#157 The Rocking-Horse Winner- D.H. Lawrence
“There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all
the advantages, yet she had no luck.” She was never able to see the good things
in life. She had married for love, but it soon wasn’t enough. She had bonny
children but they gave her no joy. Her and her husband had jobs, but they spent
too much.
“Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a
hard little place that could not feel love…”
But children are exceptional at a few things, perception
(especially when it comes to their parents emotions) and imagination. Her son
Paul spent his entire life trying to find the “luck” that his mother thought
she lacked. He heard the house whisper the needs of his parents:
“And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase:
‘there must be more money!”
Paul had a toy Rocking Horse that he believed could ride him
to this luck. He rode himself tired, sick, and frenzied to where he believed he
could foretell the winners of the real horse races. And when he won, he could
give that money to his mother, to make her happy. But, of course it was never
enough for her. He hung onto that rocking horse until he was too old to be
playing with such toys. But holding onto his childhood meant that he could
still imagine his mother happy.
Paul wanted what all children want most—his mother’s love.
By the time he rode enough to give his mother all the money she could want, she
would lose him forever.
Lawrence was known for his risqué subjects and is remembered
most for pushing the boundaries of what topics could be considered literature.
Here we see none of that. Here is a beautiful tapestry of symbolism and story
telling; at once imaginative, and heartbreaking. I’d say this is the pinnacle
of short story writing craft in its purest sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment