D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse-Winner

Goth. A name that has had many meanings over the centuries. Beginning as the name used for Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine that were the adversaries of the ancient Roman empire, to the style of architecture popular in medieval Europe, to the literary subset of Romantic literature, and the children of very concerned parents. D.H. Lawrence while his personal relationship with his mother may concern many a parent, was however extraordinarily influenced by Gothic literary thought evident in "The Rocking Horse-Winner". Gothic literature was once a genre once left untouched, but a resurgence of interest and critical examination in it has been on the rise since the mid-twentieth century. This view is collaborated by Devenda P. Varma M.A. Ph.D in his book The Gothic Flame, "Thus the field of Gothic fiction, long viewed as as uninteresting and barren, has gradually come to be recognized as of distinct artistic and literary importance, and is undergoing a new and more favorable critical survey."(Varma 2). The exact definition of what qualifies as Gothic literature does tend to vary over the centuries as different writers make it their own. Once Gothic literature was purely defined by it's architectural namesake, meaning a foreboding castle of some kind, inducing a fear inherent to man's primitive sensibilities had to be involved in the sequence of events. As Dr. Varma notes "The element of terror is inseparably associated with the Gothic castle, which is an image of power, dark, and impenetrable."(Varma 18). However as the events presented in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" offer no such castles, the additional elements of the genre offered by Dr. Robert A. Harris, an English professor, must come into play. Three of the ten criteria offered by...

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...of a suspenseful atmosphere, Paul's supernatural ability, and the the emotional turmoil of Paul's mother Hester in to a tale about a boy playing the sport of kings, only to find the horror within himself instead.

Works Cited

Varma, Devendra P., Dr. The Gothic Flame; Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England, Its Origins, Efflorescence, Disintegration, and Residuary Influences. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966. Print.

Harris, Robert A. "Elements of the Gothic Novel." Elements of the Gothic Novel. N.p., 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Thornton, Weldon. D.H. Lawrence: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne, 1993. Print.

Kearney, Martin F. Major Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence: A Handbook. New York: Garland Pub., 1998. Print.

Moynahan, Julian. The Deed of Life; the Novels and Tales of D.H. Lawrence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1963. Print.