The Use of Eyes in “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence As William Shakespeare said, “The eyes are a window to your soul”; author D.H. Lawrence puts this quote to practice in his short story, “The Rocking Horse Winner.” He uses the eyes of his characters, in particular the protagonist Paul, to show changes or advancements of these characters over the course of the story. The first description of Paul`s eyes occurs when he is speaking with his mother Hester about luck and are described as “Uneasy eyes.” (371) This description shows that Paul is interested in what Hester has to say and desires her approval and love but doesn’t fully understand what she means. Paul`s eyes begin to change more dramatically as he rides his rocking horse;
Also, the story ends with some casting of the first stone and Jackson (1948) prefers to leave the gruesome details to the reader’s imagination. Nevertheless, in The Rocking-Horse Winner story, after Paul’s mother learns where her money comes from, the boy claims to be lucky, but sadly he died soon afterward. Oscar tells his sister “My God, Hester, you’re eighty-odd thousand to the good and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.”
This is yet another example of how the Eyes are being used to show that “god sees everything” as wilson said. But more specifically, the second quote shows how they will always be watching everything. So the quotes tells us what the eyes see and how the eyes looks at them, and these are answered the same way society tells us that god views upon everything. Most would fully agree that it is evident that fitzgerald intended for the eyes to be god's eyes down at the valley of ashes. This is yet but another example of the blind eyes representing
His physical blindness allows him to see Edgar 's innocence “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;/ I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen/ Our means secure us, and our mere defects/ Prove our commodities. O dear son
In Elie Weisel’s Memoir Night, The motif that stands out the most is eyes. The reason why is because in books eyes are usually not the main word that is used to describe different emotions and actions. Eyes are used in many interesting ways such as describing a person’s emotion, similes, and when eyes are used they can self-explain the reason for their significance in the sentence. Eyes in night are put in sentences, and can give imagery to what is currently happening in the memoir. Other ways eyes are used well as a motif, is when it is used to describe an emotion, but the way that eyes are used, can make the reader already know how that person is feeling, just by how eyes are represented in the sentence.
Paul's life is hard. His brother Erik makes choices that affect him drastically. In this book, Tangerine, Edward Bloor talks about the choices people around Paul's life make and how they affect him. As it says in the story, Erik spraypaints Paul's eyes. Erik did this when Paul was just five.
Another example of Paul discovering more about himself is when he finally remembers what happened to his eyes. “And I remembered Erik’s fingers prying my eyelids open while Vincent Castor sprayed white paint into them” (264). Paul is trading his literal eyesight in this quote for a figurative form of sight. He is able to “see” Erik for who he is and Paul can “see” who he is, meaning why he is afraid o f Erik and lifting his self-esteem as well as his understanding of himself. In both quotes Paul is either seeing (not recognizing himself as a hero) or seeing (flashback of Erik) aspects of his own life and personality and why he is the way he is, changing how he feels about
The parable of The Prodigal Son and the short story of The Rocking-Horse Winner have many similarities as well as differences. The Prodigal Son was written by St. Luke and is recorded in the book of Luke in the Bible. D.H. Lawrence wrote the short story: The Rocking-Horse Winner. Both of these stories are fiction based, and they hold many good lessons to learn from them.
The poem uses metaphorical symbolism to reveal that his emotions are as enormous as an ocean. Knowing that this poem is a metaphor we can assume see that the textual evidence is very keen and mild to find. However, the poem uses other ways to convey its messages such as hyperboles. In the last line, it indicated the hyperbole by mentioning, “ Below us, as far as my eyes could see”Tennyson 12. This shows us that he could only see so much that his eyes are weakened and old.
So, Paul is convinced that by playing on his rocking horse will reveal to him the winning horse. The winning horse would be the horse that Paul would bet on and receive a sum of money. Which, he thought would make his mother happy but would only
Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of how one man, Tea Cake, changes how a grown woman named Janie views life, opportunity, and happiness. Zora Neale Hurston employs parallelism in order to reveal the dynamic of this relationship between Janie and Tea Cake and writes, “He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (Hurston 128). At the very end of the book, Hurston writes again, “Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net.
Continuing this tone, he suggests that the Judge himself ignores his own evils, as “this proper face was what he beheld in the looking glass.” The use of the looking
Clare’s eyes always hold an aura of mystery and Irene continues to re-instill the qualities of Clare’s dark eyes. Then, Irene continues to set Clare apart as something ethereal when looking in her eyes at the tea party with Gertrude and Jack. Irene says, “... she turned an oblique look on Clare and encountered her peculiar eyes fixed on her with an expression so dark and deep and unfathomable that she had for a short moment the sensation of gazing into the eyes of some creature utterly strange and apart” (Larsen, 40). Throughout the text, Larsen continues to differentiate Clare from all the others characters in the book because of her eyes. In this quote, Clare is described as an “utterly strange creature” and her eyes are described as “unfathomable and dark.”
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston uses speech as a tool to show the progression of the story. Janie Crawford, the main character of the novel, finds her true identity and ability to control her voice through many hardships. When Janie’s grandmother dies she is married off, to be taken care of. In each marriage that follows, she learns what it is to be a woman with a will and a voice. Throughout the book, Janie finds herself struggling against intimidating men who attempt to victimize her into a powerless role.
Paul cannot control his behavioral outburst, and releases all his rage on the rocking horse. Paul becomes emotionally unstable, and lashes out at his mother when she catches him riding the rocking horse. The reason Paul acts this way is due to his inability to control his hyperactivity. Paul’s mental deformities are confirmation that his mother consumed alcohol while pregnant. Furthermore, Paul’s rocking horse symbolizes his delayed development due to fetal alcohol syndrome.
Elie compares Drumer's eyes to gaping wounds and wells. The eyes are such a meaningful and significant part of a person. They conveying emotion, personality, and are even said to be the windows to the soul, a reflection of one's true self. Elie