The Rocking Horse Winner Analysis

This short story argues that money does not mean anything. According to Franklin (n.d.), “Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.” There are a lot of things worth more than money including kinship. Hence, parents should give more caring and love to their children instead of giving materialistic benefits to them.
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” (1926) is a gothic fiction written by D.H. Lawrence, an English novelist and poet who is famous for his works such as Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) and “Odour of Chrysanthemums” (1911). The chosen short story tells the story of a boy named Paul who becomes obsessed with racehorse gambling after he knows about his ability to predict the winning horses, in order to win the affections of his mother, Hester. Hester and the father are just like the most of parents. In their opinion, their main responsibility is to earn enough money to give a better life to their children but usually they neglect the children’s feeling and what the children actually need (Lawrence, 1926, para.3-4 ). According to Maslow’s Hierarchy (2007), a person has five motivational needs which are physiological , safety, belongingness, esteem and self-actualisation. A person needs to satisfy the lower level of need before they can progress to the higher level of needs. In the story, we can say that the parents have given Paul his basic necessities such as food, a pleasant