Brainstorming on the symbolism of The Rocking Horse Winner
...r son that his father is unlucky, which to her is obviously a character flaw. The mother dismisses the contributions and value of the father, and this forces Paul to dismiss them, and his father, also. One of the greatest crimes that parents can commit is to defame the other parent in front of a child, as Paul's mother does. This shows a child that his father or mother is "bad" in the eyes of the other parent, and the child, as an extension of the first parent, feels "bad" too. An important conversation between Paul and his mother occurs at the beginning of the story. Paul's mother tells him that they are the poor members of the family because, as mentioned before, his father had no luck. She defines luck as what causes one to have money, and states that she is not lucky either. Paul announces at this point that he is lucky, and begins to search for the secret to luck. By the end of the story, Paul has learned how to earn money, which makes him feel lucky. Readers realize that Paul rides a rocking-horse, until something somehow tells him the winner of a horse race. He can then gamble and win large amounts of money, and readers know that he is gambling just to try to please his mother. At one point, Paul tells his mother, "...you ought to know you needn't worry." This is a very significant moment in the story, but there is a reversal in the roles as there should be. Parents should be able to tell their children that they don't need to worry about money or their parents. However, Paul is telling his mother not to worry about him, or money, indirectly. He hears his house whisper the echoes of, "There must be more money!" This money, as everyone knows, will bring happiness, security, and success. This echo resounds in many American homes today and causes countless perceptive children to shoulder a vast amount of stress and responsibility towards their parents at younger and younger ages. While everyone wants kids to be mature and responsible, the fact is, they are children, and this kind of responsibility robs them of a happy, carefree childhood. The childhood where no matter how few or how many material things they have, they have security in their parents' love. Paul's driving force is his desire to attain luck in order to please his mother. He senses in her a deficiency, and convinces himself that money can fulfill it. However, at the beginning of the story, we are told that there is a part of Paul's mother that doesn't love her children. This hard place in her heart is sensed by Paul and his sisters, and no one else. Outwardly, she acts like a good mother, but children are often much keener than we realize when it comes to actors. Since Paul knows that his mother does not love him with her whole heart, it is reasonable to assume that this knowledge causes him a great deal of psychological trauma. So, in reality, Paul's desperate search for luck and money to satisfy his unhappy mother is really an urgent quest to gain love and approval from her. In today's society, there are children, just like Paul, who are being raised by a mother or father who, for some reason, is unable to love them the way that all children deserve to be loved. These children are physically or emotionally neglected, and can become scarred for life. In this tale, Paul dies at a young age, but in reality it is plausible to suggest that some of these unloved children become gang members, drug abusers, or adults that are unable to sustain normal relationships. These situations may develop due to a s...