Decisions And Consequences In Hamlet And The Rocking-Horse Winner

By Student Name Comm 182 For Sonia Perna 613 words Decisions and Consequences in Hamlet, Crow Lake and “The Rocking-Horse Winner”

Whether the outcome is positive or negative, we often don’t realize the consequences of our decisions until later . Neither Claudius, from the play Hamlet, nor Luke, from the novel Crow Lake, nor Hester, from the short story “The Rocking-Horse Winner” could have predicted the series of events that would unfold because of the choices they made or were forced to make. No matter how much thought is put into the decision, it is often impossible to predict the full outcome.
In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Claudius made the decision to kill his brother,

His remorse illustrates that he acknowledged that he had made a regrettable choice. If Claudius had known that his greed would lead to his demise, it is doubtful that he would have chosen to murder his brother.
Occasionally, even the most well-conceived choices simply go awry due to circumstances out of our control, and sometimes it is just bad luck. Luke, from Mary Lawson’s novel Crow Lake, decided not to attend teachers’ college in order to keep his siblings together after their parents were killed in a traffic accident. He made this choice because it was important for the surviving members to stay together, especially for Bo and Kate’s sake, as they were slated to be divided amongst relatives. Luke’s reasoning became clear when he stated, “I’m not doing this for [Matt]. I’m doing it for Bo and Kate. And because I want to” (Lawson 82). This indicates that he cares for his siblings a great deal and that he was willing to sacrifice his future; however, sometimes due to circumstance we are forced to make decisions not knowing the

Hester, a character from D.H. Lawrence’s short story entitled “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” made a series of choices about her son Paul’s well-being that led to his insanity and death. Many of her choices probably seemed inconsequential; she did not knowingly try to bring any harm upon Paul. It is only when she hears her brother’s voice 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 rides his rocking-horse to find a winner" (Lawrence 34) that she recognised it was her poor choices that caused this tragedy. Hester was a strong believer in luck, and while she didn’t seem to have much of it, sometimes our decisions are just that,