Hover for more information. It is ironic indeed that Hester appears to have everything she could ever want in life yet still remains deeply unsatisfied with her lot. No matter how much money Paul wins for her, it’s never enough. As the old saying goes you never know what you have until you lose it.

Expert Answers Hover for more information. Yes, it is ironic that the whispers of the house grow in intensity as the boy continues to rock on the horse. That is the point of the story – chasing after more and more wealth doesn’t bring true happiness, it only makes you want more and more and more.

In the short story, “The Rocking Horse Winner”, written by D.H Lawrence, the main theme is conveyed with two types of irony, the two demonstrating how luck and happiness do not necessarily always make a person truly happy with life.

The main themes in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” are materialism, happiness, and generosity. Materialism: Lawrence suggests that materialism and love are incompatible. Hester is so focused on her own perceived sufferings that she fails to be an effective mother to Paul.

He starts riding his rocking-horse until he reaches a trance-like state in which it is revealed to him what horse he should bet on in upcoming horse races. In the end he rides his rocking-horse with such intensity that he collapses and dies.

In The Rocking Horse Winner DH Lawrence uses symbolism to portray the familys materialism and the boys desire to please his mom. The voices in the house symbolize the materialistic view that the family has by wanting more and more money, become more avaricious as Paul earns more money for his mother.

Paul’s eyes are always described as blazing, blue, intense or uncanny. His eyes represent his dreams, his passion and the futility of his attempts to get luck for his mother.

Paul’s secret of secrets was his wooden horse, that which had no name. Paul, Oscar, and Bassett use this “lucky” skill of Paul’s to win money by betting on horse races. Paul rides the rocking horse to make money in order to help make his mom less depressed by their financial situation.

In “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” Lawrence uses the image of “blue stones” when describing Paul’s eyes only once in the story. However, he does refer to their blue color on a number of occasions. He does this to emphasize Paul’s innocence, which tragically leads to his death.

The tone of “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is bleak and unhappy. It starts off, from the first paragraph, with a mother who believes she has no luck and finds she can’t love her children. It moves from there to the children recognizing that their mother doesn’t love them.

“The Rocking-Horse Winner” (collected in The Lovely Lady, 1933), Lawrence’s second attempt to write a contribution for a collection of ghost stories compiled by Lady Cynthia Asquith in 1926, is a fusion of various narrative modes. …

Lawrence uses characters, allegory, diction, imagery, point of view, and irony. In the story money is associated with luck rather than with hard work. Characters like Bassett and Paul’s father are examples of this. Both work hard to make money however, neither of them is wealthy.

The main characters in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” are Paul, Hester, Basset, and Oscar.

• Paul is a young boy who fulfills his mother’s desire for more luck and money by betting on horses.
• Hester is Paul’s greedy and irresponsible mother.

Hester

After Paul receives a rocking horse one Christmas, he rides it often and develops a strange intuitive power that enables him to correctly predict the winners of horses races. At racetracks, he wins thousands of pounds that he sets aside to defray his mother’s debts. Hester: Paul’s mother.

Hover for more information. The main problem for Paul’s family in the short story “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is his mother’s inability to love. In the first paragraph of the story, Paul’s mother, Hester, is described as being a beautiful woman whose love for her husband has turned to dust.

Paul can be described as earnest, eager to please, haunted, and mature for his age. His main motivations are to win his mother’s love by being lucky (which, to him, means earning money), and to quiet the “voices” in the house, which whisper “There must be more money”.

devastated (shocked) that his mother is not satisfied. He doesn’t want to miss the Derby. Why doesn’t Paul want to go to the seaside? He hears the name of the winning horse while riding his rocking horse.

Why did Paul so desperately want to be lucky? In his mind, luck comes from being rich. So, he wants to be rich so can be lucky.

Paul has made over seventy thousand pounds on the race, with his total race winnings at eighty thousand pounds. Paul is overjoyed, but the excitement is too much for him and he dies that night. Oscar comforts Paul’s mother.

Uncle Oscar lets Paul decide about giving his mother the whole five thousand dollars, which he decides to do, making this adult financial decision (lines 322–324).

Paul attempts to change his family’s luck by riding the rocking horse so that he can make them wealthy. The house is constantly whispering to Paul, “More money, more money… There must be more money.” Lawrence uses auditory (sound) imagery to heighten the sense of the dramatic, pushing Paul to ride.

According to Paul’s mother, luck is the ability to “get money.” “It’s 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.