Rocking-Horse Winner Research Articles

A Transitivity Analysis of D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking Horse Winner

This study uses Halliday’s transitivity approach to analyze D. H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner. The purpose is to provide a linguistic analysis of the literary work by Lawrence to see how far the linguistic approaches to literary texts conform to the literary analyses of the same texts. The study uses a framework based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar, in which process types are identified in the text and then used to arrive at an interpretation of the text based on the linguistic analysis. The linguistic outcomes correspond with the psychological interpretations of the story. In addition, the mother-son relationship is recurrent in D. H. Lawrence’s fiction. This further supports the connection between the linguistic and the literary interpretation of the story and shows how a linguistic analysis may lead to one based on literary approaches.

교양수업의 단편소설 강독 사례

This thesis aims to find a desirable direction for liberal arts classes by taking one of my liberal arts classes, Western Classics in Modern Age as an example and analyzing the main topics and discussions held in the class. Students were supposed to read 8 English short stories during a semester in the general liberal arts course of 2 credits, and all of the students majored in natural science or engineering. Among the 8 stories, this thesis exclusively pays attention to D. H. Lawrence's short story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner”. Students’ preference for this story stems from their interest in the issues of 'luck' and 'money' which are the central themes of “The Rocking-Horse Winner.” However, this story includes an acute criticism of the negativity of capitalist civilization and culture that make the desire for more money insatiable. Moreover, the process where a mother without maternal love drives her child to death is impressively devastating. “The Rocking-Horse Winner” was a good example that met the goal of this class in that it urged students to think of critical problems of ourselves and our times as well.

On the Three Themes of The Rocking-Horse Winner

On the Three Themes of The Rocking-Horse Winner

Poetics of the Uncanny: A Post-Phenomenological Critique of D. H. Lawrence and Somerset Maugham’s Short Fiction

Taking issue with Sigmund Freud’s premise on the subject, this essay seeks alternately to inquire into, challenge, and broaden our understanding of the uncanny. Even though this genius from the field of psychoanalysis is quite right in wreathing the uncanny with the murky aura that it wears to date, his insistence on driving one way traffic from heimlich to das unheimliche while at the same time refusing to let it out of “the realm of the frightening” gives a kind of staleness and fixity to the subject of the uncanny, which is no less than its undoing, especially when it comes to its artistic representation. Eschewing psychoanalytical debates and focusing rather upon the post-phenomenological discourse, I’ll show as to how the homely artistic devices like paradox, reversal, thematic and narrative flux, unswerving matter-of-factness yield an uncanny import in “The Rocking-Horse Winner” and “The Book Bag,” the two short stories by Lawrence and Maugham respectively. Insisting upon the essential uncanniness of art, this article proposes that the uncanny hinges on what Martin Seel (2005) describes as art’s fundamental “irreality” and Theodor Adorno (1973) calls “appearances”. I hypothesize that the uncanny owes its life to a continual movement of the subject matter between openness and closure, between imagination and reality, between the outer world and the inner domain, between what Bhabha (1992) alludes to as the world and the home.

Animal Vision and Life Consciousness—‘Horse’ in D. H. Lawrence’s 1920s Short Stories

D. H. Lawrence is seeking for the consciousness of life throughout his lifelong creation; he resorts to animals that bear closer connections with nature mainly in the 1920s. Based on three short stories which mention ‘horse’ in the title, “The Horse-dealer’s daughter” (1922), “The Woman Who Rode Away” (1925) and “The Rocking-horse Winner” (1926), this essay illustrates how horses function as Lawrence’s pastoral ideal, pursuit for the primitive and shape of humanity. From the background that represents the past agricultural lifestyle to a life vehicle that carries the woman to freedom, and finally to a symbol with fantasy that mirrors crises in human relations, Lawrence’s deepening attention towards the ‘horse’ belabors his life pursuit of the primitive and balances between the binary oppositions of animality and humanity, finding for modern people a way out of distortions under industrialization and civilization.

MODERNISM IN “MABEL” AND “THE ROCKING-HORSE WINNER”

Modernism in writing had influences or impacts from the Industrial Revolution that took place before and after the turn of the 20th century. Unsurprisingly, it affected many changes in human’s thought. In this article, I discussed influences of the changes that are represented in two short stories titled “Mabel” by W.S. Maugham and “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence.

The Stylistic Device of Repetition in D H Lawrence's Short Story "The Rocking Horse Winner"

The Stylistic Device of Repetition in D H Lawrence's Short Story "The Rocking Horse Winner"

D.H. Lawrence ve Baba Katilliği

D. H. Lawrence
 (1885-1930) is an English writer and poet of the 20th century. He wrote many
 novels, short stories, and poems reflecting human psychology. His short story
 “The Rocking-Horse Winner” is an autobiographical work delineating the
 mother-son and father-son relationships with reference to the Freudian theory
 of “patricide”. Therefore, this article portrays how the protagonist of the
 short story resembles Lawrence himself in the sense that they both kill their
 fathers symbolically.  

