When is a Winner Not a Winner?

Paper Summary:

In the short story "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence, the writer creates a spooky fantasy in which three major themes, luck, money and love combine to form a bizarre and deadly unity. It discusses the lack of love in families in modern society and how people can become obsessed with money. The author creates a symbolic representation of life that is not truly lived, but in which concepts of luck, money and love are perverted into an imitation of life, the falseness of which kills the protagonist, the boy Paul.

From the Paper:

"This is a story about the "devastating effects that money can have on a family" (Watkins 295). It is a story in which money has replaced love. The mother no longer loves the father. "She married for love, and the love turned to dust" (Lawrence 967). Her love, Lawrence is saying has dried up:
The desiccating materialism of modern society has destroyed the ability of Paul's mother to feel love; in place of love, she lusts after "luck" by which she means the power to get money (Watkins 1)

The family's house is "haunted by the unspoken phrase: "There must be more money!" " (Lawrence 968). The children imbibe this atmosphere on a daily basis. They know there is never enough money for the parents to keep up the social standard to which they aspire. The parents are the role models who "set the tone (economic scarcity) and determine the values (consumerism) of the world they inhabit" (Watkins 297). This is a subject about which Lawrence is passionate:
This is one of Lawrence's most savage and compact critiques of what he elsewhere calls "the god-damn bourgeoisie" and of individuals who, despite their natural or potential goodness, "swallow culture bait" and hence become victims to the world they (wrongly) believe holds the key to human happiness (Watkins 295)."

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