Whilst reading the short story, “The Rocking Horse Winner” I used various reading strategies. Prior to reading the story the use of a table was used to structure my knowledge and understanding. Conjuring my analysis of what the purpose, and basis of this text may be. Secondly, upon reading this contents I was able to visualize the characters, and their relationships with one another, as well as the overall atmosphere within the story. However, whilst reading many questions came to light, pondering as to why the mother is weary of things such as her son master paul’s amount of concern for the horse races, and why she seems so dreary towards life, and what causes her to show a lack of empathy towards her children. Lastly, post reading, I was …show more content…
For example, the family is deemed to be of poor upbringing and the lack of money has caused utter distress between all members of the family. Causing quite the dreary spell over the home of the young master, Paul and his loving mother Hester. To resolve this conflict Master Paul sets out on a journey on his old stead. He rode, and rode his old rocking horse into the night in pursuit of luck. The boy remembered quite well that luck was far more valuable than wealth. For infact, with luck wealth would be never ending and the struggle of poverty would be unseen rather than damning. Though by the end of this story the boy who had set out on a mission to save his mother from a life of misfortune, the boy passed away after one of his final rides. With that great sacrifice Paul had won his family more than enough money to live a life of luck and honor, in his honour. This main conflict of money in the family assists in developing the theme, that love triumphs the thirst for material possessions by showing a son who sacrifices his life in attempt to quench the thirst of his family 's …show more content…
A time in the 1900’s to be exact. After careful research on a few of the names of the horses such as, Sansovina which was one of the English Triple Crown Racing Winners in the 1900’s England. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Triple_Crown_race_winners) Furter more, the 1900’s was at time of the Great Depression. Following a wall street crash the markets had dropped exponentially and the affects of said crash were damning to families all over the world. Overall, the setting of the story takes place in 1900’s England during the Great Depression, which explains flawlessly the moaning and constant demand for money, and
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.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, is an incredulous story with no happy ending, where no one attains what they were attempting to achieve in the end. The story begins with a flat tone, but eventually grows to be suspenseful .[It] is set in a world of comparative [regularity], which is not to say it is any less dominated by evil ,any more controlled by rationality , logic or a divine purpose, than that of its predecessors.”(McCarthy) John and Rawlins are seventeen year olds, who have left their hometown to seek a better life,but what John doesn't know is that things will only turn for the worse. Both individuals come across a boy named Blevins ,who will be a very important character throughout the novel. As the story progresses, John will be faced with many poisonous encounters . John will face evil and evil will face him in the wake of the resurfacing of the heinous crimes that Blevins has committed, which leads them to being arrested and tortured atrociously. From having everything he will go to having nothing. Nothing.. This was
In Willa Cather's story "Paul's Case", the character Paul embodies how the desire of materialism can affect the mind and soul of human being. Paul, a very self-oriented and introverted boy designs and calculates his every move to prevent people from discovering the real him. Despising his life at Cordelia Street, Paul throws himself into the plot of obtaining money, wealth, and power. This ruins Paul?s life and distracts him from truly enjoying his youth and independence. The story presents that even riches, wealth, power cannot buy one?s happiness or sanity.
The voices of Indigenous children are unheard and purposely ignored. This is portrayed through the literature of Birdie by Tracey Lindberg and Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese. Despite receiving apologies from Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau, the government system to protect First Nations families appears to have detrimental effects on the native children. This is proven by young children turning to drugs in order to satisfy their growing pain, by family members who abuse their kids because of alcohol addictions, and the increasing discriminatory behaviour by surrounding communities.
Once he learns that luck brings money, the very component his mother yearns for, he goes on a mission with his trusty steed. He becomes violent hitting his wooden rocking horse with a whip and commands it, "'Now, take me to where there is luck! Now take me!'" (Lawerence 412). His obsession causes him to act out of character because the one items he cherishes has to endure the displaced frustration he has toward Hester. This shows how much he wants his mother to acknowledge his existence in her life. His goal in finding luck is to also find money in anticipation that Hester's search will cease forcing all of her attention on him. Paul not only loses his temperament but his childhood as well. He becomes preoccupied with gambling when it should be superheroes and sports. He rocks on his horse compulsively until he falls ill screaming out the winning horse's name: "'Malabar! It's Malabar!'" (Lawerence 412). As his prediction comes true, Hester collects the prize money, and Paul believes he has obtained the unobtainable. He hunts for her acceptance one last time asking, "'Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don't you mother?'" (Lawerence 422). Hester replies, "'No, you never did'" (422), and he dies later that night without ever knowing his worth. She is unable to give him his dying wish of her
Upon reading more closely, the story is revealed to present a tragic journey of a man who has lost his sanity but seeks solace in the materialistic comforts of his old life. The story succeeds in making a number of statements about human nature: that wealth is the most powerful measure of social status and anyone without it will face ostracization; that denial of one 's mistakes and unfortunate circumstances only leads to more pain; that even the most optimistic people can hold dark secrets and emotional turmoil inside them. All of these themes compel the reader to ponder their real-life implications long after the story is
Like any other novel or short story, a lot can be learned about the actual story by understanding the historical content embedded in the piece. Louise Erdrich draws from her her imagination, life experiences, and social climate to piece together American Horse into a fictitious short story that somehow manages to give the reader a very real sense of the socioeconomic divide between the two groups portrayed in the story.
