The Rocking-Horse Winner To begin with, “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is a short story written by D.H. Lawrence. This short story is about a young boy named Paul who feels the need to have luck, due to his mother always saying that his father has no luck and is always in the need for having more and more money. “According to the mother, if you have luck you have money that is why it’s better to be born lucky than rich” (P, 268 Para 5). Due to this constant saying, Paul and the rest of the family hear voices in the house saying “There must be more money” (p. 267, Para, 5). Paul is so sick of these voices that he wants to prove his mother wrong.
Think of it as a candle, once you melt that candle there is no way to put it back together. This is true for both of the stories. In “The Rocking Horse Winner” the mother’s greed for money forces her son Paul to find ways to get more money in order to try to win over her love and attention. In the very beginning of the story it described a mother who “had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her; and she could not love them (Lawrence, 162).” The mother was always good at showing a respectable image to her friends about how she felt about her children though. It states that her friends say “She is such a good mother: She adores her children (Lawrence, 162).” Paul is determined to win his mother’s love by gambling and goes on a “mad little journey (Lawrence, 165)” in order to try to prove to his mother that he is lucky and she could love him.
Myrtle is married to poor man, George Wilson, and lives in the valley of ashes. She doesn't have much since they struggle with business, and yearns for more. She's not satisfied or content with what she has which brought her to a rich guy like Tom. With the kind of money that he has, he's able to provide her with the kind of "love" that she's been wanting and waiting for, but Daisy seems to get in the way between them. Even though Tom is cheating on Daisy, he still has much love for her, which holds him back from giving all of his love to
For Paul, his goal leads him to an obsession for money which ended up killing him. Paul rides his rocking horse as if he is on a quest to seek a grand prize which ends up being luck. His winnings will free his mother which can be seen as a rite of passage. Paul’s obsession with winning money is what ended up killing him. He wanted to prove to his mother Hester, that he himself had luck with money compared to his father.
It becomes obvious that Ted hardly does such mannerisms towards his wife when she responds negatively and un-calm to his approach. Her words “I bet you’re wondering what I’m going to do with the money” informs audiences that she herself sees her husband as greedy or often misguided by the wanting of money. His dull reaction to her announcing her permanent departure in order to pursue her ‘Last Hope’ hints he was already aware of his wife being unhappy with her life and it’s current circumstances. The Lottery is timeless for themes but the interpretation of the text has changed. The story takes place just a few decades after women had received their right to vote but the society of the time still held harsh
Lazy Lawrence The story “Lazy Lawrence” is about a young boy, Jem, which lives with his mother and his mother cannot afford the rent. So in order for the rent to get paid, she was going to sell their horse, Lightfoot. Jem does not want this to happen so he takes matters into his own hands. He finds work with a mistress and saves every penny he gets to save his horse. When the day comes to sell the horse, Jem wanted to surprise his mother with the money, but then he realized someone stole all the money that he had saved up.
These phrases made him understand that their family have financial problems. He then asked his mother why they are poor and she replied to him that it is because his father is “unlucky”. With her answer, Paul thought that being “lucky” means being “wealthy”. Maybe because of his persistence of calling himself lucky, he obtained his power to predict the name of the winners in the horse race. Paul loves to play with his rocking-horse and with it he predicts the winning horses.
His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate were slipping precipitately from his control.”(p.119) Tom knows that Daisy only married him for his money and although she has developed feelings for him, he fears that if he leaves her for Myrtle she will turn to Gatsby. Tom may in fact feel threaten by how Gatsby has such an extravagant house and parties. Tom has been rich all his life and it isn’t until Gatsby shows up does he realize that he might lose Daisy. Because of this Tom tells Myrtle that he and Daisy cannot get a divorce because she is a Christian. It is evident that he is not happy being married to Daisy because he has an affair with Myrtle.
She tells him that she has no luck and so the house is cursed by a shortage of money. As a result of this pivotal conversation Paul taps into a supernatural power. By using his rocking horse he can now find out the names of the winning horse in natural race meetings. However, in doing so Paul tries too hard and he becomes desperately ill. His dies in his quest to win his mothers love. From the outset D.H. Lawrence uses descriptive use of imagery in order to make the character of Paul more effective.
When his most loved daughter comments on her sister’s reactions about his wishes, he then begins to go insane after irrationally separating his land between two of his three daughters based on their charm bringing terrible consequences for everyone. I would say that’s Lear’s first mistake; separating power and responsibility. His two eldest daughters are prepared to be in control of their own lives (age wise) but not necessarily mature enough. A reason of immaturity from the daughters that Lear didn’t notice was how fond they were of him when he declared his wanting, therefore, they aren’t ready to rule a kingdom. They allowed their father to act as if he is still in charge.