Rocking-Horse Winner By David Lawrence

820 Words4 Pages
A mother-son connection consists of mutual love, care, and attention. As one of the most consistent relationships available in terms of mutual commitment, David Lawrence, in the “Rocking-Horse Winner”, creates an inconsistent and unnatural relationship between parent and child. In the short story he details a mother-son relationship in which roles are reversed, where the mother is depicted as child and son depicted as parent. The mother, Hester, places an importance on money and social status. Which creates a strain between her and her son, Paul. Hester’s obsession with wealth clouds her maternal judgement and care and blinds her from her son’s attempts to seek her love. Hester rarely connects with Paul and when she does, her conversations and replies are “cold and absent” (96). Nonetheless, Paul takes up the role of parent in the relationship, determined to solely provide the love a two-way relationship requires without the help of his mother.…show more content…
She pretends to love her children but both she and her children realize her inability to love. Her attitude towards Paul is worsened as a result of her extravagant lifestyle. Unable to afford her lifestyle, Hester blames her husband for being unlucky and her children for being extra expenses. Her childish selfishness, immaturity, and obsession with wealth further strains her relationship with Paul as he takes on the responsibility to find her money. Hester’s obsession with money and status takes control of her emotion completely, denying her the ability to create a natural and loving relationship with Paul as child and parent roles
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