Paul

Paul is a young boy who is the central character of the story. He is aware of his family’s financial situation, asking his mother early on “why are we poor, mother?” He and his sisters hear “the unspoken words” of the house they live in, endlessly whispering (and later screaming) that they need more money. Despite their economic woes, Paul’s parents provide him and his siblings with expensive gifts, such as “the shining modern rocking-horse” Paul receives one Christmas. After Paul has a conversation with his mother about luck and money, he becomes singularly focused on becoming lucky so that he can help solve their family’s financial problems. This goal leads Paul to spend lots of time rocking on his horse, trying to discover “the secret to ‘luck.’ ” As he does so, his sisters notice how “madly” he rides and the “strange fire in” his eyes, which scares them. It is clear from early in the story that Paul enters an almost otherworldly state of mind when he is riding his rocking horse.

Paul reaches a turning point when Uncle Oscar comes to the house and sees him riding. Oscar calls Paul “young jockey” and asks if his horse is winning. In response, Paul continues riding, his eyes “fierce” and his stare “straight ahead” until he completes his imaginary race. He informs his uncle that he changes the rocking horse’s name based on the winning horse he is predicting for an upcoming race, and it is soon revealed that Paul bets on horses, along with the gardener Bassett, and has won a decent sum of money. In other words, Paul has become lucky. Bassett thinks that Paul has a gift “from heaven” and guarantees that when Paul is sure of a winner, even if the horse is relatively unknown, you can be sure the horse will win. Over the course of the story, Oscar learns that Paul is saving money to help his family pay off debts.

Paul attempts to please his mother and lighten her load, but he doesn’t want her to know that he is the one giving her money. She wastes the money on frivolous luxuries, so instead of silencing the voices in the house, as Paul intended, Paul’s winnings and his mother’s subsequent spending make the house want even more money. Paul becomes increasingly anxious about his upcoming bets, feeling more pressure to win money for his family. His obsession eventually sickens him, and Paul dies at the end of the story from “a brain sickness.” Lawrence implies that he is driven to exhaustion by his pursuit of luck and wealth on behalf of his mother, and when Paul dies, his uncle asserts that “he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.” Oscar perceives that Paul was motivated by something that a child should not have to worry about and that having to take on the responsibility of an adult has ended up destroying him.

Hester (Paul’s Mother)

Paul’s mother, Hester, who remains unnamed until the very end of the story, is the first character introduced. Her attitude and desires motivate Paul’s actions in the story. She is described as physically beautiful and having come from a wealthy family; however, she “had no luck.” From her perspective, having no luck has damned her to a life of struggle. She has married a man who is also not lucky because he does not make enough money for her to maintain the standard of living to which she is accustomed. Her obsession with money and luck distracts her from her family, to the point where she feels she does not really love her children, even though outsiders think “she is such a good mother.” The mother is constantly dissatisfied with her life because there is “never enough money,” which is symbolically reflected in the whispering of the walls that demand “more money” throughout the story. When the family has to take a taxi one day, the mother explains to Paul that they “are the poor members of the family.” This and the conversation they have about luck, during which the mother claims that luck is superior to money, sets into motion the tragic demise of her son.

The mother proves herself irresponsible with money after she receives a sum of five thousand pounds that she does not know are from her son’s gambling wins. First, she is not satisfied with one thousand pounds per year, so she requests the entire amount. Then, she quickly spends it all on luxuries, making the house’s whispers grow louder. The mother buys “flowers in the winter” in a pathetic attempt to raise her standard of living to what she thinks she deserves and what she expects from her youth. Near the end of the story, the mother does exhibit some care for her son, despite the early comments that she doesn’t love her children. She has a bad feeling about him and calls the nurse to check in; however, when she goes home, she finds him manically riding his rocking horse. As her son dies, the mother learns that he was “lucky,” and from that she can infer that her comments about luck inspired his riding and his gambling, as well as ultimately causing his death.

Oscar Cresswell (Uncle Oscar)

Oscar is Paul’s uncle, whose inquiries about Paul’s horse riding lead to the revelation of Paul’s uncanny luck in choosing winners for horse races and his substantial winnings. Oscar visits the family house and makes an offhand comment while Paul rides his rocking horse, simply asking if the boy is “Riding a winner.” Oscar seems amused at first by Paul’s interest in the races, but once he learns that the boy has luck and that he has earned some money on his bets, Oscar starts to take him more seriously. He eventually agrees to partner with Bassett and Paul. Oscar has a much more carefree attitude than any of the people in Paul’s house, so he serves as a contrast to the mother and to Paul. He tries to encourage Paul to not “bother” about the family’s money problems, but he does not have any impact on Paul’s mania. Oscar has the last word in the story when he comments that even though it is tragic that Paul died, “he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.” Oscar perceives that the boy was overwhelmed trying to resolve his family’s financial trouble. He believes that this was no life for a child; Oscar’s attitude is that if a child has to become that obsessed with making money to care for his family, he may as well be dead.

Bassett

Bassett is a gardener at the family’s house. He had served in the army with Uncle Oscar, but he was wounded. The narrator says that Bassett “lived for horse racing,” which initiates the bond between him and Paul. Bassett has a deep respect for the boy’s ability to guess the winner of an upcoming horse race, even when the horse he chooses seems unlikely to win. When Bassett talks about Paul’s bets, he is “terribly serious,” and he is later described as speaking of Paul “in a secret, religious voice.” The religious language implies that Bassett thinks of Paul’s gift as supernatural or God-given, and that inspires reverence in the gardener. Bassett and Paul become betting partners, and both benefit financially. At the end of the story, when Paul is on his deathbed, Bassett wants to see him to let him know that his chosen winner of the Derby did, in fact, win. The young man is crying as he tells the boy that he just won eighty thousand pounds betting on Malabar.