The Rocking Horse Winner Death Essay

Ride Away
(A Discussion on Who is to Blame for the Death of Paul in D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner) Gambling is generally not seen as a stable form of income. In fact, often it can lead to the loss of money. However, sometimes it is the only form of income one is able to have, such in the case of being a child. This is how it is for Paul, a boy who takes it upon himself to help to try and relive the financial burden his family faces. This goal ends in tragedy, however, when Paul dies from a brain fever in his attempt to gain insight into the winner of a horse race, of which he would bet on and give the earnings to his family. Although there are many people who helped along the course of events that led to Paul’s ultimate demise in D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner, the one who has the most blame in the event would be his mother.
She feels as though they were thrust upon her, and resents them, in a way. She keeps up the appearance of a doting maternal figure, but the family itself knows the truth of the matter. Faced with this, Paul will obviously feel the need to impress his mother and earn her love, which is why he turns to earning money through horse racing, as he believes that currency is the only thing his mother cares about, and if he can provide it, she will in turn care about him. Paul’s mother is also responsible for putting the idea of luck into his head in the first place. Paul did not know what luck was before his mother told him. The equation of luck with the ability to get money drives his desire to be lucky at any cost, for he believes money is the only thing his mother truly cares about. He is so driven by this idea that he pushes himself to physical exhaustion and madness, and to his own