The Search For Love In The Rocking

Horse Winner Essay, Research Paper

The Search for Love in

“The Rocking Horse Winner”

“There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, but she had no luck” (873). Both of the main characters in ” The Rocking Horse Winner”, Hester and Paul, are in pursuit of love. First the mother, Hester, “married for love, and the love turned to dust”, she gained children from her marriage but, ” she could not love them” (873). No where in her life does she find love for anyone but herself. The closest thing to love that comes to her she rejects. That comes in the form of her young son Paul. Paul constantly looks for love and ” real affection” from his mother, who cannot or will not give it to him.

Her feelings towards her children, especially, Paul, is exemplified ” when her children [are] present” and ” she always [feels] the center of her heart go hard”(873). Everybody thought of her as a great mother who ” adores her children”, only she knew that ” her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anyone”, not even her children who desperately need it (873).

Paul has a conversation with his mother about luck. From this talk he decides that if he becomes lucky, he can win the love of his mother. To her luck is something that brings money, if you are lucky you can keep the money. His ” mother cannot be happy without the unending flow of cold, sure cash”(1470). Paul accumulates money from horse races, and when his uncle asks what he will do with his money Paul responds ” I started it for mother. She said she had no luck because father is unlucky . . .” he thinks that if he can be lucky he can gain her love (884).

Paul dies before he gains his mothers love. When he dies he leaves her with 80-thousand pounds, maybe enough to have gained her love. ” He dies, cannot live, cannot flourish partly because he is too good a son” (1471). Because of his death he looses the one thing that he ever really wanted, love and ” real affection”(1470). Paul’s uncle tells his mother after his death ” My God Hester, you’re 80-odd thousand to the good, but a poor devil of a son to the bad” meaning that she never realized how lucky she was to have a son that loved her and cared about her as much as Paul did. In the end his mother has lost the one thing that had truly loved her, and she has lost the only source of her true happiness, Paul’s money.