The Lottery vs the Rocking-Horse Winner

The Lottery vs the Rocking-Horse Winner

  • Submitted By: ahickey
  • Date Submitted: 07/14/2010 7:56 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 3088
  • Page: 13
  • Views: 10

Two great literary works from American history is “The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, by D.H. Lawrence. “The Lottery” is a story about a small village coming together for an annual tradition of drawing for one person to be the winner of the lottery. In the story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, a young boy named Paul is yearning for the love of his mother and will do anything to win her love. In the first read of both stories the reader will think that there is no similarity between the two short stories. After thinking more and discovering the message in each of the two stories there is love, fear and secrets in both. Human nature also adds a few commonalities in the stories, and the age old questions of, “is human nature predictable?” comes into play. Looking deep into each story there is an abundance of symbolism in both, some of the symbols may not be as apparent as others are however by digging deep enough they will be uncovered. One of the greatest challenges when reading a story or book is doing a comparison, most of the time there is a great deal of research and thought that has to be completed.
The short story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”, has a wonderful life message that everyone should learn. Paul wants his mother to give him the greatest gift that any mother can give a child and that gift is love. Paul goes to great lengths to try to accomplish his goal and it does not take long for him to realize that all his efforts may not work. The message in this story is experienced by many in life, however most are not as dramatic as that of Paul’s mother. Love and family is what can make you rich, not money or possessions. Paul’s family does not have love and they do not have the money that his mother likes to think they have. This family is poor in both love and money. The mother in the story has many faults, she puts her social status above her love for her children, possessions have a higher priority and she...

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