Discussion Topic
The incorporation and impact of supernatural elements in "The Rocking-Horse Winner."
Summary:
In "The Rocking-Horse Winner," supernatural elements are incorporated through Paul's uncanny ability to predict horse race winners while riding his rocking horse. This mystical talent, which seems to stem from an almost otherworldly connection, highlights themes of luck and fate. The impact is significant as it drives the plot and ultimately leads to Paul's tragic demise, emphasizing the destructive nature of greed and obsession.
What are some supernatural elements in "The Rocking-Horse Winner"?
I believe that the best answer to this question is to either claim that Paul himself is the supernatural element, or that the rocking horse is the supernatural element. I suppose you could claim that Paul and the rocking horse have a supernatural synergistic effect. The term "synergistic effect" is often used in health classes when teaching about drugs, uses, and abuses. The synergistic effect occurs when two drugs work in concert with each other to give a better result than each drug could do singly. Paul might be capable of picking fairly good odds on the horse races by himself. It's also possible that any male child riding the rocking horse gains a slight ability to pick future winning horses. We simply do not know. What we do know is that when Paul and the rocking horse are combined, Paul is able to predict winning horses with uncanny accuracy.
In D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner," there are several elements of the supernatural.
As the boy Paul grows up in a house where money is the major concern of his mother, the house seems to whisper, "There must be more money." This haunts the child.
His mother telling him that life is financially hard because his father has no "luck" indicates that things happen by an invisible, supernatural hand that makes things good for people or not: with or without luck.
The fact that Paul knows which horses to choose in order to win at the races is also fantastical and supernatural in nature.
Even at the end when he rides on his horse in a frenzied state, exhausted and not realizing what he has done, so much so that it kills him, he is driven by what seems to be an unseen force.
All of these things seem to spring from a supernatural place.
How does Lawrence make events in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" believable despite the supernatural elements?
There certainly is the indication of supernatural occurrence in this story - all under the guise of "luck." The reason the story is believable and something more than a story about luck and Paul's prophetic picks is that the story is more of an allegory about the inability of love to be supplanted by money.
Supernatural or not, Paul's ability to predict winners is either divinely inspired, a deal with the devil, or just plain dumb luck. Given the story's allegory which is a criticism of materialism (money), it would seem that either luck or a sinister force of the supernatural is at work. Paul is simply trying to please his mother (certainly an Oedipal thing going on here) but she persuades/seduces him into thinking that money, rather than love, is how to make their family happy. Thus, the story becomes less about the supernatural and more about Paul's odd quest to find happiness for his family. The trouble is that it is based on this materialistic goal.
In fact, the story insists upon this notion of morality being confused with money. Consider the last line of the story:
And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brother's voice saying to her: "My God, Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner."
Note the repetition of words like "good," "bad," and "devil." Paul is forced to become something of a devil chasing money. Also note that Hester's brother is speaking of moral terms like "good" and "bad" in terms of money. "Eighty-odd thousand" 'to the good' and "a poor devil of a son to the bad." The terms of money and morality/ethics are confused. This is the point: that the mother confused money for happiness, confused it for what is actually good in life.