In one of his last short stories, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, D. H. Lawrence tells a story about the life of a young boy, Paul, who has the ability to name the winner of any horse race by simply riding on his toy rocking horse. The short story is vaguely familiar to that of a Fairy Tale. Lawrence's simple style, coupled with the supernatural suggests as much. However, this fable is not an average fairy tale. The text utilizes two reoccurring motifs: the eyes and hardness of the heart, to indicate a symbolic connection between Paul and his mother. The elements of irony and the ill-fated characters produces a deeply sardonic fairy tale on .
Her lifestyle is what can be described as genteel poverty. She is a woman who is said to have “started with all the advantages” (750), but she threw away all of her prospects when she married her husband. However, she is unable to let that lifestyle go and their family is left with a constant shortage of money. Only after Paul wins money for her is she able to have “the luxury [she] had been used to” (Lawrence, 757). His mother is said to have married for love, but in the time since then it has “turned to dust”. She also has three children, but she does not love them either. She knows that her heart has a “hard little place that could not feel love...” (Lawrence, 750). In order to cover up this flaw she pretends as though she loves her children so the other parents within her social circle believe that she is a great mother. This artificial love manifests itself in the form of expensive gifts, servants, and a nurse (or nanny). However, in the privacy of their own home she is cold and distant from her children, and they know of her stone heart. Despite being briefly mentioned, the knowledge of t...
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...tunate and wealthy through some type of hardship or quest. “The Rocking-Horse Winner” begins in much of the same way. The family is stricken by debt and the mother has no place in her heart for love. Paul takes it upon himself to go on the quest for luck, and thereby attempting to bring about her love. The supernatural elements, much like Paul's ability to predict a winning horse, is very much like the magic that would be seen in a fairy tale. However, the text plays with these expectations in unexpected ways. On one hand the text does away with the rags-to-riches storyline, a complete reversal of the expected. Sure, his mother gets the money that she has always wanted, but at what price? The life of her only son. Paul gets to tell her, “I am lucky!” (Lawrence 760), but by that point, he dies. The text is a cruel twist on the phrase “Lucky in money, unlucky in love”.
Paul, the child, knew that his family wanted money, and he knew that he was lucky, betting on the horses. Paul became partners with the gardener. He picked the horse, and the gardener placed the bet. Paul had started out with five shillings but his winnings kept adding up. When he had made 10,000 pounds he decided to give his mother 1000 pounds a year for five years. He wanted his winnings to be a secret so a lawyer handled the money. Paul saw the envelope from the lawyer and asked his mother if she had received anything good in the mail. She said "Quite moderately nice" (p. 168) in a cold voice. She liked getting the money, but she wasn't happy. She wanted more.
Dozens of horses are charging through the fair grounds, each hoof vibrating the ground, which causes chaos to erupt. Some horses are white as for a person of royalty, and others a mysterious brown. Through all this chaos, Rosa Bonheur paints what is before her. Her painting is called The Horse Fair. The painting itself is 8 feet tall by 16 feet wide.1 The Horse Fair is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.1 Bonheur uses a panoramic view in her painting.2 The Horse Fair was inspired by the horse market that Rosa Bonheur use to visit on Boulevard De l’Ho ̂pital.1 The building in the upper far left of the painting is called Asylum on Salpetriere, which is located in Paris.3 The people on the hill in the upper right corner of the painting are potential customers evaluating the horses to see which horse to purchase.1 Through this painting, Bonheur shows the power and magnificence of the horses as the owners of these horses are using all of their strength to control them.3 Bonheur included a self portrait of herself on a horse in her painting, which can be located next to the black and white horses that are rearing up.4 The audience can notice the shadows that are coming off each of the horses. The shadows are through the use of chiaroscuro. The shadows make the horses look more real, as if they are actually moving through the fair ground. The author will prove Bonheur’s use of naturalism in her painting The Horse Fair by analyzing Bonheur in terms of historical context, anatomical accuracy, and structural elements.
