Greed in The Rocking Horse Winner
People need money to live, and enough to buy the basic goods one needs to survive, but everybody wants more money. More money means an easier life. The more money one has, the more money one wants, as is shown in the story, "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence.
At the beginning of this story the family did not have enough money to support their opulent lifestyle. Mr. Lawrence illustrates their situation like this: "Although they lived in style they felt always an anxiety in the house. There was never enough money." (p. 159) The family scrambles to pay the bills at the end of the month. An unspoken phrase "Whispered" throughout the house, "There must be more money! There must be more money!" (p.160) the whispering said. Even though the family had money, they wanted, they needed, more.
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.
The same day, she had a meeting with the lawyer who was handling the money. Paul's mother demanded the full sum. She received the money and spent it all. The author informs the reader, "There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor... There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury that Paul's mother had been used to." (p. 169) The money ran out and the voices in the house screamed, "Oh-h-h, there must be more money.
In order to sustain her indulgence for the finer conditions, her hunger for moneys grows so much that even the house whispers about it because there is never enough. Hester's anxiety over wealth affects her children to the point they feel as if they can hear the house constantly saying they need money: "And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money!" (Lawerence 411). Children feed off their parent's energy. In the mother's constant state of distress, Paul feels trapped by the overwhelming cries that flow throughout what should be his safe haven. In an attempt to quiet the voices, Paul secretly gives money to Hester to be distributed over a span of 5 years. Unappreciative of this
Are all mothers fit for motherhood? The concept of motherhood is scrutinized in the stories “The Rocking Horse Winner” and “Tears Idle Tears”. In “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence the mother, Hester, unpremeditatedly provokes her son into providing for her through gambling. In the story “Tears Idle Tears” by Elizabeth Bowen, Mrs. Dickinson disregards her son’s emotions and puts more emphasis in her appearance than her son’s wellbeing. Hester and Mrs. Dickinson both were inadequate mothers. Both the mothers were materialistic, pretended to love their offspring, and their dominance hindered their children’s progress in life.
Mama and her family were about to receive a check for $10,000 from the deceased Mr. Younger’s insurance policy. This money seemed like the answer to the family’s’ prayers. Everyone seemed to have big dreams for the money. Mama wanted to buy a house, Walter wanted to invest the money into a liquor store, and Beneatha wanted to use the money for her medical school tuition. Ruth agreed with Mama’s ideal of buying a house and she thought that the house would provide more space and opportunity for her son.
These new hybrid bears are a good way for the polar bears to be around for many years to come. It allows to live long because they have two different genes in them and it also allows them to survive anywhere in the world because their fur is mixed. They have brown fur that allows them to be on land for a long amount of time and they have white fur which allows them to live in the snow and let them stay in freezing water for a long amount of time.
Their extrusive canine teeth are used for their meaty diet. When black bears walk, their entire foot hits the ground with their plantigrade feet, each paw having five short, curved digits, with non retractable claws. The distinctive manner of the black bear is pacing, meaning the hind foot is placed somewhat in front of the track of the forefoot. Its eyes are small and its ears are round and elevated. The color of the Florida black bear’s coat is persistently black. However, the summer molt of outer hair sometimes creates a brownish appearance. Only about 1/3 of them have a white chest blaze.
As a general rule, children love fairy tales. We grow up being read Grimm's or watching Disney remakes of classics. Parents love telling children fairy tales not only because they have an opportunity to spend time with their sons and daughters, but also because fairy tales, like fables, always contain a lesson or moral within them. Although both Kate Chopin's "The Storm," and D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" have some of the qualities of a child's fairy tale, only one of the stories has a moral tone, while the other has a very amoral one.
Giant female pandas become ready to reproduce at the age of 5 years, and can reproduce until about 20 years of age. Giant pandas can only mate once a year for a time frame of three days. Mating season is between March - May. A female panda will be pregnant for 95-160 days. Sadly if the mother gives birth to more than one cub, she will choose one of the newborns and move on without the other. The slow reproductive rate for pandas is the main reason they are endangered. In a mother pandas life she could have up to 6 cubs, but many do not make it. Female pandas can have 5 - 8 cubs in a lifetime. Young pandas can stay with their mothers for up to three years before becoming independent. Baby pandas nurse for 8 - 9 months. What is the lifespan of a
The mother who was receiving the check for her laid husband was against her son Walter’s decision for owning a liquor store. Walter truly showed his desperation for success by saying, “I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…Mama – look at me”. (1.2.222), by him pitching his business plan to his mom shows how desperate a man who has little to nothing to call his own can be. Because his mom has faith in his decision to invest his money she decided to go ahead and let him have it. His risky decision to invest his money in his business lost not only all of the money for himself his mother had given him, but he also lost the money that was supposed to be saved for his sisters college tuition. I was able to relate to this point in the story because I have made the same mistake before with my financial aid money. Although the loss of losing something so dear to you can be hard to overcome mentally, those who recover always come out
When Paul’s boss asked him to deposit money for him, Paul took advantage of this opportunity. Instead of depositing all the money, Paul only deposited the chec...
Since the beginning of time, man has had an issue with greed. Adam and Eve, who had more than enough to eat, just had to have the “forbidden fruit”. According to Merriam-Webster, greed is defined as, “a selfish desire to have more of something (especially money) than needed”. It is very obvious that time after time, throughout history, greed has not only been problematic, but has essentially been the undoing of one society after the next and caused death, chaos and utter ruin, epitomized by the Tolstoy short story “How Much Land Does a Man Need?’ and the Lawrence short story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”.
In ‘Paul’s Case’ Paul has created a fantasy world in which he becomes entranced, even to the point of lying to classmates about the tales of grandeur and close friendships that he had made with the members of the stock company. This fantasy falls apart around him as “the principle went to Paul’s father, and Paul was taken out of school and put to work. The manager at Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in his stead; the doorkeeper at the theater was warned not to admit him to the house” (Cather 8). The fantasy fell apart further when the stories he had told his classmates reached the ears of the women of the stock company, who unlike their lavish descriptions from Paul were actually hardworking women supporting their families. Unable to cope with the reality of working for Denny & Carson, he stole the money he was supposed to deposit in the bank to live the life of luxury in New York. Only a person who felt backed into a corner would attempt something so unsound. After his eight days in paradise, he is again backed into a corner by the reality of his middle class upbringing, and the dwindling time he has before his father reaches New York to find him. The final way out for Paul is his suicide, for which an explanation would be “In the end, he fails to find his security, for it was his grandiose “picture making mechanism” that made his life so deardful.” (Saari). With all the securities of his fantasy life finally gone, his mental instability fully comes to light as he jumps in front of the train to end his
The author shows that money can change a characters behavior. You see this behavioral change in Claire by the way she dresses and acts as she is above everyone. In the beginning
Mrs. Linde, on the other hand, knows what it is like to not have money to spare. She values money, but for an entire different purpose. The looks at it for what it is worth, and how it can help her survive. Her entire life she has had to work hard for anything that she wanted or needed. “Well, anyway,” she responded to Nora’s remark on having stacks of money, “it would be lovely enough to have enough for necessities” (703). To survive, she “had to scrape up living with a little shop and a little teaching and whatever else [she] could find” (704).
...bag of money and put it in the king’s hands…“Take this six thousand dollars, and invest it…any way you want” (222). She has already placed all of her trust in the king even though she has no confirmation that he is in fact her uncle. They are completely unsuspecting of the fact that the duke and the king are attempting to steal their money.
Many people forget about the most important things in life, like family and enjoying life