"The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a short story by D. H. Lawrence. It was first published in July 1926, in Harper's Bazaar and subsequently appeared in the first volume of Lawrence's collected short stories. It was made into a full-length film directed by Anthony Pelissier and starring John Howard Davies, Valerie Hobson and John Mills; the film was released in the United Kingdom in 1949 and in 1950 in the United States.
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The story describes a young middle-class Englishwoman who "had no luck." Though outwardly successful, she is haunted by a sense of failure; her husband is a ne'er-do-well and her work as a commercial artist doesn't earn as much as she'd like. The family's lifestyle exceeds its income and unspoken anxiety about money permeates the household. Her children, a son Paul and his two sisters, sense this anxiety, and Paul even claims he can hear the house "whispering" There must be more money.
Paul tells his Uncle Oscar Cresswell about betting on horse races with Bassett, the gardener. He's been placing bets using his pocket money and has won and saved three hundred twenty pounds. Sometimes he says he is "sure" of a winner for an upcoming race, and the horses he names do in fact win, sometimes at remarkable odds. Uncle Oscar and Bassett both place large bets on the horses Paul names.
After further winning, Paul and Oscar arrange to give the mother a gift of five thousand pounds, but the gift only lets her spend more. Disappointed, Paul tries harder than ever to be "lucky". As the Derby approaches, Paul is determined to learn the winner. Concerned about his health, his mother rushes home from a party and discovers his secret. He has been spending hours riding his rocking horse, sometimes all night long, until he "gets there", into a clairvoyant state where he can be sure of the winner's name.
Paul remains ill through the day of the Derby. Informed by Cresswell, Bassett has placed Paul's bet on Malabar, at fourteen to one. When he is informed by Bassett that he now has 80,000 pounds, Paul says to his mother:
"I never told you, mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get there, then I'm absolutely sure – oh absolutely! Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky!"
"No, you never did," said his mother.
The boy dies in the night and his mother hears her brother say, “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.”
Money, luck, and a children’s rocking horse are all things that can be seen as symbolism in the story. Throughout the story there is a specific line that keeps getting repeated; “There must be more money!” This line shows how all the symbolism ties in with one another. Money is something that the family, especially the mother, craves to have. The family had to keep up with the “style” in which they lived in, but the problem with that is they didn’t have the money in order to do that. With that the mother feels as if she cant love her children the way that she should. Luck is everything to the family. Like the mother says in the story, “If you’re lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money.” (Lawrence 527). The boy, Paul, does anything that he can to prove to his mother that he has luck and win her love. The way that he does this is by winning bets on horse racing, so that he can give his mother all the money that she can have. Paul’s rocking horse has the most significant symbolism in the whole story. The rocking horse symbolizes real horses, which sometimes gave him luck. When Paul would ride his horse for long periods of time he became “nearly hypnotized”, where he is able to determine what horse is going to win the next big horse race (Magill Book Reviews). Paul would then bet on the horse, and win money which he later gives to him mother. In the end of the story, Paul only wants his mother’s love, so he rides his rocking horse ferociously in order to find out what horse is going to win the last big race of the season. Once Paul finds out that the horse that he chose to win won, and that “his mother is 80,000 pounds to the good”, he dies in his mother’s arms (Magill Book Reviews). Even though there is multiple things that one can take symbolism from in the story, these are the three main ones that D. H. Lawrence concentrated on.
Paul: A young boy who notices that his mother doesn’t love him and his sisters, even though she “adores” them (526). When he receives a rocking horse for Christmas, he rides it often and come to find that he can predict what horse is going to win the next big horse race.
Hester: Paul’s mother. She becomes “dissatisfied with her marriage” when she finds that her husband is not lucky and doesn’t make enough money due to that fact (Cummings).
Basset: The family gardener. Is the one who gets Paul into horse racing, and later becomes “betting partners” (Cummings).
Oscar Creswell: Paul’s uncle and his mother’s brother. Provided the money that Paul used to make his first win at the horse race. Signed the lawyer papers in order for Paul’s mother to receive “one thousand pounds at a time, on the mother’s birthday, for the next five year” (532). Becomes partners with Paul and Basset.
W. D. Snodgrass offered a Freudian interpretation of the story in The Hudson Review in 1958. His interpretation hinged on the resemblance of "luck" to "lucre", and the vaguer resemblance of both to "love." Snodgrass argued that Paul's desire "to be lucky" represents an oedipal desire to replace his father in his mother's life.