Luck and love have always been two very important and contradicting themes in many stories. Children and adults would go above and beyond to receive their parent’s affection and approval even to the point of death and isolation. At times this creates a dysfunctional aspect in the family’s lives. “A Rose for Emily” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” have very similar symbol meanings and themes explaining the dysfunctional family, love and luck.
When reading “The Rocking Horse Winner,” you quickly notice the introduction sets a tone carried throughout the story. Sadly, you quickly notice that the tone of this story is rather depressing. Both of these stories share an interesting similarity; the generational curse. Paul claims that God had told him he was in fact lucky. Coisendenlly even though Paul makes this statement he continues to gamble on horses to make money. Gambling is a true sin, something Paul seems to ignore. The house in the story whispers throughout the day, this is the author’s means of portraying personification. Paul continues to rid...
The first analysis of the story is irony. According Carolyn Sharp “Irony in ancient Israelite literature serves as a many-edged tool for the destabilization of the overconfident subject, the problematizing of nationalistic rhetoric, and the subversion of ancient believers’ misunderstandings of tradition” (Sharp). Irony is when a situation that is abnormal because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what one expected. The first act of Irony is the plot of the story itself. The story uses an abundant amount of cheerful imagery in the beginning which makes the audience think that it is going to be a joyful story about winning a regular lottery. But in reality it is not an ecstatic story, only a horrific play about a death lottery. Another act of irony is when Tessie humerly hurries her husband up to the front to select the paper of of the lottery to get people to laugh and to lighten the mood. This is ironic because when she is the one selected to get stoned she claims that Bill did not have enough time to pick the slip he wanted when she was the one egging him to hurry up. The last example of irony is with Mrs. Delac...
In D.H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner, Paul is searching for an identity and love. Paul’s mother was incapable of love; “when her children were present, she always felt the centre of her heart go hard.” Paul’s mother desires materialistic possessions and excludes priceless items such as love. Paul’s mother and father were incapable of maintaining the social position they had to uphold with the amount of money they made. The house was always high strung and believed that there was always a need for more money. The house became haunted by the unspoken phrase, “There must be more money!” Paul was outraged when he confronted his mother about the family’s lack of wealth, and she rejected his statement that he is lucky. After this scene, Paul was easily influenced that he would be able to reach this place of luck and finally satisfy his mother. Her desires for more money and luck are never satisfied, and as a result, lead to tragic consequences when love and money are confused in Paul’s mind. Paul’s heartbreaking attempt to win his mother’s love inevitably leads to his own death.
The way jealousy is portrayed throughout this story is through greed as the characters all agree, “Although they lived in style, they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money” (Lawrence 1223). As a whole, the lack of money causes the entire family to be jealous of other families and ultimately cause unexpected actions. For instance, when Oscar discovers his nephew always gambles and wins on horse races, he is skeptical of the idea of gambling at first, but eventually the narrator states, “He became a partner. And when the Leger was coming on, Paul was sure about Lively Spark, which was quite an inconsiderable horse…Paul had made ten thousand…Even Oscar Cresswell had cleared two thousand” (1230). This explains how Oscar’s covetousness for money causes his mindset to change for not punishing his nephew for deliberately sneaking out to gamble, continues to let him do so, and begins to participate in this outrageous activity himself. This imparts readers that being desirous can cause irresponsibly, but more importantly, cause a mental mindset to change. In the same way, Paul is resentful of the absence of money in the family, riding his magic rocking horse for as long as humanly possible. One day, he is trying to discern the next winner to the race after losing when his mom sees him yelling, “’It’s
Louise Erdrich’s short story “American horse” is a literary piece written by an author whose works emphasize the American experience for a multitude of different people from a plethora of various ethnic backgrounds. While Erdrich utilizes a full arsenal of literary elements to better convey this particular story to the reader, perhaps the two most prominent are theme and point of view. At first glance this story seems to portray the struggle of a mother who has her son ripped from her arms by government authorities; however, if the reader simply steps back to analyze the larger picture, the theme becomes clear. It is important to understand the backgrounds of both the protagonist and antagonists when analyzing theme of this short story. Albetrine, who is the short story’s protagonist, is a Native American woman who characterizes her son Buddy as “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. The antagonist, are westerners who work on behalf of the United States Government. Given this dynamic, the stage is set for a clash between the two forces. The struggle between these two can be viewed as a microcosm for what has occurred throughout history between Native Americans and Caucasians. With all this in mind, the reader can see that the theme of this piece is the battle of Native Americans to maintain their culture and way of life as their homeland is invaded by Caucasians. In addition to the theme, Erdrich’s usage of the third person limited point of view helps the reader understand the short story from several different perspectives while allowing the story to maintain the ambiguity and mysteriousness that was felt by many Natives Americans as they endured similar struggles. These two literary elements help set an underlying atmos...
