The Rocking-Horse Winner

The character Paul in D.H. Lawrence’s, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, becomes terribly trapped and sick in his need to be “lucky.” The young boy becomes distraught and determined to become lucky after a conversation that he has with his mother (Paragraph 10). This conversation combined with the “voices” that haunt his house drive Paul to the conclusion that he needs to be lucky and that he is lucky (Par. 5). The voices that support Paul’s concern continually chant “There must be more money!” Paul asserts that the voices can be heard throughout his family’s entire house because of the illusion of money, but the unfortunate lack there of it. Paul’s mother directs negativity and regret towards her husband because she believes that it is his fault their family is not rich. It is the father’s fault because the mother insists that he is not lucky (Par. 20). Paul feels concern for his family and their money needs. This distress leads him to find an answer in his rocking-horse and in gambling on horse-racing. The reader regretfully discovers the toll that Paul’s need to be lucky and his solution of gambling take on him.

Paul’s need to be lucky quickly escalates into an obsession. His obsession is defined by his secret for knowing which horse will win the major horse-races. Paul does not reveal his secret to anyone, not even his gambling partners, Bassett, the family gardener, and his uncle Oscar Cresswell (Par. 60). Paul is able to know which horses will win by furiously rocking on his wooden rocking-horse until he “gets there” and has the winning horse revealed to him (Par. 240). The reader is unaware of how this can be true. One can only assume that it is part of Paul’s obsession that takes over him, his body, and his mind. Paul is emotionally unstable because he believes he must change the tide for his family and provide money for his mother. Paul’s mother does not teach him a good lesson when she responds to his question, “Then what is luck, mother?” by saying, “It’s what causes you to have money. If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money (Par. 15).” The rocking-horse and the voices that speak through the house serve as supporting details for Paul’s behavior. Paul in a sense looses his mind at the end of the story when he dies. The imagination of voices and a rocking-horse that reveals winners are both tricks that Paul’s mind plays on him. They build up as his need to please his mother with his luck and money increases. Finally, Paul is overcome by his erratic mind and can not control himself. He sends his body into an unconscious state where he cries out to his mother, “Do you think I’m lucky, mother? I knew Malabar, didn’t I? Over eighty thousand pounds! I call that lucky, don’t you, mother? Over eighty thousand pounds! I knew, didn’t I know I knew (Par. 235)?” Paul was overcome with his gambling and his want to please which cause him his final collapse.

I felt sympathy for Paul when reading the short story because his initial goal with gambling was merely to help his family. His good intensions are twisted by his mother’s disgust with her husband’s lack of luck and therefore, deficiency of money. Her expensive taste and her absence of true love and connection with her children lead her to corrupt her son (Par. 1). Although I believe she did this unintentionally, it is still undisputable that a child yearns for his or her mother’s love. When a child does not find this love, as in the case of Paul and his mother, the child oftentimes reacts with some attempt to gain the missing love. For Paul, he was misguided into thinking that his mother would love him and respect him more if he became different then his father and could instead provide for his family. The only way Paul knew how was by gambling, an addiction that ran in his family (Par. 185). Paul could not save himself from his desire to be lucky because he believed that it was the key to his mother’s love (737).