Rocking Horse Winner
Affects of the Materialistic Pursuit All the major characters in D. H. Lawrence’s, “The Rocking Horse Winner” revolve around the pursuit of materialistic abundance. In the story a boy, Paul, seems possessed to ride a rocking horse to supernaturally find a winning horse to an actual horse race, until he eventually dies because of it. The definition of materialistic in the American Heritage Dictionary, “The theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life” , can be useful to more clearly explain what is affecting the characters, especially Paul, in the story and to point out the irony of his pursuit. With Paul, the pursuit of money is an obsession. He feverishly wants to show his mother that he can get what she wants- money. When persistently questioned by Paul about her luckiness, Paul’s mother gives up and says “Perhaps I’m not really [lucky]”, but Paul “saw by the lines of her mouth, that she was only trying to hide something from him.” - her belief in her ability to make money. Paul said, ”I’m a lucky person”, but “The boy saw that she did not believe him” and “this angered him somewhat, and made him want to compel her at
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Paul House, Paul Im, Bassett Pauls, Heritage Dictionary, Oscar Bassett, Horse Winner, Oscar Cresswell, Uncle Oscars, Oscar Basset, Oscar Paul, rocking horse, materialistic pursuit, money paul, pauls mother, im lucky, oscar bassett, bassett lower, near death, pursuit possessions, social class,
Approximate Word count = 1480
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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