The Sins of Adults - In D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a young boy, Paul, dies after using his gift to forecast the outcome of horse races.

Authors Avatar

Chan,

The Sins of Adults

        In D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is a young boy, Paul, dies after using his gift to forecast the outcome of horse races. However, it is not the using of his gift that led to his demise by a massive brain fever. It was the adults in conjunction with their dependency and lust for money that leads him to his death. Just about every adult in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” with exception of the nurse can be held accountable for attributing to Paul’s deathly descent.

        In my opinion the person who takes the most blame is Paul’s mother. Paul’s mother is the person who starts him on his train of thinking that money will earn his mother’s love. In a conversation between her and Paul on luck, she says, “It’s what causes you to have money. If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich, you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money” (891). This luck that refers to is not the luck that allows a person to live longer, she means luck in a monetary sense. In-turn Paul takes this information and finds a way to be lucky in a monetary sense, horse races. Later on more pressure is put on Paul when he gives five thousand pounds to his mother through the family lawyer and his mother is not happy. So after that Paul desperately needed to “know” by using his gift. The best example of this is when Paul madly screams out, “I’ve got to know for the Derby! I’ve got to know for the Derby!” (897).

Join now!

        Paul’s mother is not a good mother even though Lawrence stated that “everybody said of her: ‘she is such a good mother. She adores her children’”(889). In Paul and his mother’s conversation she laughs at him in a bitter way when he says he is lucky as stated on page 891, “’Well, anyhow,’ he said stoutly, ‘I’m a lucky person.’ ‘Why?’ said his mother, with a sudden laugh… ‘God told me,’ he asserted, brazening it out. ‘I hope He did, dear!’ she said, again with a laugh, but rather bitter” (891). A mother should not mock her child no matter ...

This is a preview of the whole essay