A Rocking Horse Winner By D. H. Lawrence

Even at an elementary level, short stories often mask a deeper meaning. During the Modernist period, D.H Lawrence emerged as a master of subtly weaving social commentary into unique short stories. Drawing upon themes from his childhood, Lawrence was heavily influenced by his relationship with his mother. Lawrence’s mother was highly educated and openly displayed regret about her marriage to her husband, a lowly miner. This led Lawrence to focus on themes like money, status, and lack of love. In D.H Lawrence's short story, A Rocking Horse Winner, the controversial Modernist utilizes symbols, personification, and childlike storytelling to portray the evils of the Era such as materialism, social appearances, and warped ideas of love.
Lawrence
A family struggles to maintain their upper-class image, as they live well beyond their means. Paul is under the impression, due to his mother, that his family is in constant need for money. She explains that to be wealthy, one must be lucky, and that their family is simply not lucky. The mother is described as a cold hearted woman whose heart cannot truly feel love, even for her own children. Paul takes it upon himself to prove his mother wrong and acquire luck in order to win her affection. Magically, when Paul rocks vigorously by himself on his wooden toy horse, he is able to predict winning racehorses. Paul's continued success with gambling feeds his drive to satisfy the family’s never-ending thirst for money and eventually leads to his death, directly portraying the ills of
A literary element common to the Modernist Era is the description of an individual as cold and unfeeling. Lawrence obviously utilizes this element in reflection to the time period as Hester fits this description perfectly. Paul is driven by the need to win his mother’s love, as impossible as it may be. While Hester is more concerned with how she and her family measure up to society's interpretation of worth and success, Paul is more concerned with simply attaining her love. Money and material items have no real value to the young boy, “The money is not, to Paul, a good in itself—it is only a way to win his mother’s affection” (Snodgrass 192) demonstrating how children were born free of evils, like greed, instilled by society, but eventually corrupted. Lawrence portrays an internal conflict within Paul as he tries to satisfy both his own pure desires and his mother’s material ones, followed by a major consequence—his death. Paul vigorously rocks himself to death in pursuit of the names of more winning horse’s portraying how the Modernist period isolated young men and destroyed their souls in an attempt to reach their goals. After World War I, many men were exposed to evils that they could never recover from—rendering them practically dead inside.