Many people seem to believe that money means happiness and if you have it you will have what is thought to be the perfect life. In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting two stories called “The Jewelry” and “The Rocking-Horse Winner. ” I found these stories to be very shallow but interesting and wrong but also right at the very same time.
The characters that make up these short stories are also very intriguing and have a side to them that you don’t find out until later in the story.Can money be unhealthy and damaging to a marriage or family? In the story “The Jewelry” two people were madly in love and he claimed there were only two things about her that he didn’t like and that was her love for theater and false jewelry. They were not the richest people in the society but they portrayed themselves to be. The husband had no desire for the theater like his wife did and also made her go alone or with friends and he always laughed and joked about her overly large fake jewelry.She died of pneumonia and the husband became very depressed and in debt and just really had no social life at all anymore and just stayed to himself until he finally snapped out of it and sold all her jewelry which came as a big surprise because all of her what he thought was false jewelry was actually real and was worth tons of money. At first he we angry because he did not know how she would have afforded jewelry like that and made an assumption she was cheating then he became very greedy and wanted all the money he could get.
What once was a humble and sweet man turned into a very greedy and money hungry man that acted very rude. He did not care about his wife’s death anymore and was all of a sudden as happy and he had ever been all because of money. He spent the money as fast as he had got it and was now spending his time with richer people and surprisingly found a love for theater. He found a new wife not to long after that which made his life awful. He let the passion for money get to him very easily and at first it seemed to be the best thing that had ever happened to him but in the end he learned his lesson and lived a very miserable life.This man was proof that no matter what you inherit or come across you should always keep a level head and stay true to the person you truly are.
If this man wouldn’t have taken all the good things that had happened to him in the wrong way he could have lived a very fulfilling and satisfying life compared to what he has now. In this story he proved that money can be a very bad thing for a person that is weak in his ways and morals. He has made it clear that bad people get what is coming to them no matter how long it take or what it takes to get there.In the story “The Rocking-Horse Winner” it is about a fairly large family made up of three kids that are very genuine and loving. This family is also not considered to be very wealthy but they made themselves struggle financially because they only wanted nice things and wanted people to think that they had a lot of money. They had a large home and a maid that waited on them and watched the children.
Everyone thought that the Mother was a loving mom that loved her children dearly and was a great wife but in her heart she was bitter at being married and having kids.All the kids knew that their mother had a unheard hatred for them but never said a word. The son became very money curious and began to ask his mother a lot of question which made her even more bitter. The son considered himself to be lucky unlike the rest of the family.
He heard the house say things about money and strived to find a way to provide for his mother. He soon learned that his rocking horse in his room would tell him the name to a winning horse if he road it and thought very vigorously, which actually worked.Nobody knew about his secret until the very end where he risk his own life to provide for his mother, The mom was a very greedy woman and only cared about money and how they could make more of it. Instead of her providing for her kids like a normal parent does the kid provided for her and she was okay with that. She dressed id fur and jewels and went to big parties and spends what money they had on materialistic things for only her.
The boy came across a lot of money and was going to give her a certain amount once a year on her birthday but she demanded to have it all at once, which the boy allowed her to do so.By riding his rocking horse the way he did to find out the secret horses name we grew very tired and anxious. His attitude and poise scared everyone when he was on the horse. The Mother finally became concerned with her sons wellbeing in the end but it was already too late and the little boy died trying to satisfy his mother’s needs. With his last winnings he won his Mother a ton of money and she was wrapped up in the money to even morn her owns sons death. In this story we learn that money has absolutely destroyed a wife and a mother of three innocent children.
She was so concerned about money and how she could spend it on herself that she was cold hearted to her entire family and didn’t even show them love or passion that they deserved. This should have been a very sad but true wake up call to many people that read this story because so many people become bitter to the ones that love them the most over money. “The Jewelry” and “The Rocking-Horse Winner are two very similar stories about people being or turning into extremely greedy people that only worry about themselves when money gets involved.In the story “The Jewelry” money turns a great man into a horrible person that no one can really stand and he ends up gaining a person because of his riches that is mean to him and makes him miserable where as in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” the Mother starts out as a bitter mean woman that is fake to everyone but her family and uses everyone for what they can give her but in the end she loses her son.
He over did himself just to make her happy. These two characters don’t start out the same but end up being just a like in these two stories.
