The Rocking-horse winner

The Rocking-Horse Winner Summary 1.We are introduced to a woman who is beautiful and began life with wonderful advantages and then married for love. This, apparently, was her mistake for things did not go the way they were supposed to. She resented her children although she pretended that this tiny spot in her heart did not harden when they came into the room. Although neighbors and friends lauded her motherhood, the mother and her children knew she was a sham. The mother, the father, the two girls and the boy lived together in a very nice neighborhood with a kind of style that floated somewhat above their actual means. The father had a job, but it depended on sales and his sales never materialized. Therefore, their social position like their assets floated above their ability to pay for them and..... 2. The story describes a young middle-class Englishwoman who "had no luck." Though outwardly successful, she is haunted by a sense of failure; the family's lifestyle exceeds its income, and unspoken anxiety about money permeates the household. Her children, a son Paul and his two sisters, sense this anxiety. The rocking horse magically gives Paul advance knowledge of the winners of important races such as Ascot. Paul's uncle, Oscar Cresswell, and Bassett, the gardener, both place large bets on the horses Paul names. After further winning, Paul and Oscar arrange to give the mother a gift of five thousand pounds, but the gift only lets her spend more. Disappointed, Paul tries harder than ever to be lucky, and we learn that his secret is to ride his rocking-horse until he "knows." As the Derby approaches, Paul is determined to learn the winner. Paul faints and remains ill through the day of the Derby. Informed by Cresswell, Bassett has placed Paul's bet on Malabar, at fourteen to one. When he is informed by Bassett that he now has 80,000 pounds, Paul says to his mother: "I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure – oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!" "No, you never did," said his mother. But the boy died in the night and his mother hears her brother say, ―My God, Hester, you‘re eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he‘s best gone out of a life where he ride s his rocking horse to find a winner‖ Characters Bassett Bassett is the family gardener who helps Paul place bets on horses. He used to work around horses and racing and he talks about racing all the time, so it seems reasonable that Paul would seek his advice. He takes the boy seriously and follows all the boy's instructions in placing the bets. He also keeps Paul's money safely hidden away, at least until Uncle Oscar gets involved. He is the only adult who treats Paul with a serious respect. It is Bassett's seriousness that convinces Uncle Oscar that Paul's gift for picking winners is real. He is trustworthy and kind, but he is also a servant, so once Uncle Oscar takes over, he respectfully withdraws from the action. Themes In "The Rocking-Horse Winner," a young boy, Paul, perceives that there is never enough money in his family, he sets out to find a way to get money through luck. He discovers that if he rides his rocking-horse fast enough, he will somehow "know" the name of the winning horse in the next race. He begins to make money and secretly funnel this money to his mother, but the desire for more money only grows more intense instead of going away. He finally rides his rocking-horse so furiously in order to discover the winner of the Derby that he falls into illness and dies, just as the winning horse earns his family an enormous fortune. Plot of The Rocking-Horse Winner ―The Rocking-Horse Wi nner‖ is the story of a boy‘ s gift for picking the winners in horse races. An omniscient narrator relates the tale of a boy whose family is always short of money. His mother is incapable of showing love and is obsessed with the status that material wealth can provide. Her son is acutely aware of his mother‘s desire for 1 money, and he is motivated to take action. He wants to help her, but he also wants to silence the voice that haunts him, the voice of the house itself whispering, ―There must be more money! There must be more money!‖ Paul questions his mother about the family‘s circumstances. When he asks her why they do not have a car and why they are the ―poor members of the family,‖ she responds ―it‘s because your father has no luck.‖ Dissatisfied with her answer, the boy presses her for an explanation of what makes one person lucky and another unlucky. Finally, he declares that he knows himself to be lucky because God told him so. With the help of Basset the gardener and his mother‘s brother Oscar, Paul se ts out to prove his brazen assertion true by picking the winners in horse races. While riding on his rocking horse, Paul envisions the winners. Paul proves to be unnaturally talented at picking the winners of the races, and before too long he has saved a considerable sum of money. When his uncle asks him what he plans to do with the money he reveals that he wants to give it to his mother. He hopes that his contribution will make her happy and make the house stop whispering. Because Paul wants to keep his success at betting a secret, Paul arranges through his uncle to give his mother a anonymous gift of a thousand pounds each year for five years. His gift does not have the intended effect, however. Instead of being delighted when she opens the envelope on her birthday, Paul‘s mother is indifferent, ―her voice cold and absent.‖ Desperate to please her, the boy agrees to let his mother have the whole five thousand at once. Instead of quieting the voices in house, Paul‘s generous gift causes the voices to go ―mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening.‖ Although his mother finally can afford some of the fine things she has been craving, like fresh flowers and private school for Paul, the voices just ―trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy.