Effects of greed and discontentment

Greed and discontentment always lead to disaster. D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” about a young boy who just wants his selfish and unhappy mother to be happy and to show him love and affection, portrays this concept. This immense longing ultimately costs the child his life and thus reveals Lawrence’s underlying theme. Through contemplative use of irony, symbolism, and imagery, Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner” successfully exposes the misery that always wanting “more” can cause, not only for those who are discontent, but also for the hardship it brings upon those who love the discontent.

Irony pervades throughout this story. Among the ironies of “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is the actual existence of luck which is the surface motivation of the boy in order to bring happiness to his mother; she tells him, “[Luck is] 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." Though the adults of the story are not necessarily lucky, the one who is lucky happens to simply be a young child. The odds both of the existence of luck, and of this child possessing it are quite unlikely, yet they are integral to the story in revealing Lawrence’s theme. Even more ironic, however, is the way in which the child receives his lucky answer—riding his rocking-horse madly, furiously until he feels God tells him the name of his horse, the horse that is to win the upcoming race. Without the existence of luck, and the boy’s possession of it, he would not have the hope to achieve materialistic happiness for his mother through his luckiness, which is what ultimately leads to the boy’s demise, portraying Lawrence’s theme of the detrimental effects of materialism.

Numerous descriptions of the eyes of the young boy and the whisperings of the house represent the two most significant symbols Lawrence skillfully uses as tools to help convey his theme to the readers. Reference to the boy’s eyes is used nearly every time in describing the child’s inner state: “’Well, I got there!’ he announced fiercely, his blue eyes still flaring;" “…his eyes were blue with fire;" “He became wild-eyed and strange…his big blue eyes blazing with a sort of madness;" “He was very frail, and his eyes were really uncanny.” The many different descriptions of the eyes in each stage of the boy’s quest for his mother’s love and happiness successfully symbolize what the boy felt in his inner being without the narrator plainly stating these sensations—this adds an intriguing dimension to the story, making the reader feel the boy’s condition rather than simply having them explicitly conveyed. The most prominent symbol in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is the house. The mother’s unspoken desire of always wanting more than her family’s finances could ever allow, and trying to keep up a stylish image, increasingly permeate the house,: “And so the house became haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money! The children could hear it all the time, though nobody said it aloud.” The whispering that haunts the house effectively symbolizes the mounting pressure that always craving “more” causes—a burden the mother has inadvertently placed on her children. Through superb use of symbolism in the boy’s eyes as well as in the house, Lawrence conveys a much deeper meaning which affects the reader by subtly engaging the reader‘s active interpretation of what each symbol represents.

Among the greatest of literary devices used by Lawrence in his story to reveal his theme is the use of imagery—the image of the child riding his rocking-horse. The way in which the child rides his horse represents several key points in this story: “…he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy…Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them.” First, this image of frantically riding represents the frenetic and endless desire for something hopelessly unachievable which the mother has sadly ingrained into her child’s psyche—enough money. This image also shows the boy’s grave, intense, and even furious longing for his mother’s love and happiness. Though the child rides incessantly, he will never physically get anywhere; just as he will never receive his mother’s affection by furiously riding. Having all these elements represented in one image strategically ties the story with the messages each element represents. [very nice paragraph]

The child’s final rocking-horse frenzy drives him near insanity, and he ends up dying in an “unconscious” state of being. However, it is not the rocking-horse frenzies that drive the boy to such a state of being, and death, but it is the never ending burden to appease and make happy his unhappy, “always wanting more” mother. All these aspects--irony, symbolism, and imagery--work together to create a gripping story that reveals Lawrence’s underlying theme—greed and discontentment can obscure both the outward expression and inward feeling of love which can bring misery, insanity, and even death to those whom one least wishes to be affected.