Throughout Sherman Alexie’s short story, What You Pawn I Will Redeem, the narrator, Jackson Jackson, manages to distance himself from his present predicament of being homeless and penniless. He does so while on a ‘quest’ (Alexie 18) to buy back his grandmother’s regalia, which he discovered in a local pawn shop. Jackson starts off with five dollars in which to turn into nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars over the course of twenty-four hours, and while he does manage to get his hands on some money, his nature and the viscous cycle state of his situation causes him to lose sight of his ultimate goal.…
Frank Capra’s, “What a Wonderful Life” is about a man, named George Bailey, who wishes that he was never born. George’s wish is granted when an angel is sent down to earth to teach George a lesson. George later learns how many lives he has changed or effected and then no longer takes the things he has for granted. The moral of the movie is that friends and family make man rich. In this essay…
Other than dealing with the elitist society, the story also displays many features of modern literature. The main character’s obsession for material items and desire to gain wealth was another aspect of the story that made it very modernist. At a young age, he thought he was too young to work as a caddy and strived to obtain greater wealth. This was one of the main qualities of characters in the Modernism time.…
"Paul's case"was a story written by the famous female writer/ journalist Willa Cather, the story explores the life of an idealistic young boy named Paul who hates his impoverished life. Paul strongly believes that he was meant to be born in a rich family instead of a mid-class home. He tries to escape from the impoverished environment of which he live in and only approaches either rich, or famous people .Sadly, in the end, Paul kills himself when he realizes his father is on the way to New-York to take him back home , because he finds it impossible to return to his original life after exposed to the upper-class luxuries . surely , Paul is very obsessed with money and material goods. The strange conviction that money is the key to all his trouble, the lack of connection between hard work and lustre, and finally, his self-destructive nature have all greatly contributed to the final upshot of the story. although Paul seems to be free willed and did everything to his passion , but never the less , his actions are guided by the 3 factors listed above ,which together determine the tragic ending.…
Many people seem to believe that money means happiness and if you have it you will have what is thought to be the perfect life. In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting two stories called “The Jewelry” and “The Rocking-Horse Winner.” I found these stories to be very shallow but interesting and wrong but also right at the very same time. The characters that make up these short stories are also very intriguing and have a side to them that you don’t find out until later in the story. Can money be unhealthy and damaging to a marriage or family?…
D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner" is a classic modernistic story about a family filled with inner conflicts all portrayed through the innocence of a young child. Tortured by a house that whispers to him, Paul tries to gain his mothers missing affection by presenting that he posses luck which gives him money. He presents this luck by picking the name of a winning horse while riding his rocking horse. The whispers which state "there must be more money" disturbs Paul and he believes it exists because his family does not have enough money. Paul drives himself to a state of insanity and perishes because of this. This story is written in a radiant way which displays several ironic situations and statements. Here are four examples of different ways irony is present in the emblematic short story, "The Rocking-Horse Winner".…
What role does money play in the story? When/where is money seen in a positive light, and when/where does it cause problems?…
Money is of major importance in today’s society. If you have an abundance of it, it could vault you into a life of friends, leisure, and fame. Contrarily, a lacking of it could leave you with absolutely nothing but shambles. Indeed, that is the point William Hazlitt attempts to make in “on the want of money.” By using appeal to prosperity, contrasting of ideas, and the idea of ethos, Hazlitt effectively persuades the reader that money is needed to achieve their desired goals.…
In the story the Rocking Horse Winner, D.H. Lawrence uses Paul to show that being lucky is bad. Paul becomes obsess with luck when his mother tells him that his dad has no luck and that’s why they have money problems. Paul's mother said to him, "it's because your father has no luck." Paul’s realization that luck causes you to have money, drives him to find a way to get lucky and the money he thinks luckiness will get him at any cost. Another way Paul is concern with becoming lucky is when he first starts riding the rocking horse. The narrator explains” He wanted luck, he wanted it, he wanted it. When the two girls were playing dolls in the nursery, he would sit on his big rocking-horse, charging madly into space, with a frenzy that made the…
In the story “The Devil and Tom Walker, Tom is in a relationship in which he abuses his wife and she abuses him. This abuse is a result of their financial situation and their personal unhappiness. One day tom goes to the woods and sees a “dark-skinned man” which is actually the devil. The devil offers Tom riches as a bribe for his soul. Tom goes back to tell his wife about this offer. She tells him to accept it, but he decides that he is not going to do anything that she wants because he is not about to do anything that makes her happy because of the hatred between them. Angered, the wife goes to the woods to tries to accept the offer on behalf of Tom, instead the devil kills her. After searching for his wife in the woods, and realizing that he did have feelings for her, Tom decides to take the devil’s offer out of greed and grief for losing his wife. Tom becomes a very powerful, heartless, and greedy broker after finding out that something has happened to his wife. He is prideful, vain, and materialistic. He builds a large home and does not furnish it. He is more concerned with what everyone else thinks about what he has than anything else. An example is the starvation of his horse. He has so much money but doesn’t even buy food for his horse because he is stingy. In the end, Tom feels guilty and regrets making these horrible decisions. “The Devil and Tom Walker” is a great example of how money causes unhappiness, it shows how everything isnt what it is put out to be, and how money causes greed.…
In D.H Lawrence's short story, “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” we see a child named Paul that was on a quest for luck, that will enable him to win money. Motivation, gambling and addiction all assist in his quest for luck.…
The world famous story Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence tells a story of a family filled with inner conflicts about money all portrayed through the innocent of a young boy. Affection and attention is something that all kids wanted, so did the protagonist in the story, Paul. He tried to get his mother’s attention and love by seeking ways to find luck that brings all the money, so she can be happy again. In the end, he succeeded but still didn’t get his mother’s attention. There are a lot of ironic displays of situation and statement which made the story stronger and more developed.…
The dramatic story of D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner” focuses on the life of a family torn between materialistic belongings and parental love. Paul’s intentions are ultimately to win his mother’s affection. The reader acknowledges Hester could not feel love, and we eagerly read on, in hopes Hester will open her heart to Paul. However, despite Paul’s secret monetary gifts to Hester, Paul’s “luck” is cut short without ever knowing motherly love. Hester, consumed by materialistic objects, is blind to Paul’s debilitating body and obsession with gambling. In “The Rocking Horse Winner,” D.H. Lawrence suggests that materialistic objects can hurt a relationship between parent and child.…
Charlie Wales was wealthy. While he lost some money in the stock market crash (232), he became very wealthy in the subsequent market boom. He was described as “…not even working toward the end, and getting richer and richer”(228). Charlie ran all over Paris, often times with his wife, spending money recklessly. He recalled “thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number” (219). However, extreme wealth is not without its downsides as Charlie alluded to when he described the gradual breakdown of his and Helen’s marriage. It seemed that they were so in love, but that they began to hurt one another without reason and grew further and further apart until Helen kissed another man (227). Charlie was childish and allowed his success to warp his judgment. Ironically, it was Charlie’s success and wealth that lead to his greatest failure.…
Money, although important, is not the only thing that makes life worth living. However, for the characters in D. H. Lawrence’s short story “The Rocking-Horse Winner,” money appears to be the only thing that produces happiness. This ideology proves quite toxic, as seen in the characterization of Paul and his mother; it is through these two vessels that Lawrence accentuates the consequences of greed and materialism.…