Twisted Moral Values in D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner

Gandhi once said, “Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” “The Rocking Horse Winner” written by D.H. Lawrence is a perfect example of how a mindset that is filled with twisted moral values will lead to a bad destiny. Lawrence created many instances where actions that are based off of anxiety, greed, and selfishness, ultimately lead a family to having a terrible destiny.
Anxiety is not only felt, but it is also heard in this household. The house that they family live in and the all of the expensive items in it are a prime example of anxiety. Hester and the father, whose name is never given, both do not have high paying jobs to support the spending that they do. Hester and the father both spend tons of money to fit into the status quo of their neighborhood, even though they know they cannot afford it. Their expensive taste leads to the house whispering a phrase through out the whole story, “There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time though nobody said it out loud (Lawrence 101). “ All of the children could hear the whisper but none of them would speak about it to each other. The voices of the house created a lot of anxiety for Paul especially. The reader is not given too much information about the father; he is absent for duration of the story. Snodgrass analyzes how the father’s absence leaves a huge gap in the family that needs to be filled. He believes that the Paul was devoted to repl...

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...s of a child. Therefore, people need to realize that when actions are justified based on greediness, selfishness, and anxiety it will only lead to a bad destiny.

Works Cited

Grant, Dustan. "Analysis of The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence." Prezi.com. 2 Mar 2013. 21 Feb 2014. http://prezi.com /

Lawrence, D.H. "The Rocking Horse Winner." Literature. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 100-10.

"Overview: 'The Rocking-Horse Winner'." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Piedmont, Elisabeth. "An overview of 'The Rocking-Horse Winner,'." Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Snodgrass, W. D. "A Rocking-Horse: The Symbol, the Pattern, the Way to Live." The Hudson Review 11.2 (1958): 191-200. JSTOR. Web. 23 Feb. 2014.