The Rocking Horse Winner critical analysis

D. H. Lawrence starts the story by identifying an unfortunate unidentified woman, whom he later identifies as Hester. Hester was in love when she was younger, particularly when she married her husband, but she finally stopped loving him at some stage during her married life (Lawrence 2). About the fact that the couple has twins, Hester struggles to feel affection and warmth towards her children. This emotion makes her feel bad all the time, and she constantly feels the need to make amends for her mistakes. However, the reader is made aware by the author that Hester does not precisely know or understand what mistake she might have committed in her life (Lawrence 2). Although she's not a happy wife and mother, other people in town are always in praise of how much of a good mother she is. However, the author brilliantly indicates that to the reader, her children and herself, she is not. This paper will analyze and discuss The Rocking Horse Winner’s setting, author’s point of view, genre, tone, writing style as well as evaluate both the title and ending
Setting
The Rocking Horse Winner’s setting is in England’s affluent neighborhoods that existed during the 1920s (Kennedy and Gioia 23). The author has failed to indicate the actual year. However, he has used several features that reveal to the reader the period. In particular, Lawrence has used activities such as actual racing horses and several references that point to events that happened in England during the World War I in the 1920s (Kennedy et al. 23). The setting is comparable to classic ghost stories since most of the plat's action takes place in a ghostly house. This is the home where Hester, her husband, and their children live.
Hester’s spooky house is located in a neighborhood, which the author describes to nice and comforting. However, this neighborhood is overly characterized by inferiority complex as everyone is not happy with not being in a better or nicer one (Kennedy et al. 25). Hester’s home has not been illustrated as a domestic place that usually shelters the family from the rest of the world. Instead, the author has shown it as being infiltrated with the material values of the society, which are shallow. The walls of the house seem to be filled with frequent whispers regarding the possibilities of having more money.
The children spend most of their time with the governess in a carefully ordered space of the nursery. Together with her husband, Hester eats their meals and also conduct their personal adult lives in a different part of the family, separate from the rest of the family. Their sons sleep upstairs in their rooms, whereby, when Hester attempts to climb up, the tone of that space is full of suspense, suggesting to the reader that she is breaking a significant taboo (Kennedy et al. 27).
The Narrator/Author’s Point of View
Lawrence has created a fable-like or mystical story where he has used a third person to tell events of the story. It is imperative to note that normally, a third-person narrator is regarded to be omnipresent and thus, is capable of disclosing characters’ secrets to the reader. The beginning of the narration immediately captures reader’s attention where the narrator describes a woman who was once beautiful with all the advantages anyone could ask for, yet she was clouded by bad luck (Kennedy et al. 30). Immediately, the reader wants to find out what particular bad luck could befall a beautiful woman endowed with all the advantages. It is therefore plausible to say that the narrative technique used by Lawrence is excellent in this story that focuses on supernatural in the case of Paul’s eyes and social realism in regards to ‘luck’ lines (Kennedy et al. 30).
Genre
The Rocking Horse Winner reveal Lawrence as a modernist during this period. The plot and sequence of events throughout in the story indicate that Lawrence's ideas were heavily influenced by Freud's writing regarding the concept of human sexuality (Kennedy et al. 33). The story has illustrated Freudian concerning love triangle that has been developed excellently by Lawrence between Paul, Hester and an unnamed father. Paul tirelessly tried to prove to his mother that he was capable of attracting luck, which she desperately needed and made her sad. In the end, the love triangle is fulfilled after Paul took over the unnamed father’s place as the family’s breadwinner (Kennedy et al. 33). In essence, the author as an individual trying desperately to acquire all the qualities that Hester desired from a husband demonstrated Paul.
Additionally, readers are made aware that the family drama revolves about the strangeness of every character in the family. It may be likened to a gothic fiction tale, as the family house is a mirror image of the tormented and twisted minds of all character (Kennedy et al. 34). Throughout the story, it is plausible to state that evil and death lurk right around the corner every character’s life. This is further demonstrated by Paul’s instant and tragic death, meaning that he was the diabolic for the naming winning racehorses.
Writing Style
Lawrence has successfully brought out an allegorical type of writing style. The Rocking-Horse Winner sounds like a folktale or like a parable as the reader goes through all the events illustrated (Kennedy et al. 36). Also, the author has not adorned the language rendering it simple to the readers, in which case, it relates to critical actions as well as dialogues. Nevertheless, Lawrence has left out descriptions that may be defined as lengthy and too proxy that are commonly used in classic realist stories or novels (Kennedy et al. 38). The reader notes that the story maintains an air of mystery consistently as in folktales or parables. This style offers the reader with multiple possible interpretations that are hidden in the story waiting to be revealed (Interactive Reader 19). For instance, the reader may view the rocking horse as a particular symbol, although, he or she cannot be sure whether it is a representation of evil, good or something else entirely.
Tone
As the reader goes through the narrations of The Rocking-Horse Winner, he or she gets the feeling that Lawrence intended the audience to be adults. However, one also senses the sympathetic tone of the narrator every time he narrates about Paul. Nevertheless, throughout the narrations, the tone has remained ironic especially through Hester, who desired wealth and money but never did anything to attain them as they believed that such, is God-given luck (Krasny 70). Also, the story begins with the narrator's description of Hester’s beauty, which the reader cannot take at face value. This is mainly because as the story progresses, the narrator illustrates that in actual sense, she lacked inner beauty (Krasny 73).
Moreover, other characters such as Uncle Oscar have been illustrated as a rich and an individual full of wealth. However, the reader senses that perhaps, Uncle Oscar’s richness and wealth was from his abilities to exploit unsuspecting innocent people (Interactive Reader 27). Therefore, as indicated by the narrator that his wealth was out of pure luck, that may not be the case. The gradual deterioration of Paul’s health and his sudden tragic death changes the tone of the story entirely (Krasny 74). The author had successfully brought out an appealing character through Paul and is thus, saddened through his sad scenes. Nevertheless, for the rest of the characters, the same cannot be held true.
Analysis of the Title and Ending
As presented by Lawrence, the title sounds disinteresting to the reader as it may merely mean someone is winning a rocking horse. However, he has excellently revealed events more profound in the story that suggests to the reader that the situation is reversed (Krasny 76). One might think that it was Paul who won the rocking horse, but, events in the story suggests that it was the rocking horse who did. It is imperative to note that the rocking hose represented or symbolized human greed, materialism as well as a sexual danger (Krasny 76). For this reason, Lawrence has brilliantly used the title as the forces that led to the sudden and ultimate death of Paul. Therefore, one may suggest that the author successfully brought the dangers of greed, materialism and sexual threat to the reader's attention as in the end, the reader is saddened by what befalls him.




Works Cited
Interactive Reader and Writer for Critical Analysis: Grade 12. Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, 2008.
Kennedy, X J, and Dana Gioia. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Pearson, 2013. Print
Krasny, Michael. Masterpieces of Short Fiction. Routledge Publishing. New York. 2012. Print.
Lawrence, D H. The Rocking Horse Winner. Random House Publishers. Chicago. 2015. Print