Crucible Essay

Veronica Gonzales

Period 3

            In The Rocking-Horse Winner, by D.H. Lawrence, greed is the cause of Paul’s death. The mother feels that the family is unlucky because they don’t have enough money. Paul feels that he needs to do something to make them lucky. He goes insane feeling that the walls are whispering to him. Because of this it causes him to become sick and eventually die.

            The mother feels that they are unlucky. “Because we’re the poor members of the family”(975). She feels dissatisfied. They don’t have a car and have to use somebody else’s of a taxi. She feels because her husband is unlucky. They need to have money to be happy. “Very unlucky, I should say,” she said bitterly (975). The people who are rich are lucky. She is not lucky because she does not have as much money as she would like. She is very unhappy and doesn’t like being unhappy.

Paul feels he has to help his family. He doesn’t like to see his mom unhappy because they are not lucky. “You gave me that ten-shilling note I started winning with; so I thought you were lucky” (977). His uncle gave him money and he started betting and won. He feels his uncle is lucky. This eventually leads to more serious gambling that he becomes obsessed over. “It’s Malabar! He screamed, in a powerful, strange voice.” (982). The boy is obsessed with gambling and is becoming insane. He uses his rocking horse to tell him the winner. He starts to win all this money and he feels they are no longer unlucky. But the walls won’t stop whispering to him.

He becomes very sick. “The boy, with his rather long, curly hair, was tossing ceaselessly on the pillow. He neither slept nor regained consciousness” (982). He has been gambling so much his little body could no linger take it. He became very ill because he tried to make his family lucky. “But the boy died in the night” (982). He came to his death trying to make his mother happy. Greed was the cause of his death.

The effect that greed has on the family is significant. It causes the young boy to begin gambling and become insane. The boy died. He was lucky and he told her so before he died. His hearing the walls whispering to him “to get more money” made him insane. It just goes to show how greedy people don’t get very far.