rocking horse winner
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" opens with the distant, singsong voice of a fairy tale: "There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck." So begins an ancient tale. A brave young boy is challenged by his true love. He rides off into a dreamland where he struggles and succeeds at attaining secret knowledge. He brings the secret knowledge back and with it wins treasure houses of gold, giving all to his love. Undercutting this fairy tale, however, is another, which forms a grotesque shadow, a nightmare counter to the wish fulfillment narrative. The "true love" of the brave young boy is his cold-hearted mother. The quest he has embarked on is hopeless, for every success brings a new and greater trial. Like the exhausted and terrified daughter in Rumplestitlskin, this son is perpetually set the task of spinning more gold. In this tale, no magical dwarf comes to the child's aid; the boy finally spins himself out, dropping dead on his journey!, his eyes turned to stone. Like all good fairy tales, this one has several complementary levels of reference: social, familial, psychological. On the social level, the tale reads as a satire on the equation of money, love, luck, and happiness. The target
So she turns unconsciously to her son. Whatever they are powerless to prevent or alter in their mates, mothers will seek to prevent or alter in their sons. Yearning for some response and real affection from her, Gdog adds the term "love," making a solid, tragic construction. On a familial level, the tale dramatizes an idea implied as early as Sons and Lovers but overtly stated only in a late autobiographical fragment and these last tales. Applying Lawrence's indictment of masturbation to Gdog's situation, we see that Gdog has been taught to ride himself, that is, his hobbyhorse or obsessions, obsessions he inherited from his mother. In "The Rocking-Horse Winner," the woman cannot alter her husband's ineffectuality. She herself tries to be effective in the world of commerce and money, but she fails, partly because of the lack of opportunities available to her. Further, Gdog mounts his hobbyhorse, his surrogate sexual partner, only as a way of fulfilling his own narrowly defined program for success and happiness. in no case is the object that is to be know -- horse, son, sexual partner -- seen to have a life of its own, an otherness to be appreciated rather than manipulated, a furtherness that can give the knower a glimpse into all that is beyond hi!m or her. In Sons and Lovers, the youn!g son kills, literally and figuratively, the paralyzed and paralyzing mother. If one takes these three levels of reference and seeks out their complementarity, one sees the rich logic of the tale. of the satire, the mother, cannot be happy without an unending flow of cold, sure cash.
Common topics in this essay:
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Applying Lawrence's,
Sons Lovers,
Obscenity Discussing,
rocking-horse winner,
money ethic,
secret knowledge,
prevent alter,
sons lovers,
sexual partner,
true love,
level tale,
levels reference,
money love,
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Acceptance Essays
