Summary Of Rocking Horse Winner

(Three Messages from Rocking Horse Winner) In the United States of America, the leader of the free world, 43 percent of citizens live paycheck to paycheck This dilemma is not a result of poverty, but rather, the general inclination of a spoiled people to live outside their means. W.B. Yeats foresaw the sprouting of this problem among others in modernized countries at the turn of the 20th century. In Yeats’ story Rocking Horse Winner, he explores his findings through the story of the typical English family and their son who felt pressured to help bring prosperity to the family; the boy constantly heard of the lack of money and luck in the household. By riding his rocking horse the boy was able to predict horse race winners and build a small
The most important question being: are you your money? In Rocking Horse Winner, the mother is infatuated with obtaining the fanciful lifestyle she had growing up. However, the family she has now lives on a relatively low income, the mother believed it to be due to bad luck, and could not realistically sustain such a lifestyle. The mother believed that what made a family respectable was their social status and wealth. By spending lavishly she attempted to create the illusion that her family lived high class. Though, as previously stated, the money for it simply was not there; this stemmed the silent chant heard throughout the house by her son, “There must be more money.” The son, Paul”s, understanding of the underlying financial hindrances leads to another interesting question posed by
Luck was the root cause of the family’s problems according to the mother. Luck created money, and money created happiness. If the mother and father had created the opportunities for themselves to hold more lucrative jobs they may have had more money. Spending could have been cut to still live comfortably and not luxuriously. Neither of these factors can be derailed by luck and also are capable of changing the well being of a family. Perhaps if the mother had relied more on these controllable factors rather than luck she would have had happier family and a son that was still