Rocking Horse Winner
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Im writing about the little boy, Paul, in the short story “Rocking Horse Winner.” Paul is a young boy with a big imagination and the curiosity of a young child. I believe in this story he is driven to do what he does by a number of things. The first thing I feel drives him is that his mother doesnt seem to care for her children as much as she should, and Paul believes if he became lucky then his mother might care about him more. Another driving force of this character is that his mother tells him that their family is unlucky because they are the poorest members of the entire family. The last and final reason this character does what he does is he doesnt want the house to continue to whisper, “there must be more money, there must be more money!” and if he gets money it might stop.
Paul is a young man with a great imagination. You can see signs of his imagination in the story in several instances. The first place his great imagination shows up is when he rides his rocking horse trying to get to where there is luck, even though its impossible for a rocking horse to really take someone places except for in their minds. Another instance of him imagining is after he gets done riding the horse with a feverish determination he gets off and looks at the horse in the eyes and yells at the horse and uses a whip on the horse, remounts him and finally he gets off the horse and says he got there. Where he got Paul believes is to where the luck is, and when he gets there he comes up with a name of a racing horse whose going to win the next horse race that is raced, which usually that horse does win. The last thing that the young boy, Paul, imagines is that the house is always whispering, “There must be more money”, “There must be more money!” which as everyone knows a house cant really whisper things.
The first thing that drives Paul to do what he does is that his mother has kind of a cold heart toward him and his siblings, and he feels if he makes some money that it might make his mother love him more. His mom kind of shows signs of this when he tells his mother he is lucky she laughs and asks him how he knows that he tells her god did and she says “I hope He did, dear!” After he reassures his mother that God really did tell him hes lucky she sarcastically says “Excellent!” using one of her husbands exclamations. Another thing that drives this character to do what he does is he feels he isnt unlucky and he wants the house to stop whispering there must be more money, there must be more money! Later on in the story after Paul wins a bunch of money on a horse thats name comes to him while hes riding the rocking horse, his uncle Oscar asks the young boy what he plans to do with his winning “Of course,” said the boy, “I started it for mother. She said she had no luck, because father is unlucky, so I thought if I was lucky, it might stop whispering.” We then find out that the boy wants to have his Uncle put five thousand in a fund so that his mother will have a good birthday present of a thousand pounds for five consecutive years.
Paul is driven to find a way to get his family to no longer have to worry about money. He finally realizes that when he rides his rocking horse to where the luck is he will get the name of the horse whose going to win the next horse race