"The Rocking-Horse Winner"

In English 1A, on Friday, September 13, 2013, we analyzed the first paragraph of The Rocking-Horse Winner, did some word maps on the short story, and eventually read it independently. As discussed in class, the first paragraph basically describes the mother's dislike or carelessness towards her children. She disregarded them as her children. This can be seen by the following sentences from the first paragraph:

"She married for love, and the love turned to dust. She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and she could not love them."

          -The Rocking Horse Winner

Now, I will tell what I know of this story in this blog and my opinion on this short story. However, I will not tell the ending of the story, as for it has quite a twist.

The story, as I told before, starts with the author explaining the lack of affection the mother has towards her children. It then explain the house that they live in and that they have an affluent lifestyle and a high social position; yet they have a very small income. On top of that they have servants. Based on this part description, I can tell that the both the parents are very improvident. The children kept hearing the phrase," There must be more money! There must be more money!" On Christmas, they figu
re out that a rocking-horse has been saying this. Later in the story, the small child, Paul, and the mother are talking about luck. After that scene, Paul is vigorously riding on the horse to the end of his "journey." The story mainly revolves around Paul, his uncle, Oscar, his other, and the gardener, Bassett. So Paul make a bet with his uncle for about one thousand pounds that Daffodil will win the next horse race that he is in. Paul wins the bet and gets the money; he also reveals his partnership. His uncle wants in on the partnership. Paul says okay, but only if he doesn't tell his mother. After winning a couple more times, Paul, being the good boy he is, tries to make his mother happy by giving here a thousand pound for her birthday every year. His mother finds out that he is making bets on horses. Then the story goes on to the conclusion, so I won't tell you anything more. There are some important facts that I left out, but I think that I should leave them out because that might ruin the surprise.

In conclusion, the story had a great plot and had fantastic characterization of the boy, Paul, the mother, and a little bit of Uncle Oscar. The problem with The Rocking-Horse Winner is that the topic of the book is very difficult to comprehend, because I don't really understand betting. Also the author doesn't really tell too much about the physical appearance of the character; D.H. Lawrence only develops the thinking and the actions of the characters. However, since it is a short story, it doesn't really need to describe the appearance of the characters. Those are the main cons of this story. Overall, the author told a very good plot with some cons; however, the pros outweigh the cons. I will have to admit that I liked the story mainly because of its plot. So far it is probably the best short story that I have read in English 1A. Finally, it is a must read only if you are interested in a thrilling and mildly horror story with a great plot.

Click to read The Rocking-Horse Winner.