"[He] sat on his big rocking horse, charging madly through space, with a frenzy that made the little girls look at him with concern ." This passage, taken from "The Rocking-Horse Winner" by DH Lawrence, describes Paul's "crazy little journey" as he searches for the luck his mother desires, although lost since she "married an unlucky husband" . As the child, too old to legitimately play on the wooden toy, makes his furious runs on the rocking horse, rides that leave him exhausted and lead to his untimely death, the reader begins to wonder what drives the boy to exert himself so much, why a powerful force compels him to continue. An answer can be found in Paul's Oedipal relationship with his mother and the unconscious motivations contained therein. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayOedipal conflict refers to the “triangular relationship between father, mother and son” in which the son competes with the father for the mother's affection and attention, wishing to replace the father's role in the mother's life (Bhugra 70). This complicated and unhealthy relationship between parents and offspring blossoms in "The Rocking-Horse Winner." Paul knows his mother isn't happy and wishes he had better resources to "maintain the style." When his mother is reduced to secretly working outside the home to maintain her lifestyle, Paul decides to take action. The boy realizes that his father is not able to financially satisfy his mother and therefore decides to take on the role of marital support and protector of his mother, thus establishing his role in the Oedipal dynamic. In doing so, Paul places himself in a position of responsibility - real or imagined - too mature for his age, a position he cannot occupy as he thinks he can. Despite his age, Paul discovers that he can provide for his mother financially, in a way his father never could, because he has discovered that he possesses "luck". Luck, he believes, is the trait his mother desires and his father lacks and which reveals to him the next racehorse winners. Paul's frenetic travels on his rocking horse leave him with the information needed to earn more money to support his mother, thus proving himself more fit and capable than his father for the mother's care and affection . Paul's act of riding the rocking horse, through which he obtains the names of future winning horses, is a symbolic act of sexual competition with his father for his mother's love. As Paul charges on his horse, he does so "wildly", with his hair "disheveled" and his eyes having a strange "glare". Each passage describing his episodes on the rocking horse alludes to the sexual act. He “mounts” on his horse to begin his “furious ride” in the hopes of “getting there.” Paul's exploits are also described in sexually charged language such as "frenzy", "surging madly", "pushing his wooden horse", and "riding". The rocking horse itself then looks on with "its red mouth slightly open, its great eye large and shining", a rather revealing description that evokes the effects of sexual passion. It is in his sexual exploits with the rocking horse that Paul is able to rival his father and prevail as a worthy and suitable husband to the mother. Paul's climaxes leave him with the ability to meet his mother's needs, one of the many tasks his father lacks. The boy's success in his competition with his father only enhances his Oedipal complex andencourages her to continue her attempts to replace her father as the man in her mother's life. Yet Paul's crazy exploits on his rocking horse are, in a physical sense, unproductive and unsuccessful. No matter how furiously or frenziedly he rides the little wooden horse, he stays in the same place, never leaving his room where the trips on the rocking horse take place. Paul goes on his walks hoping that his false missions on horseback will fulfill his hope of “finally getting there”. The nature of the rocking horse leaves it stagnant, tottering vainly back and forth in an effort to “get there” without ever getting anywhere. If we view the rocking horse as Paul's partner in a symbolic sexual act, then we must understand that he, much like his father, fails because his riding "goes nowhere" (Snodgrass 122.) While he wins more and more money from horse racing, Paul realizes that he can now give his mother what his father cannot: financial support and peace of mind from the whispers at home about the need more money (“There must be more money! There must be more money!”). Yet the boy soon realizes that his mother's love is worth (at least financially) more than he had expected, and he is forced to fulfill his self-appointed role as provider. His Oedipal complex leaves him feeling that he must succeed over his father and ultimately demonstrate that his abilities exceed those of his father. Paul determines that he must work hard to achieve his goal of replacing his father in his mother's life, and maintains his constant competition with his father to give his mother what he thinks she needs and what she desires. As Paul attempts to meet his mother's expectations and needs, he becomes overly sensitive to the unspoken desires