The Rocking Horse Winner
In short story The Rocking Horse Winner David Herbert Lawrence described a middle-class English family. Paul, the eldest son and the main character, lived with his parents and two sisters. The family was not poor, but three children and adults’ lifestyle always led to the lack of money. Mother’s permanent complains about financial problems and absence of luck made Paul to search for additional sources of income. The boy found a type of supernatural way to predict horse races’ winners with the aid of his rocking horse. But additional money did not make his family happier; mother’s pursuance of luxury only increased. Trying to fulfill them, Paul died during the prediction of his biggest win.
While the plot looks like a sad fairy tale, it refers to many real issues of the modern
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While labor and development of proficiency helps to raise an income at some levels, only discovery of a way to quick enrichment would lead to the desirable status. First phrases of the short story suggest Hester tried to achieve it with the aid of her marriage. A beautiful girl “with all the advantages” (Lawrence) chose Eton alumnus in hope to enter upper middle class or even an elite. While Lawrence said Hester loved her husband, this feeling does not cancel potential expectations of material and social benefits. The woman did not believe normal labor can help to achieve desirable results. People can be rich only if they are lucky, Hester often said Paul. Her attitude became a reason the boy looked at horseracing and used his “blessing” so hard to predict winners. Capitalism, that forces majority of the population “to sell portions of their lives as labor-power in order to gain access to the means of life that have themselves been commodified” (Isaac at al. 9), and class structure focused on material signs of status affected Hester’s behavior and led to tragic events in Lawrence’s short