D. H Lawrence is famous for his novels in which he explored the themes of sexuality and human relationships. However, his talent extended to short story genre as well. In a number of his short stories he used myth and fairy tale motives. Exactly these works demand full-scale exploration.
Lawrence created his own original fairy tales in such stories as The Rocking-Horse Winner. The story The Rocking-Horse Winner deals with the theme of Oedipal complex, which was often exploited by Lawrence in his other works (e. g. Sons and Lovers).The story explicates the relationships between son Paul and his mother.
Paul rejects to abandon the use of his rocking horse. He always resorts to it when some complicated questions or situations emerge. His passion of using the horse provokes uneasiness of those who surround him: he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the little girls peer at him uneasily. Wildly the horse careered, the waving dark hair of the boy tossed, his eyes had a strange glare in them (349).As the story proceeds Paul does not develop into a young man, he still preserves behavior not typical for his age, while his mother is so carried away by the money that she cannot look after her son properly. The story bears sarcastic tone and preaches on topics of value of love and hazard of material benefits with rather archly intonation.
In the short story the rocking horse is used to convey a metaphorical idea of masturbation. Paul’s inner state is filled with anger, solitude and despair so that only his riding of the rocking horse is the only consolation.To certain extent, we can suppose that Paul by masturbating recompenses for his mother’s verdancy which becomes apparent through her passion for money, though her materialistic nature. Just the same as Paul’s money presented to his mother is never sufficient and does not produce necessary effect of satisfaction is his masturbation which is equally vain. The author message is that for Paul to achieve self-actualization it is necessary to set himself free of the Oedipal complex.
