The Rocking-Horse Winner

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The Rocking-Horse Winner
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RWH

• A fairytale style or folk tale style
• 3rd person omniscient narration
• Involves a dysfunctional family
• Notion of what it is to be lucky
• Possible child abuse
• Class consciousness

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3rd person omniscient

• .......D. H. Lawrence wrote the story in
  omniscient third-person point of view, enabling
  him to reveal the thoughts of the characters.
• Paul's mother only made several hundreds, and she
  was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first
  in something, and she did not succeed, even in
  making sketches for drapery advertisements. 
• His mother had sudden strange seizures of
  uneasiness about him. Sometimes, for half an
  hour, she would feel a sudden anxiety about him
  that was almost anguish. She wanted to rush to
  him at once, and know he was safe. 
• She had bonny children, yet she felt they had
  been thrust upon her, and she could not love
  them. They looked at her coldly, as if they were
  finding fault with her. And hurriedly she felt
  she must cover up some fault in herself. 

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Eye Imagery Forwards the Plot

• D. H. Lawrence's attention to the eyes helps to
  convey the inmost feelings of characters in some
  instances. (characterization)
• In fact a good deal of communication between
  human beings is nonverbal and glaring eyes,
  frowns, furrowed brows, and shrugs can sometimes
  communicate more meaning than words.
• it enhances the mysterious and sometimes
  unsettling atmosphere of the story by leaving
  open to question what a gaze or a stare means.
  (atmosphere/mood)

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Eye Imagery examples

• pg. 19 Only she herself, and her children
  themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in
  each others eyes.
• pg. 20 the boy watched her with unsure eyes.
• Pg. 21 his eyes had a strange glare in them.
  The little girls dared not speak to him.
  (establishing character)
• Pg. 21 Referring to the RH its big eye was wide
  and glassy-bright. link to Paul and the horse
• Pg. 24The boy gazed at his uncle from those big,
  hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The
  uncle stirred and laughed uneasily.
  (establishing mood)
• Pg. 27 The boy watched him with big blue eyes,
  that had an uncanny cold fire in them, and he
  said never a word. (notice the author hear lets
  characterization speak in place of actual
  dialogue)

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Atmosphere/mood

• Personification
• Pg. And so the house came to be haunted by the
  unspoken phrase There must be more money!
  There must be more money!
• Repetition reinforces the impact of
  personification
• Objects on pg. 20 the rocking horse, doll and
  puppy hear the secret whisper There must be
  more money

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Cause and Effect

• No luck
• Pg. 20 Its because your father has no luck,
  said Pauls mother when asked why they were poor.

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Foreshadowing

• Reference is made to the supernatural when Paul
  told his mother that he was a lucky person.
• Pg. 21 He stared at her. He didnt even know
  hwy he had said it. God told me, he
  asserted..He did mother!
• Pg. 25 Were all right when were sure, said
  Paul. Its when were not quite sure that we go
  down.
• Pg. 28 In relation to the continued whispering of
  the house. It was said that Paul could not bear
  up against it.
• Pg. 31 Paul has his rocking horse moved to his
  own bedroom. His obsession will have deadly
  consequences - marks a passage of time

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Other Lit terms

• Alliteration
• Pg. 22 Now! he would silently command the
  snorting steed.
• Simile
• Pg. 2 Bassett was serious as a church
• And yet the voices in the house . . . simply
  trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy "There
  must be more money! 
• His eyes blazed at her for one strange and
  senselesssecond, as he ceased urging his wooden
  horse. 

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Lit terms contd

• Metaphor
• The child had never been to a race-meeting
  before, and his eyes were blue fire. Comparison
  of the eyes to fire
• Oxymoron
• It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and
  powerful.
• Simile
• The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a
  chorus of frogs on a spring evening. Comparison
  of the voices to frogs
• He neither slept nor regained consciousness, and
  his eyes were like blue stones. Comparison of
  the Paul's eyes to stones

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Diction

• Characterization through diction.
• Paul reveals his youth when he claims that Uncle
  Oscar pronounces Filthy lucre as filthy lucker.
  Diction can have the purpose of revealing
  character. (Malapropism) lucre means monetary
  gain, or money.

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Irony

• Tragic Irony
• .......Paul picks the winning horse in the Epsom
  Derby but loses his life. The fortune he had
  amassed, eighty thousand pounds (the equivalent
  of millions of dollars today), thus became his
  misfortune. 

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Theme Topics

• Neglect
• .......In her preoccupation with material things,
  Hester neglects to provide Paul the love he needs
  to develop into a normal, mentally stable child. 
  
• Faulty Sense of Values
• .......Hester makes stylish living the chief goal
  of her marriage. Consequently, her relationship
  with her husband and the care and nurture of her
  childrenin particular, Paulstagnate. Whenever
  money becomes available, she spends beyond her
  means. Though she and her husband rear their
  children in a "pleasant house" with servants and
  a nurse, they seem to regard them as objects for
  display, like the furnishings in the home.
  Hester's spending and indebtedness create anxiety
  that haunts the house and personifies itself by
  repeatedly whispering the phrase "There must be
  more money."
• Obsession
• .......Lust for material objects, stylish living,
  and money so obsesses Paul's mother that she
  neglects Paul and his sisters. Paul then
  "inherits" her obsession. But he wants to win
  money for his mother, not for himself, in order
  to prove that he has the luck that his father
  lacks. Having luck and money will make him
  lovable to his mother, he apparently believes,
  and silence the house voices. When he discovers
  that the five thousand pounds he sets aside for
  her is not enough to achieve his goals, he
  becomes obsessed with winning more. His mania
  ultimately kills him.

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Themes topics contd

• Opportunism
• .......Oscar Creswell acknowledges that Paul's
  wagering makes him nervous. But rather than take
  steps to stop Paul, he encourages him and asks
  for tips on winning horses. When Paul lies
  deathly ill muttering the name of his pick for
  the Derby, Oscar runs off "in spite of himself"
  and places a bet on the horse at fourteen to one
  odds. 
• Quest
• .......Paul rides his rocking horse like a knight
  on a quest. He seeks a great prize, luck, that
  will enable him to win money wagering on horses.
  His winnings will free his mother from a great
  monster, indebtedness, that consumes all of her
  attention. Once free, she will be able to turn
  her attention to Paul and give him the greatest
  prize of all love.
• Deceit
• .......In the first paragraph of the story, the
  narrator says Hester does not love her children.
  Nevertheless, outwardly she pretends to love
  them, and people say, "She is a good mother. She
  adores her children."

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Theme Statements

• Materialism vs Unconditional familial love (Topic
  not a statement)
• When financial wealth and security are placed
  above the open
• expression of unconditional love, a destructive
  and dysfunctional family
• dynamic is created.
• Destructive power of obsession
• Dedicating oneself obsessively to achieving a
  goal can create an
• unhealthy imbalance in the mind, emotions, and /
  or body.

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Movie version

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?viKUZVV_MrIc