The questions that came up were what did the writer mean by his title? When the little boy would use his rocking-horse he would predict which horse would win was the answer that came to mine. That main idea is not to put pressures on your children about adult problems. The overall text is you make your own luck, it doesn’t find you, you find luck. Using these strategies helped with the understanding of the overall story.
Continuing during reading process I was able to use cues from the text that were italicized help emphasized on the need for money. I was also able to my connections with Paul’s character. Like every child wants their mother or parents in general to be proud of them, Paul wanted that as well. I was able to create mental images as the author described on situations and settings in detail. This allowed me to understand and visualized the story from my perspective without confusion.
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.
After taking an insightful look at the topic “Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence, I was interested in reading this short story to obtain a full understanding of the story and the connection that inspired the title. I have decided to read this story critically and carefully in order to get every detail and also a full understanding of the content which will enable me to answer key questions accurately as this is the strategy that works best for me. I already know based on course work done earlier in the lesson that this story is about a mother and her three children who did do not have much love for each other. To those on the outside, it seemed like the ‘perfect family.’ I also know that they lived in an upscale house and were always buying expensive Christmas gifts, as well as, they dressed expensively to support the image that others had of them, which is that they were rich/ well to do. During the reading I realized that the family is very sad; this is because the parental figures have a constant need to acquire more and more money, the mother especially wants to have the ability to always afford items that are expensive and to maintain the image of an the elite family that everyone admires and strives to be like.
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence and "The Shining Houses" by Alice Munro portray characters who struggle to escape the power of their suppressors due to economic wealth, minority of age groups, as well as intentions and wishes of characters. First off, economic power or wealth causes problems for characters within “The Rocking-Horse Winner” as well as “The Shining Houses”. Within the story “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, the little boy, Paul, begins to understand that although his family has material items, they are not very wealthy. Soon enough, Paul begins to see the effects this has on his household and family. He sees his mother is unhappy and hears the house whisper, “There must be more money!” (Lawrence 19).
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.
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.
Analyzing a story using the literary theory of formalism allows you to read and view the texts easier and determine their meaning and importance more quickly. There are a variety of textual elements used in the story, “The Rocking-horse Winner”, but the main elements I used while analyzing the story were conflict, protagonist, symbols and themes. A conflict is the opposition of two or more forces or characters. I believe the conflict in this story is person versus person and person versus wealth. The person versus person conflict involves the mother and her relationship with her children.
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.
What could that possibly offer me except giving me something to kill time? It wasn’t until I began researching about the value of literature that I realized its vital contributions to my life and the lives of everyone around me. I found out no matter how often (or not so often) that you read, literature can and will still affect you in a way nothing else can. The value of literature to me can not only be found in what I have learned from reading, but how it has influenced my life. In this essay I’m going to talk about how literature has affected me, and in a small way determined who I am today, and how it has affected my views on certain subjects.