The Rocking Horse Winner Theme

The love and affection of a mother towards her family plays an important role. In the short story "The Rocking- Horse Winner" written by D.H Lawrence, the mother's attitude undergoes a development. In the beginning of the story, she tends to be self obsessed. As the story progresses, she turns into a concerned mother. Towards the end of the story she realizes the danger of unbridled greed, as she loses her son. In the beginning of the story, the mother portrays a role of self obsessed woman, who is blind in love with money. The mother's obsession goes up to the extent where she does not feel love for even her own family. The narrator of the story introduces her by telling the readers that "Only she knew herself that at the centre of her heart was hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody" (Lawrence 19).The narrator uses this quotation to reflect upon the self obsessed attitude that mother has in the story. The quote emphasizes the complete ignorance of love and affection towards her husband and children. Additionally, she becomes truly blind for money that she starts to blame her husband for not having "luck", in front of her son, that leaves major
The last lines of the story, spoken by her brother, "My God, Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad" (Lawrence 31), makes her realize the danger of unbridled greediness. Even though her son leaves her with certain amount of money, that she always wanted to have, she still feels that she has lost something that mattered to her more than money. In this situation, compared with mother's first attitude, there is a huge change in mother's attitude; obviously, she now understands that the value of her son is more than the value of money in her