‖ The more Paul g ives, the more his mother and the voices in the house demand. Though his uncle tries to calm him, Paul becomes obsessed with picking the winner of the upcoming Derby, ―his blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness‖ as he rides his rocking horse. The mother feels uncharacteristically sympathetic toward her son and urges him to join the family at seaside, but Paul insists on staying until after the Derby. The reason that Paul needs to stay in the house until the Derby is his secret, his childhood rocking horse. The secret that he has never revealed to Basset or Uncle Oscar is that he is able to ride the rocking horse, which he has long since outgrown, until the wooden horse reveals to him the name of the winner in the next race. With so much riding on the Derby and the house whispering more insistently than ever, Paul knows he must be prepared for the ride of his young life. In fact, Paul is so anxious that even his mother feels the tension and suffers ―sudden strange seizures of anxiety about him.‖ Nevertheless, she decides to attend a big party two nights before the Derby, leaving Paul at home. Throughout the evening the mother is distracted by worry about her son's well-being. When she and her husband come home around one o'clock, she rushes immediately to Paul's room. Standing outside his door, the mother is frozen in her tracks by a ―strange, heavy, and yet not loud noise‖ coming from inside the room. When she finally gathers the courage to enter the room she sees her son "in his green pajamas, madly urging on the rocking-horse." She has arrived just in time to here him cry out '"It‘s Malabar!‘ . . . in a powerful, strange voice." Then, "his eyes blazed at her for one strange and senseless second" and he crashes to the floor unconscious. Neither the mother nor the father understand the significance of the word, but Uncle Oscar knows that it is one of the horses racing in the Derby. Oscar, ―in spite of himself,‖ places a bet on Malabar and passes on the tip to Basset. By the third day, the day of the Derby, the boy has still not regained consciousness and his condition appears to be worsening. Desperate for anything that might help her son, the mother allows Basset a short visit with Paul. Paul does regain consciousness, but just long enough to learn that Malabar had been the winner and that he has made over 80 thousand pounds (equivalent to 3 million pounds or 6 million U.S. dollars now) for his mother. He said to his mother: "I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure – oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!" "No, you never did," said his mother. But the boy died in the night.His mother still does not acknowledge that her son had been lucky or that she truly loves him. At the moment of Paul‘s death, Oscar chides his sister: ―My God, Hester, you‘re eighty-odd thousand pounds the to good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad.‖ Characters the mother -- a cold, unfeeling, grasping, materialistic woman disguised in the cover of a loving mother and wife; the husband -- more or less a non-entity, who has an office ?somewhere‘, and who went to Eton. Young Paul -- innocent, sensitive, intelligent, being prepared to go to Eton as well, an upper class preparatory school in England. This is a family which is upwardly grasping, will never become members of the aristocracy, but Paul is being groomed to climb the next rung of the social ladder. English gardener -- he is passive, loyal, a little bit afraid of his superiors, and somewhat greedy to the extent he participates in Paul‘s winnings at the track. Uncle Oscar -- a bit of what the British call a ?bounder‘, an unscrupulous man who takes advantage of his nephew‘s supernatural talents to his own advantage, without considering for a moment the pressures such activity may place upon the young boy. Bassett Bassett is the family gardener who helps Paul place bets on horses. He used to work around horses and racing and he talks about racing all the time, so it seems reasonable that Paul would seek his advice. He takes the boy seriously and follows all the boy‘s instructions in placing the bets. He also keeps Paul‘s money safely hidden away, at least until Uncle Oscar gets involved. He is the only adult who treats Paul with a serious respect. It is Bassett‘s serio usness that convinces Uncle Oscar that Paul‘s gift for picking winners is real. He is trustworthy and kind, but he is also a servant, so once Uncle Oscar takes over, he respectfully withdraws from the action. Oscar Cresswell Oscar Cresswell is Paul‘s uncle and Hester‘s brother. He is in a better financial position than Hester, since he owns his own car and a place in Hampshire. This is because he inherited the entire family fortune, leaving Hester to depend on her husband for support. It is Uncle Oscar who stumbles upon Paul‘s secret of earning money through gambling, but he does not at first believe in Paul‘s gift. He thinks that Paul is not serious and treats the boy as if he were merely playing a game. After Oscar realizes that Paul‘s tips are dependable, he encourages the gambling. Oscar arranges for a lawyer to funnel money to Hester. He also bets his own money, using Paul‘s tips for his own profit. Although Uncle Oscar seems harmless at first, the reader becomes aware that he is using Paul for his own benefit. He makes no effort to teach Paul about being careful with money or the dangers of gambling. Oscar does nothing to help Hester and her family, neither by giving money nor by helping Hester budget what money she does have. Because Oscar only uses Paul for his own financial gain, he is revealed to be shallow and selfish. Hester Hester is Paul‘s mother, who is incapable of loving others. She is not only obsessed with money, but she is also irresponsible with the money she does get. When Paul arranges through his attorney to give her a thousand pounds a month from his winnings, she immediately begs the attorney for the entire amount. However, instead of paying her debts, she spends the money on new things for the house. This results in an even greater need for more money. She also does not express any thanks for this sudden windfall, depriving Paul of the joy of providing the much-needed income for his family. Although at the end of the story Hester becomes increasingly concerned about Paul‘s deteriorating health, she still does not love him, even when he dies. At the beginning of the story, it is stated that ―at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody.‖ This image is repeated at the end of the story, wh en Hester sits by her son‘s bedside ―feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone.