This young boy Paul seems to be aware of his family's money problems because his conversation with his mother point to that direction.

The reader is left with the feeling of total lack of sympathy for all the main characters in this story except for young paul who was made to feel like the breadwinner for the greedy, shallow and compleyly unlikable parents and his immoral uncle who encouraged young.

Young Paul becomes almost ill with worry, fanatically obsessed with gambling which in turn irritated and upset his mother whose family history suggests a gambling past that caused great damage. Young Paul was either unable or didn't wish to stop until he could win a major amount in an upcoming derby and was constantly frantic and worried because his ability to know the name of the winning horse of upcoming races was slipping and he was scared this could also be interpreted as a gambling addiction even though this is about a young child. The author does not state this outright but I think he implies as much.

We are not told by the author why the boy gets fatally ill after his final and sucessful prediction of the winning horse which gets his family over eighty thousand dollars; but unfortunately paul dies within days of becoming sick.

The young boy starts thinking of ways to be lucky so he can get money for his mother and in some strange childlike way comes to believe that the big rocking horse is the answer to his dilemma. He starts to rely on this belief and continuously rides his horse with a frenzy that upsets his sister, his nurse and causes anxiety to his m

Some common words found in the essay are:
Rocking-Horse Winner, Gardner Bassett, people money, winning horse, conversation mother, main characters,
Approximate Word count = 973
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)