The story "The Rocking-Horse Winner" written by D. H. Lawrence tells of a young boy named Paul who tries to win his mother's affection by giving her that which she seems to want more than anything else, MONEY. The house in which the family lives is haunted by a voice that speaks the phrase, "There must be more money!" Everyone in the house can hear the voice but nobody ever acknowledges it. Paul and the family gardener, Bassett, begin to talk about horse races one day and they soon begin to bet on them. Paul's uncle, Oscar, learns of this and becomes a partner with Paul and Bassett. They are quite successful in their endeavor, because Paul is the one who chooses the horses that they bet on. They always seem to win. He goes about finding the winner by riding his rocking horse until the name of the winning horse becomes clear in his head. This method has never the team. Paul decides to give his mother, Hester, 5,000 pounds of his winnings, which is to be paid out one thousand pounds at a time on her birthday for the next five years. While Paul was trying to figure out the winner of the Derby, his mother went to check on him because she had heard a strange noise coming from his room. She opened the door and saw Paul rocking his horse like a madman. Paul screamed, "It's Malabar! It's Malabar!" and then collapsed onto the floor. Paul died a few nights later. This is obviously a story about family and the feelings of shame that we acquire from our parents that could have disastrous consequences for the whole family as was the case with Paul's. We will look at Paul's mother's obsession with money, Paul's plan to please his mother, and the price the family paid for wanting more money.
D.H. Lawrence’s writings often mirror elements of his own life, though they contain decidedly fictitious components. The characters in Lawrence’s The Rocking- Horse Winner closely resemble his own family. Like Paul, Lawrence was seeking a way out of the misfortune of pre-war London living. Unlike Lawrence, Paul is already well-to-do. Paul’s search consists of a yearning for affection and acceptance. In The Rocking-Horse Winner a young boy finds a certain calling within himself that serves to vastly improve the standing of his entire family. However, Paul’s supernatural ability to choose the winners of horse races is but a cursory assessment of the story’s secrets. Digging deeper, the reader becomes aware of a darker meaning to Paul’s wild rides. There are two things are revealed throughout Paul’s character development; first, that he is seeking his mother’s affection. Secondly, in doing so, there is an apparent autoeroticism linked to his seemingly innocent rocking-horse.
Hester lives a life that most people cannot afford. The irony is that she cannot afford her lavish lifestyle. She thinks that her children are forcefully placed on her rather than having the choice to have them. Hester feels that her husband wanted to have the children more than she wanted them. This is an expression of her love for money, which is greater than her love for her children. The children can tell that Hester does not love them, since she lacks the will to show them their much needed attention. Although Hester tries to put on an act as if she does adore her children in front of company that she wishes to impress. The two girls and one son, Paul, realize her want for money by the house’s occasional moan saying, “There must be more money” (Lawrence 525). The phrase is emphasized throughout the story to show that the parents have the constant need and want for money to support the kids. Even though the phrase is not heard personally from anyone, it is believed that the parents are indeed the ones saying this. The idea is that the parents are carrying a conversation that is echoed into the children’s rooms through the vents. Her children do not understand why these things, such as money and luck, are so important to their parents. That is where the differentiation between luck and
In the short story “The Rocking Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence there is a particular character that had an odd familiarity. The character’s name is Paul; a young boy who is been lead to believe that his mother is not content with the quality of life they lead. Paul sees this as a challenge to make their lives better by winning money at the horse races. In the end, he loses his life trying to make his mother happy. Like Paul, I too have gone to great lengths to make my mother happy.
The second obvious moral to The Rocking Horse Winner is that often one does not realize what they have and how they we feel about it until it is gone. Early on within the story we learned that Paul’s mother had attractive, bonny children. Yet, “when her children were present she always felt the center of heart go hard”. She knew “that there was a place in the center of her heart where she could not feel love for anybody, not even her children”. Later on in the story, the mother goes on to show her emotions and love when she has “seizures of uneasiness” about Paul and finds him fiercely riding his rocking horse into unconsciousness and finally plumaging to his death. When she is presented with losing her child, she realizes what she had, a little too late. (Lawrence p.980, 988)
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.
Hester had expensive tastes and she insisted in keeping up the latest style. The “expensive and splendid toys” that filled the nursery were more than the parents modest income could afford. Paul asked for an explanation of luck. Hester responded by saying “it’s what causes you to have money”, quickly making a connection between luck and wealth. And while she discovered she had a knack for sketching “furs and dress materials” she adored, making hundreds of pounds per year did not appease her elegant tastes, for it still wasn’t enough to keep up her extravagant lifestyle. When Hester found that she had mysteriously acquired five thousand pounds, she quickly asked for the whole sum at once. This money was not used to pay off the debts the household so sorely needed; it was used to purchase more cozy and unneeded items. The “sprays of mimosa and almond blossom” emanated from the home and was more pungent than before. Hester felt that her financial state couldn’t afford to buy a car but ironically she purchases tutors for Paul and expensive items for their home.
Have you ever believed in a supernatural power or something that gives the ability to have an edge over others? In D.H Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner, there is a young boy named Paul that has the ability to be able to see the future somewhat and win bets for a rather sad reason. All the boy wants is for his mother to believe that he is lucky and for her show him love and affection. Sadly, Paul works very hard to attempt to prove to his mother that he is indeed lucky, and to prove to her that their family is not cursed with bad luck. Then sadly, the mother does not give Paul the appreciation he wants until it is far too late and her son dies of exhaustion, all just for his mother to see that he is lucky so she would show him affection. Three messages portrayed in this story are, family, wealth, and luck.