, to symbolize the importance of Dionysus at the time. Additionally, the article states that Oedipus has physical features that resemble those that a person suffering from FAS may have. Abel provides some examples of these features, and states that Oedipus’ weak ankles which in the play were caused by them being pinned at a young age, was actually a symptom of the alleged FAS that he may suffer from. The author states that Sophocles tried to portray the dangers of procreation while drunk by describing these side effects. Moreover, greater than the physical resemblance, Abel writes that Oedipus shares a great deal of mental deviations with a person who has FAS. In fact, the author blames this illness for Oedipus’ irrational actions. He states that his impulsive and aggressive nature caused by the disease, led to him killing his father. Also, Abel associates how quickly Oedipus accuses the oracle Tiresias, and his brother-in-law/ uncle of attempting to commit mutiny to something that people suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome may do. Abel’s points attempt to prove his argument that fate was not the prime catalyst for Oedipus’ actions, but may have been a result of his potential

Oedipus complex is a psychoanalytic theory denotes the ideas that deals with a child’s sexual desire for the opposing sex parent. The Metamorphosis has many examples of Oedipus complex, however one example is dominant. In an