‖ Before he dies Paul asks ―Mother, did I ever tell you? I‘m lucky,‖ she responds, ―No, you never did.‖ However, the reader remembers that Paul did, indeed, tell her that he was lucky earlier in the story. Since she pays little attention to him, she does not remember this. When Hester finally receives the financial fortune she has always wanted but loses her son in the process, the reader realizes that Hester will probably not feel the loss of her son and will probably waste all that money in record time. All of these details show Hester to be cold, unfeeling, wasteful, and shallow. Paul Paul is the young boy in the story who tries desperately to find a way to have ―luck,‖ meaning money, for his mother. He begins to ride his rocking horse furiously, even though he has outgrown it, because when he does so, he somehow is given the name of the horse that will win the next race. He makes an astounding amount of money this way with the help of the gardener Bassett (who places his bets for him), and later with the help also of his Uncle Oscar. For the final big race, the Derby, he rides himself into a feverish delirium, but he is sure of the winner. His uncle places a large bet for him. Just as his uncle arrives to tell him of the fortune he has made, he dies from the fever. Paul dies for the sake of making money for the family, particularly his mother, even though her ―heart was a stone.‖ Paul seems completely unaware that he has overtaken responsibilities that are rightly his parents‘. He seems only concerned with relieving the anxiety he perceives in the house caused by a lack of money. He tries to understand why there is not enough money by asking his mother, but she only says that his father ―has no luck.‖ He directly associates luck with money, so the gambling seems like a natural solution to the problem. He is so innocent in his enthusiasm for the game he begins playing with Bassett that even when his uncle discovers that he has been gambling, he does not stop Paul from gambling further. Even though Paul is still a child, all of the adults, Bassett, Uncle Oscar, and Paul‘s mother, seem to treat him like an adult. No one anticipates that Paul will pay a huge price for pla ying this game. No one even questions Paul‘s ability to pick the winners of the horse races, or wonders how in the world Paul is able to pick winners so accurately. Throughout the story Paul remains innocent, as well as desperate, to help his mother, who s eems oblivious to Paul‘s concerns. Although it is clear to the reader that Paul is very intelligent and sensitive, no one in the story seems to notice or appreciate Paul‘s gifts until it is too late. Themes The theme of the story is that materialism can lead to spiritual death, and that when we gamble or game for gold, we only are going to win a hollow soul. Evident in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" is Lawrence's distain for conspicuous consumption, crass materialism, and an emotionally distant style of parenting popularly thought to exist in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Responsibility The obsession with wealth and material items is pitted against the responsibilities of parenting in ―The Rocking-Horse Winner.‖ It is the r esponsibility of the parents to provide for the children in a family. It is also the responsibility of the parents to spend money wisely and budget carefully, so that the bills are paid and no one goes without food, clothing, or shelter. However, in this story, Lawrence turns this on its ear, making the parents complete failures at financial dealings and their son Paul incredibly gifted at making money, albeit by gambling. The parents in the story drift from one thing to another, never really finding anything they can do to provide for the family. The mother ―tried this thing and the other, but could not find anything successful.‖ The father, whose main talents are having expensive tastes and being handsome, ―seemed as if he would never be able to do anythin g worth doing.‖ When Paul gives his mother 5,000 pounds from his winnings, rather than paying off debts and saving for the future, she spends all of it on material things, causing an even more urgent need for more money. Generosity and Greed The disparity between Paul‘s generosity and his mother‘s greed is another theme of ―The Rocking-Horse Winner.‖ Paul generously offers all his winnings to the family, in order to relieve the family‘s dire need for money. He seems to have no needs of his own and is motiva ted solely by the desire to help his mother. Paul‘s unselfish generosity is contrasted starkly with the mother‘s greed and selfishness. When the mother first receives the news from the lawyer that she has ―inherited‖ 5,000 pounds from a long-lost relative which will be paid out to her in yearly increments of 1,000 pounds (a scheme dreamed up by Paul), she does not inform the family of their good fortune. Instead, she goes immediately to the lawyer and asks to receive the entire amount right away. Paul agrees, and the money is spent foolishly on more material things for the house. Instead of relieving the family‘s need for money, Paul‘s plan backfires and thus there is a need for even more money. Paul and his mother are complete opposites. Paul, in his childish innocence, gives and gives to the family, without any desire for thanks and without any desire to keep any of the money for himself. He ultimately gives the most precious gift of all: his life. Hester, Paul‘s mother, has no idea where all this money is coming from and does not seem to care. Hester has become so obsessed with wealth that her heart turns completely to stone; she cannot even feel sad when her son dies. Oedipus Complex Paul‘s desire to earn money for the family can be said to be an unconscious desire to take his father‘s place, a concept that psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud termed the ―Oedipus complex.‖ This is a reference to the story from ancient Greece in which Oedipus, who was raised away from his parents, accidently kills his father and marries his mother. Freud suggested that all boys go through a stage where they want to take their father‘s place. Paul‘s desire to take care of the family‘s needs is Oedipal. Since the main way of earning this money — the rocking horse — is also bound up in sexual imagery, it seems clear that Lawrence intentionally characterizes Paul this way.