Psychoanalytical reading of D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking-Horse Winner - Essay Example

oundly polemical writer with radical views, who regarded sex, the primitive subconscious, and nature as cures to what he considered the evils of modern industrialized society.” (Quoted in oldpoetry.com). Lawrence believed in creating such work that could describe the true picture of motivation behind human actions and reactions. “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is the example of his most refined works of art and it interprets the depth human mind perceives. The story is about a young boy named Paul, who is concerned to guard his house from the cruel clutches of unluckiness and consequent whispering coming out of it constantly.

The boy, in the story, lives with his parents and two younger sisters in a well-off family and a gorgeous house. All the three children feel the presence of an unseen whispering repeatedly, in the whole environment of the dwelling, that “there should be more money”. “The children could hear it at Christmas”, the writer states, “when the expensive and splendid toys filled the nursery.  Behind the shining modern rocking-horse, behind the smart dolls-house, a voice would start whispering:  There must be more money!

   There must be more money!” (Lawrence, 1926:2). Paul, being the eldest and the most sensitive, strives to acquire information from his mother regarding the problem of money shortage and its solution. On coming to know about the fact that his father is an unlucky person, and cannot earn a lot, he assures his mother that he is a lucky one. Thus, he seems determined to search for luck and fortune in life to prove himself as fortunate. Here, Lawrence skillfully articulates the ideas floating in a child’s mind and his quest to make efforts for the uplift of his family within his available resources.

In order to obtain luck, the small hero starts riding his tiny wooden rocking toy horse taking it the real one. Paul whips the horse and drove it in an extremely high speed to reach the place where luck dwells. As the