The Rocking Horse Winner Essay

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

In my adaptation of “The Rocking-Horse Winner” I wanted to try and keep the majority of the the story in my adaptation and I did not want to change too much. This adaptation is a short story that is written in a similar fashion, but takes place in our society today. I wanted to try and show that the main themes will not be changed by time setting. The main themes in the story are, neglect, obsession, and greed.

D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a classic modernistic story about a family filled with inner conflicts all portrayed through the innocence of a young child. Tortured by a house that whispers to him, Paul tries to gain his mothers missing affection by presenting that he posses luck which gives him money. He presents this luck by picking the name of a winning horse while riding his rocking horse. The whispers which state "there must be more money” disturbs Paul and he believes it exists because his family does not have enough money. Paul drives himself to a state of insanity and perishes because of this. This story is written in a radiant way which displays several ironic situations and statements. Here are

Theme Discussion: The mother in “ The Rocking Horse Winner” is seemingly the root of all the problems in the story. Without her constant need for money and materialistic possessions, the other members of the family would not feel obligated to please her. The overwhelming need to please others and selflessness are two important factors in this story. Hester, the mother, has a strong need to have the finer things in life. Readers can see from the beginning of the story the strain money puts on the family. Lawrence says, “They read it in each other’s eyes” (Lawrence). From this statement the audience notes how apparent the struggle for money is. Readers can also see how selfless Paul is. He risks his own life for the sake of his mother’s well-being. After “looking into each other’s eyes” and sensing the need for money, Paul takes matters into his own hands. He feels the need to provide for his mother, so he tells the gardner, Bassett, all of his choices for the big races. Lawrence says, “I’ve got to know for the Derby! I’ve got to know for the Derby!”(Lawrence). From this, readers see Paul’s extreme urgency to win more and more money. As time progresses, Paul seems to worry immensely over helping his mother. Eventually, he starts to get sick. One night Hester heard a strange noise, but could not pinpoint it. Lawrence describes this noise saying, “It was a soundless noise”(Lawrence). The author’s use of hyperbole in this sentence makes readers feel almost eerie. Late in the night, the boy dies. The hypothetical “Rocking Horse of Life” is the cause of Paul’s death, even if no one else can distinguish it. Many recent movies carry the theme of selflessness just like “The Rocking Horse Winner”. In The Blind Side, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy take in Michael Oher, a football prodigy with awful living conditions. Even though they had an abundance of money and kids of their own, the Tuohy’s took Michael into their home as one of their own. In spite of the dirty looks they would get, the Tuohy’s did not care about their social status; however, they remained selfless and took care of Michael well past his college days.The theme of

D. H. Lawrence also shows conflict between Paul and his mother through a second level of secrecy. He writes the story using the style of story telling or a fantasy style of writing. "The Rocking-Horse Winner" starts off with "there was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck. She married for love, and the love turned to dust" (Lawrence 524). According to Junkins "mother is the poor, unsatisfied fairy princess who yearns for happiness; Paul is the gallant knight on horseback who rides to her rescue" (88). Lawrence uses this form of story telling to show the reader the conflict Paul has when trying to win his mother's love by giving her riches.

The rocking horse is short story in which we could see how our world works, how people think and how people die, this story is about a child called Paul. However, in a certain way, this story is about us too. We all are Paul, living at his house always hearing those whispers asking for money.

In J.D. Lawrence’s short story, The Rocking Horse Winner, a suffocating pressure for more wealth and luck makes its presence known to the child of a cold and detached mother, Hester, who thrives off of the desire for wealth and materialistic commodities that overshadow and, ultimately, sever the fragile ties set between herself and her family.

Paul is obsessed with money, and his belief that money will solve all his problems leads to unrelenting disappointment in his life. He thinks almost constantly about the humiliation of those who have little money and the power wielded by those who possess lots of it. He keenly analyzes his own slightly impoverished existence and hates every detail: cramped houses, grubby bathrooms, simple clothes, women’s inelegant conversations, and men’s worshipful attitude toward their bosses. He believes that money is the one way out of the existence he loathes. But it becomes clear that Paul will never become one of the prosperous men he idealizes because he has no understanding of the relationship between work and money.

Hi, I am Zinal Patel. I am a Saltfleet student going into Grade 10. I totally loved my first year at this school and I hope the next three will be the same! All the courses I have took so far have been interesting and enjoyable. The past year I have put in a lot of hard work to get good marks in my courses so I hope to do the same for this specific course. I understand the expectations of this course so I will commit to at least 1-2 hours of learning each day. Also, I will make my best efforts towards completing this course with a high mark and a great experience.

“The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence is a story about a boy, Paul, craving his mother’s love and attention in life. Throughout the story, Paul’s mother is unloving toward her children and husband and very materialistic, always wanting more and more money to live her expensive lifestyle and show off to those around her. When Paul asks his mother why they are poor, his mother blames Paul’s father, claiming that he was unlucky and when she married him, so she too became unlucky. From that moment on, Paul declared that he was lucky and that he was going to prove it to his mother, hoping for love and affection from her. Paul constantly riding his rocking horse, even as he ages and grows, relates to Professor Foster’s chapter on sex, as Paul

In “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” the author, D.H. Lawrence, reveals the character of Paul through a series of events which result in his death. Upon first glance, Paul is presented as a young boy, unloved by his mother, who tragically dies trying to prove himself lucky to her. However, upon further inspection, Paul is actually a rather complex character. In order to understand why he dies and for what he dies, readers must examine how the narrator depicts Paul’s behavior and demeanor, particularly as seen in his obsession with gambling (in the form of horse races), his interactions with his mother, and his physical descriptions.

In the early decades of the Twentieth Century, short stories like The Rocking-Horse Winner emphasized detachment from reality. D.H. Lawrence, the author of The Rocking-Horse Winner, was known as the “imaginative genius (Allen 1152).” Born in 1885 in Nottinghamshire, Lawrence endures detachment in his youthful years. He suffered poverty, poor health, a drunken father, and conflicted parents, he

In order to examine D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” it is important to consider literary elements such as the themes of appearance vs reality, man vs. human nature, and setting/description.

Everyone wants to know one questions: What is the source of happiness? Authors often use themes of discontentment to contrast the need for contentment. D. H. Lawrence, in his short story “The Rocking Horse Winner”, shows that the financial discontentment of the mother drives her son to pursue a path to gain fortune, but leads to his madness and eventual demise. Similarly, Guy de Maupassant in his short story, “The Necklace”, introduces Mathilde, who despises her social and economic standing to the detriment of both herself and her husband. Finally, in the short story “The Monkey’s Paw, W.W. Jacobs shows how a relatively happy family can be ruined when they wish for more. These authors are trying to illuminate to the reader that discontentment leads to misery.

D.H. lawrence was a writer during the early 1900’s. His writing was very controversial and sometimes his success was even overseen from the controversy. “Lawrence's writings are characterized by spontaneity, vividness, and intensity of feeling. Like many other modernist writers, he sharply criticized industrial society while trying to imagine a new, more authentic basis for modern life”(Winter). One of Lawrence's most known writings is The Rocking-Horse Winner which supplies his audience with three important messages.