The Rocking Horse Winner

FONTS

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” By D.H. Lawrence

Presented by: Lee Longino, Matthew Nunez, Pearson Feagans, and Trey Willis

Summary

Criticism

History of the Short Story

W.S. Marks believes that writings by Sigmund Freud provide insight into “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, and he believes that Lawrence has made selective use of Freud’s work in constructing his short stories. In his criticism, Marks states that “Paul’s libido is precisely objectified in the rocking horse” (164) and relates Paul to the “Oedipal child [that] appears as the miniature hero of a fantasy situation called the ‘family romance’, a mythic drama in which the stock events of knight errantry are used symbolically to disguise the child’s suppressed longing to woo his mother and replace her husband” (165). Marks makes his position clear when he states “Paul would be specifically indulging in the ‘rescue fantasy’, in which the child imagines he is saving a princess (his mother) from some terrible danger (in Paul’s case, financial insecurity)” (165).

• The short story emerged from early storytelling traditions passed on by mouth in the 17th century.
• Short stories manipulate characteristics such as plot, literary technique and resonance to create a succinct story that exhibits a moral or specific point to be made on a topic.
• There are two kinds of short stories: fables, which exhibit an overt moral, and anecdotes, which express a particular point.
• First well known short stories are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
• Oral narratives used mnemonics to aid memorization and to retain story

“The Rocking Horse Winner” begins by explaining the situation of a woman, how she married for love, had children, and ran into bad luck, eventually losing the love she felt for her husband and children. She explains to her curious son Paul, the main character, that it is better to be lucky than rich. Hearing this, Paul begins to explore ways to find luck for his family, discovering a talent for knowing the winner of horse races and betting on them, just from riding his rocking horse. As his uncle and their gardener get into helping Paul, the amount of money Paul wins increases without bound for a long period. As he wins more money, his uncle gives the winnings to the family. Eventually, Paul rides his rocking horse one last time in another effort to predict who the winner will be, only to die after finding out that he had won 80,000 pounds on that, his last bet.

Characters

Paul: Protagonist. A young boy who notices that his mother doesn’t love him and his sisters, even though she claims “adores” them. When he receives a rocking horse for Christmas, he rides it often and comes to find it is the solution to his mothers’ unluckiness, and that he can predict what horse is going to win the next big horse race.

Hester: Antagonist. Paul's mother. She becomes “dissatisfied with her marriage” when she finds that her husband is not lucky and doesn't make enough money to support her elegant lifestyle. After telling Paul about her unluckiness, Paul and his siblings (including the dogs) begin to here the house whisper “there must be more money”.

Bassett: The family gardener and friend. He gets Paul into horse racing, and later becomes “betting partners”.

Oscar Creswell: Paul's uncle and his mother's brother. Provided the money that Paul used to make his first win at the horse race. Signed the lawyer papers in order for Paul's mother to receive “one thousand pounds at a time, on the mother's birthday, for the next five years”. Oscar becomes partners with Paul and Bassett.

Themes

About D.H. Lawrence

Obsession/Faulty Sense of Values:

The family's lifestyle exceeds its income and unspoken anxiety about money permeates the household. Lust for material objects, stylish living, and money obsesses Paul's mother so much that she neglects Paul and his sisters. Paul then "inherits" her obsession. But he wants to win money for his mother, not for himself, in order to prove that he has the luck that his father lacks. Having luck and money will make him lovable to his mother, he apparently believes, and silence the house voices. Rather than eliminating the voices, Paul’s mania ultimately kills him, which displays that love is irreplaceable with wealth and neglect.

Greed: Paul is concerned about money in order to get his mothers love.

• Known best for his novels, but wrote almost 800 poems
• After WWI, Lawrence went into voluntary exile and escaped Britain in November 1919. He traveled for the rest of his life all around the world with his wife.
• He died in 1930 at the age of 44 in France from Tuberculosis
• His works are his reflection on the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. He was criticized and wronged for his opinions
• Terry Eagleton, a prominent British literary critic, believes that Lawrence was on the radical right wing and would have become a strong believer in fascism

Source:

Marks III, W. S. "The Psychology of the Uncanny in Lawrence's the Rocking-Horse Winner." Modern Fiction Studies 11.4 (Winter 1965): 381-392. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Drew Kalasky. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995. Short Story Criticism Online. Web. 15 Sept. 2014.