Personification In The Rocking Horse Winner

Your chances of winning the lottery is 1 to 13,983,816, that is .0000072%. However, these odds did not pertain to young Paul, in fact, he was unquestionably lucky, or so it appears. The short story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” is written by D.H. Lawrence, about a family whose lifestyle isn’t suiting their budget. D.H. Lawrence uses characterization, theme, and literary devices such as, personification and imagery, to best explain Paul’s hardships of his life.

Throughout the story, D.H. Lawrence exceptionally broadens the true personalities and motives for his main characters; Paul and his mother. Paul is more of a free willed child that grows into a young adult trying to improve his and his family’s life. For instance, “The child had never been to a race meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire,” (page

An example of the personification technique is in this quote, “And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money! There must be more money!,” (page 763). This personification quote best explains that his family is having money problems and that the need for money is becoming greater and greater. Paul hears his house repeating the phrase throughout his childhood and even when he is growing up. To depict imagery, “When the two girls were playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in the. The little girls dared not to speak to him,” (page 764). Reading this quote not only does it sketch a view of the scene in your mind, but it also portrays the two little girls’ feelings and surfaces them onto your body. These quotes not only depict personification and imagery, but help depict the Paul’s