Ego Readings vs. Reading for Psyche

Jung claims that visionary imaginative literature, because its source is the collective unconscious, helps the collective psyche self-regulate. Proving Jung’s claim is difficult since shifts in collective consciousness have many causes, but an instance of literature’s playing a part in such a shift is Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book which contributed to collective realization of the inherent limitations of point of view. Sometimes literature contributes to collective consciousness through tales bringing into focus a collective crisis, such as Jorge Luis Borges’s stories “The Garden of Forking Paths,” “The Library of Babel,” and “The Secret Miracle” which convey the modern dilemma of loss of absolute transcendent truths. Literature, however, cannot bring unconscious contents to consciousness if readers read with rigid ego boundaries, what I call ego readings. Slipping free from ego readings is more likely if one becomes aware that one is so reading. If readers already have experience of psyche beyond ego, they are more likely to be able to read for psyche. Still, even if readers do not have such experience, literature itself can initiate one into the existence of psyche as my reading of Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger initiated me. One can become aware of performing ego readings through clues such as habitually discovering in the text what one already thinks, reading for plot, becoming angry at a text, discovering that one has been in denial about a text, and reading to find support for an argument. This latter practice characterizes literary criticism, as illustrated by Jacques Lacan’s, Jacques Derrida’s, and Barbara Johnson’s responses to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” Paradoxically, the professional response to literature may obstruct reading literature for psyche. If one can overcome ego resistance to a text, as I suggest through my experience of reading D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner,” one can garner a story’s psychological riches. Still, resistance may arise from ethical concerns, including responsibility to oneself, so that the relationship between self and text requires conscious and conscientious negotiation, an unsettling process as I detail in reference to my reading of Roberto Bolano’s 2666. Once readers are aware of performing ego readings, they can attempt to loosen their ego boundaries through focused attention (an insight emerging from reading Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens”), particularly toward numinous moments for characters in a text or numinous responses in themselves. Reading for psyche also is furthered through re-reading, conscious intention, and reflection. For the institutions of literary criticism and of teaching to help readers be open to the contents of the unconscious psyche in literature, teachers and critics need to be aware of the difference between ego readings and reading for psyche. Jungian literature teachers and literary critics can take the lead.

D.H. Lawrence: self and sexuality

Lawrence criticism and the four psychologies of psychoanalysis -- two analyses of D.H. Lawrence -- Lawrence and the sensitive man -- Blutbruderschaft and self psychology in Women in love -- Lawrence, idealization, and masculine identity -- Lawrence's sexual fallacies -- Lawrence, Freud, and masturbation -- The rocking-horse winner as self-state tale -- fall of John Thomas -- Lawrence, the true self, and dying.

A Stylistic Study of D.H. Lawrence : "Auditory Hallucinations" in The Rocking-Horse Winner

A Stylistic Study of D.H. Lawrence : "Auditory Hallucinations" in The Rocking-Horse Winner

D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner”: Parable and Structure

D. H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking-Horse Winner”: Parable and Structure

An Epistemological Peregrination

Once upon a time, at a race track far, far away, a young bank teller named Peregrine was spending a pleasant evening watching and wagering on the trotters. Though Peregrine was not a frequent spectator at the track, he did enjoy scanning his racing form and trying to devise profitable betting techniques. But, alas, his strategies were hardly of the creative (nor, sad to say, lucrative) sort, and by about the sixth race he always found himself throwing strategy to the wind and simply placing his bet on the horse which looked best to his untrained eye. And thus it was as Peregrine was walking down to the rail that he made his unexpected discovery. For there by the fence, though partially hidden by a shrub, lay an old weather-beaten cardboard box. Removing it from the shrub and brushing off the top, he saw the words 'Open here' printed with an arrow pointing off to the side. Peregrine was not one to disobey directions when they were clearly given, so he followed the arrow off to the side and carefully opened the box. Peregrine did not know what to expect, but this uncertainty on his part did not diminish his surprise at finding, under several layers of white tissue paper, an amazingly well-preserved straw hat. Peregrine gave a small laugh, but his mirth quickly dissipated, for on turning the hat around he found, hanging from the brim by a string, a tag with the simple but singular inscription, 'Wear me'. Peregrine looked puzzled for a moment. Then he smiled and said, 'Oh well, I will try anything once!' (This brave boast was of course untrue, for as we have said, Peregrine was a bank teller.) So, removing the tag and scanning the crowd to make sure that he was among strangers, he placed the hat on his head. Peregrine expected no results from this bit of whimsy on his part, and thus he found what happened next especially curious. The horses were warming up for the sixth race, and as they passed in front of him, Peregrine found himself staring intently at Number Six. Looking at his racing form, Peregrine discovered that Number Six was named Rocking-horse Winner, was six years old, and had never won a race. He looked at the tote board; the odds against Rocking-horse Winner were 66 to i. He looked at the horse again. And suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, he found himself saying to himself, 'That horse is going to win. I don't know why I think so, but I firmly believe it.' Peregrine was quite befuddled by this situation, for he was not accustomed to entertaining uninvited beliefs. Nevertheless, time was short. So

No Defense for "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

No Defense for "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

Fancy or Imagination? "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

Fancy or Imagination? "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

Round Table: Fancy or Imagination? “The Rocking-Horse Winner”

Round Table: Fancy or Imagination? “The Rocking-Horse Winner”