The Rocking Horse Winner Essay

The only means by which one could attain complete happiness is to avoid living in constant expectation of it. It’s the expectation that causes our unhappiness and consequent bitterness about life. [Mohammed Naseehu Ali] Expectations aren’t often chosen, yet they’re assigned to each, and every person; whether, they’re from parents, teachers or even friends. All these people want the best for us, but sometimes in the process they can become overbearing and irksome. In D.H Lawrence's tragic short story The Rocking Horse Winner it’s prevalent that the writing is strongly influenced by the writer's outlook on societal issues, and how the writer may be resentful of expectations placed in his own life. Lawrence deliniates about the value of creating your own expectations, and he addresses the issue, of how not to allow others to drown you in their own expectations in an attempt to fulfill their dreams.

This is exactly the dilemma that the protagonist, Paul faces in this story as he is tormented by the constant whispering of the house for their lack of prosperity, and luck. "There must be more money!"(DL.19) This in turn drives Paul into a dark, and twisted mindset in which he’s inevitably on a hunt to find, and restore his family's luck; while doing so he became an all consumed gambler that is frightening in juxtaposition to his once childlike self. “He went off by himself, vaguely, in a childish way, seeking for the clue to 'luck'. Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck. He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it.”