What themes are invoked in D.H Lawrence "The Rocking Horse Winner?"?

Answer 1

In "The Rocking-Horse Winner," a young boy, Paul, perceives that there is never enough money in his family, he sets out to find a way to get money through luck. He discovers that if he rides his rocking-horse fast enough, he will somehow "know" the name of the winning horse in the next race.


He begins to make money and secretly funnel this money to his mother, but the desire for more money only grows more intense instead of going away. He finally rides his rocking-horse so furiously in order to discover the winner of the Derby that he falls into illness and dies, just as the winning horse earns his family an enormous fortune.

Responsibility

The obsession with wealth and material items is pitted against the responsibilities of parenting in "The Rocking-Horse Winner." It is the responsibility of the parents to provide for the children in a family.

Luck

The Rocking Horse Winner Lucky. That’s what this whole story is about, being lucky. It seemed that to be successful in this society you had to have a certain amount of luck about you to be able to make money to survive. Paul seemed to be the first to realize it when he asked his mother why don’t we keep a car of our own? Why do we always use Uncle’s, or else a taxi? When she replied that it was because they were poor he asked why and she said Because your father has no luck."

Materialism versus human values:

During the course of this story, luck and gambling are common themes that are very intertwined. They play a large and important role in the story, all the way to the end when Paul dies. While Paul’s desire for wealth may not be for himself, he still displays a
great desire for it. His motivation for starting to gamble is for two reasons: To prove to his mother that he is indeed lucky and to stop the house from whispering that there must be more money. He asks his mother what luck is, and informs her that he is lucky."


"Major Themes

In depicting a prosperous household that still hungers for money, "The Rocking-Horse Winner" resembles many of Lawrence's other fictional critiques of materialism and modern society. Paul's mother desires wealth and material possessions to the exclusion of more valuable items such as love and self-knowledge. Her desires are never satisfied, however, and they result in disastrous consequences when love and money are confused. A sexual subtext—another element found in many of Lawrence's works—also seems to be present in the story. Scholars have noted that the descriptions of Paul riding his rocking-horse have an erotic quality, and these scenes have been interpreted as representations of sex and masturbation. Since these quasi-sexual actions are focused on pleasing Paul's mother, and since Paul's father has proven incapable of satisfying his wife, many critics believe that the story draws on the concepts of psychologist Sigmund Freud. Freud maintained that young boys are sexually attracted to their mothers and fantasize about replacing their fathers—a condition he termed the Oedipus complex. Other analysts have placed less emphasis on the sexual aspects of the story and instead view Paul's actions as a tragic attempt to win parental love from his hard-hearted mother."

Answer 2

The Rocking Horse Winner Theme

Answer 3

RE:
What themes are invoked in D.H Lawrence "The Rocking Horse Winner?"?

Answer 4

It troubles me hugely to see this short story, the WORST example of the author's work, still clinging tenaciously to the wreckage that is school curriculum. (The second worst thing Lawrence wrote is again a short story, The Odor of Chrysanthemums. For reasons known only to public educators, they are most frequently taught back to back). What, really, is Lawrence doing in schools at all since it is SO unlikely your teachers or classmates would feel comfortable enough with one another to discuss the subject most at issue in his writing - sex - and especially sex that is a source of pleasure even to women - a radical notion in its time.

What you're probably supposed to say in answer to the question of themes in the story is the quasi-sexual, over-responsible feeling the little boy has toward mom (think Freud here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud), the sense that the parents are not excercising sufficient control over themselves and the household, that they are themselves no more useful or helpful than children, that they cannot stand up to any honest confrontation and that mother must somehow be rescued from her worries - in short, the maturation theme.

His oppressed and impoverished mother had nursed a sickly Lawrence, who felt very attached to his mother, though this attachment, according to his biographers, did not prevent him from beating various beloved pets and lovers, including his great love, Frieda. It seems a shame to have to bother with any of that nonsense without having first had the benefit of Lawrence's far superior Lady Chatterley's Lover - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley's_Lover. Ignore Rocking Horse and get down to business, I'd say. I mean, for goodness sake, D.H. Lawrence wrote poems about his dearly-beloved penis. The Snake, for example. Hollow stuff, really. Easily ignored.