Essay Questions

Based on Freudian concepts, how would you categorize Paul’s impetus for gambling? (“The Rocking-Horse Winner”)

Paul’s neurotic gambling is blatantly bouyed up by the Oedipal Complex. He intimates his uncle, “I started if for mother. She said she had no luck, because father is unlucky.” Undoubtedly, Paul is Oedipally besotted with his mother; otherwise, he would not have prearranged for all the money that he acquires from the gambling be disseminated for his mother’s five successive birthdays. What is more, Paul does not apportion any of the sum to his father, notwithstanding that his father does not earn satisfactory money. If Paul had assigned part of the money to his father, then the possibility of Oedipal stimulation would have been precluded. Paul is convinced he can play the part that his unlucky father would have executed by grossing abundant money for her mother.

How would you use the Economics concept of utility to expound the woman’s dissatisfaction?( “The Rocking-Horse Winner”)

D.H. Lawrence, explicates, “Paul’s mother only made several hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied.” Paul’s mother’s discontent with the money she earns from artistry depicts the “increasing marginal utility of money.” The hundreds that she grosses escalate her want to make thousands like the artist whom she works with so that she can find superfluous utility.

How similar are Elizabeth Bates (“The Odour of Chrysanthemums”) and Paul’s Mother ( “The Rocking-Horse Winner”)?

Both Elizabeth Bates and Paul’s mother are not gratified with their respective matrimonial unions. Elizabeth’s despondency is credited to her husband’s wonted alcoholism and the paucity of affection in her union. Paul’s mother’s melancholy is due to the scarceness of money and the obsolete love in her marriage. Also, both women foreshadow death. (Elizabeth prefigures her partner’s death whereas Paul’s mother foreshadows Paul’s demise.)