Just like Lawrence's own experience growing up, "The Rocking-Horse Winner" explores the impact a mother's own frustrations and sense of failure can have on a sensitive and intelligent child who craves her love.
In the story, the adults are caught up in what they think they should want: Money, success, nice furniture, stuff like that. They are often described as cold or unfeeling, and obsessed with visible signs of wealth and class position. Paul, on the other hand, is just a kid. His wants and needs are what he genuinely feels rather than what he thinks he should feel.
While the adults are concerned with how they measure up to society's definitions of success, Paul is more concerned with receiving his mother's love and seeing his family happy and together. Paul's way of looking at the world conflicts with the way the adults in the story see things, but when he discovers his luck at predicting winning racehorses, he finds a way to satisfy his family's superficial desires.
The story rocks back and forth between Paul's attempts to satisfy the genuine desires of his young heart as well as the mental desires of his ruthless family, asking us: Are we doomed to be destroyed by one or the other? Wouldn't it be nice be able to repay your parents for all they've done for you? While we're sure they'd appreciate it, we certainly hope it wouldn't make them love you any more than they already do.
In Lawrence's story, Paul uses his rocking horse and his luck as a way to help support his parents and their expensive tastes, thereby earning his mother's love.
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The story opens with a description of a woman still unnamed, but later revealed as Hester who is unlucky. She used to be in love with her husband when she married him, but at some point she stopped loving him.
The woman also struggles to feel warmth or love for her children, and she feels as though she needs to make up for some mistake she has made, although she is not exactly sure what that mistake is. Others in the town remark on what a good mother she is, but she and her children know that she is not.
For most of the story, Hester is nameless. Active Themes. Luck and Hard Work. Hester and her three children—two girls and one boy—live in a nice house and employ servants to attend to their needs.
But although they appear to be wealthy, they are always running out of money. The father cannot make his ideas turn a profit, and the mother has no success when she tries to make money herself.
Lawrence makes clear in the opening paragraphs of his story that the plot will revolve around money, or the lack thereof. They managed it very easily. Paul, at the other's suggestion, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform Paul's mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at a time, on the mother's birthday, for the next five years.
Paul's mother had her birthday in November. The house had been 'whispering' worse than ever lately, and, even in spite of his luck, Paul could not bear up against it. He was very anxious to see the effect of the birthday letter, telling his mother about the thousand pounds. When there were no visitors, Paul now took his meals with his parents, as he was beyond the nursery control.
His mother went into town nearly every day. She had discovered that she had an odd knack of sketching furs and dress materials, so she worked secretly in the studio of a friend who was the chief 'artist' for the leading drapers. She drew the figures of ladies in furs and ladies in silk and sequins for the newspaper advertisements.
This young woman artist earned several thousand pounds a year, but Paul's mother only made several hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something, and she did not succeed, even in making sketches for drapery advertisements. She was down to breakfast on the morning of her birthday. Paul watched her face as she read her letters. He knew the lawyer's letter. As his mother read it, her face hardened and became more expressionless.
Then a cold, determined look came on her mouth. She hid the letter under the pile of others, and said not a word about it. But in the afternoon Uncle Oscar appeared. He said Paul's mother had had a long interview with the lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt. We can get some more with the other," said the boy.
I'm sure to know for one of them," said Paul. So Uncle Oscar signed the agreement, and Paul's mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings, and Paul had a tutor. He was really going to Eton, his father's school, in the following autumn. There were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury Paul's mother had been used to.
And yet the voices in the house, behind the sprays of mimosa and almond-blossom, and from under the piles of iridescent cushions, simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: "There must be more money! Oh-h-h; there must be more money. Oh, now, now-w! Now-w-w - there must be more money! More than ever! It frightened Paul terribly. He studied away at his Latin and Greek with his tutor. But his intense hours were spent with Bassett.
The Grand National had gone by: he had not 'known', and had lost a hundred pounds. Summer was at hand. He was in agony for the Lincoln. But even for the Lincoln he didn't 'know', and he lost fifty pounds.
He became wild-eyed and strange, as if something were going to explode in him. Don't you bother about it! But it was as if the boy couldn't really hear what his uncle was saying. I've got to know for the Derby! Wouldn't you like to go now to the seaside, instead of waiting?
I think you'd better," she said, looking down at him anxiously, her heart curiously heavy because of him. You can still go from the seaside to see the Derby with your Uncle Oscar, if that that's what you wish. No need for you to wait here. Besides, I think you care too much about these races. It's a bad sign. My family has been a gambling family, and you won't know till you grow up how much damage it has done.
But it has done damage. I shall have to send Bassett away, and ask Uncle Oscar not to talk racing to you, unless you promise to be reasonable about it: go away to the seaside and forget it.
You're all nerves! I never knew you loved it. He gazed at her without speaking. He had a secret within a secret, something he had not divulged, even to Bassett or to his Uncle Oscar.
But his mother, after standing undecided and a little bit sullen for some moments, said: "Very well, then! Don't go to the seaside till after the Derby, if you don't wish it. But promise me you won't think so much about horse-racing and events as you call them! You needn't worry. I wouldn't worry, mother, if I were you. I mean, you ought to know you needn't worry," he insisted. Paul's secret of secrets was his wooden horse, that which had no name.
Since he was emancipated from a nurse and a nursery-governess, he had had his rocking-horse removed to his own bedroom at the top of the house. He's very good, he always keeps me company, when I'm there," said Paul. So the horse, rather shabby, stood in an arrested prance in the boy's bedroom.
The Derby was drawing near, and the boy grew more and more tense. He hardly heard what was spoken to him, he was very frail, and his eyes were really uncanny. His mother had sudden strange seizures of uneasiness about him. Sometimes, for half an hour, she would feel a sudden anxiety about him that was almost anguish. She wanted to rush to him at once, and know he was safe. Two nights before the Derby, she was at a big party in town, when one of her rushes of anxiety about her boy, her first-born, gripped her heart till she could hardly speak.
She fought with the feeling, might and main, for she believed in common sense. But it was too strong. She had to leave the dance and go downstairs to telephone to the country. The children's nursery-governess was terribly surprised and startled at being rung up in the night. Don't trouble. It's all right. Don't sit up. We shall be home fairly soon.
It was about one o'clock when Paul's mother and father drove up to their house. All was still. Paul's mother went to her room and slipped off her white fur cloak.
She had told her maid not to wait up for her. She heard her husband downstairs, mixing a whisky and soda. And then, because of the strange anxiety at her heart, she stole upstairs to her son's room.
Noiselessly she went along the upper corridor. Was there a faint noise? What was it? She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy, and yet not loud noise.
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