A Feminist Reading of D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner

"The Rocking Horse Winner" is the story of a boy's gift for picking the winners in horse races. An omniscient narrator relates the tale of a boy whose family is always short of money. His mother is incapable of showing love and is obsessed with the status that material wealth can provide. This paper will explore the premise that D.H. Lawrence presented the figure of the mother as the villain; a loathsome, unloving character …

…mother from destroying all that was good and genuine. She didn't not even learn anything from Paul's death. This villainous creature will still be unsatisfied and seek for something to fulfill her needs. Paul died in vain. Paul never gave her life. He merely sustained the illusion of life that she was seeking; money. One only hopes to warn the next male victim that this loathsome woman chooses to destroy for her own monetary gains.