In conclusion, "The Rocking-Horse Winner," written by D. H. Lawrence is a story about the family and the feelings of shame that we acquire from our parents that could have disastrous consequences for the whole family. We saw the effects of a mother's obsession with money, a son's plan to please his mother, and the prices the family paid for their obsession with money.
The point of view of tradition in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is the normal once of year gathering on the townspeople. This gathering is held in order to pick, via a lottery drawing, to decide who in the town is going to be stoned to death. “The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people the lottery took two days and had started on June 26th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, and the whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in morning and still be through in time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.” (Kennedy & Gioia, 2013, pp. 251). The fact that the people gather and discuss everyday issue prior to the start of the lottery all point to the blind tradition of selecting some to be stoned to death.
actually consists of in this short story. At the onset of the story, Jackson uses the peaceful setting to confuse the reader as to the violent event that occurs. She continues to obscure what is actually going on in each character’s mind by writing in the third person with an objective view. The rising action that develops throughout the story continues to confuse the reader until which point the shocking ending is revealed. The unexpected harsh stoning of the winner in this short story is not what one expects when they begin to read “The Lottery”.
Both D. H. Lawrence and Graham Greene are very exceptional writers of the twentieth century. However, only one text stood out the best for me. In D. H. Lawrence’s text The Rocking-Horse Winner, there is a structure to the story. There is most definitely a big separation between upper-class and lower-class people. Throughout the text there are great examples of how one might try to fit in with the upper-class, literally trying everything they can, even if it could possible hurt them in the end. This story, The Rocking-Horse Winner by Lawrence had more of a surprise to me then A Shocking Accident by Greene. The reason for this is because not only could I relate to this story, but in a way I feel as if I could be Paul; however, the reason why I choice this story that surprised me was the very ending with the mothers son there dead, where he tried to ride his rocking-horse to find a winner.
the center of her heart go hard" (254). She never really gives her children a chance because she is more concerned with herself and she always feels negativity towards them. Her obsession with money and the status it would provide for her completely takes control of her emotions hindering her ability to create a stable and healthy relationship between her and Paul. Her uncontrollable cravings for money create an "anxiety in the house" and a constant whi...
Within the story entitled The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence, the audience is divulged into the sordid family life of a adolescent boy named Paul, where there are three obvious morals told through the story’s style and symbolism. Also present within The Rocking Horse Winner are elements of supernaturalism and cold harsh reality.
The Rocking-Horse Winner is a tragic story that demonstrates how materialism is very destructive in people’s lives. D.H. Lawrence uses one of the main characters, Hester, to symbolize how greed heavily affects the idea of materialism. Hester’s need for money develops the idea that happiness and love is destroyed by the need for money. Lawrence uses money in her short story to convey the idea of how neglect from a mother destroys an innocent, young child such as Paul. Lawrence’s symbolism reveals that children like Paul need love and compassion from their elders. Hester, Paul’s rocking horse and the whispering of the house represent greed, selfishness, and love. They also reveal the character’s real feelings and thoughts of neglect, detachment, greed and selfishness.