she seems to express. Paul tries to pick up on his mother's nonverbal cues so that he can prove his ability to anticipate and meet her needs like a husband would (Tedlock 210). He hears her silent plea for someone to silence the voice of the house that whispers its demands to her distraught mind. He senses his mother's dissatisfaction with her marriage and life in general through the frigidity she displays toward both her incompetent husband and her unwanted children (Snodgrass 118). He imagines that she needs his support to rediscover the happiness and luck that she feels she has lost. She tells Paul: "I thought I was lucky before I got married. Now I think I'm really, really unlucky." Recognizing the voids in his mother's life, Paul attempts to give her the opportunity she missed and fulfill the obligation in which his father failed: financial support. The fault for Paul's confusion does not come solely from his mother's example, for much of the blame lies with his father. As a literal husband and expected provider of the family, Paul's father's abilities and performance fell woefully short. He disappears “downtown into an office” and “even though he had good prospects, those prospects never came to fruition.” His physical and emotional disappearance from the family begins to take a toll on the wayward young boy. The destruction of love between husband and wife, resulting from her disappearance, serves as silent encouragement for Paul to develop his Oedipal tendencies towards his seemingly vulnerable mother (Koban 392). The father's neglectful behavior may stem, at least in part, from a sense of failure. He has been unable to support the lifestyle that his wife wishes to have - a lifestyle that no man, short of a king, can afford to provide for her - because, asLawrence indicates, his “tastes were just as expensive,” even when the family income was low. decreasing. As he realizes he will never be able to live up to his high and unrealistic expectations, Paul's father withdraws from his wife and family, perhaps hoping that if left alone, his inadequacies and his problems will simply disappear. His evasive behavior, however, leaves him in a vulnerable position both as a husband and breadwinner. As his withdrawal increases alongside his wife's dissatisfaction, a vast gap in the family dynamic begins to form (Snodgrass 118). It is this chasm that Paul feels not only responsible but encouraged to fill as a worthy provider for the family, and especially as a provider for his obviously neglected mother. Although Paul's father plays a role, albeit passive and indirect, in the boy's deepening complex, it is his mother who is the driving force behind his psychosis. Paul's mother actively encourages, consciously or unconsciously, his efforts to replace his father. She openly tells him that it is his father's lack of luck that causes his unhappiness and his state of being, what she considers to be "the poor members of the family". As she feels the weight of disillusionment with her unsatisfactory mate, she attempts to make her son the perfect husband and provider. In her desperate desire to create the perfect little man, even if he remains eternally untouchable for her, she supported her Oedipal overtures intended to win his love (Piedmont-Marton). Paul's mother instills in him the desire to meet her needs as a lucky husband when she tells him that she cannot be happy until she is lucky and that she cannot be lucky " if [she] marries an unlucky husband.” Selfishly, she seeks her own fulfillment through her son's devotion, completely indifferent to what her wayward behaviors do to the child too young to understand or handle the feelings she evokes in him. Although she tries to pretend ignorance of what is really going on with her wayward son, she implicitly supports the escapades that bring her closer to her goal of financial fulfillment. She uses Paul's desire to please her to exploit and manipulate her son, talking to him about house whispers for more money, knowing that he will do anything to gain the love and affection she denies him. Paul's desire to meet his mother's needs drives him to quiet the whispers that torment her. The whispers she hears from home become a powerfully compelling force in her young mind and also find an echo in "the springs of the rocking horse still rocking, and even the horse, bending its wooden head and nibbling, l 'heard' (Martin 64). Paul's Oedipal complex is motivated by the need for his mother's love, a love that she does not know how to give to her children, but that she knows how and that she would give to a service provider. Paul's mother found herself living a life she had become painfully disillusioned with with a man who she felt had misrepresented her abilities to care for her. The boy's mother felt "cold" towards the children who were "forced" on her. This statement itself shows the mother's sense of resentment towards her children, children who she felt were imposed on her as unwanted burdens that she neither asked for nor desired. When she saw her children, she "felt the center of her heart tighten" and realized that she "couldn't feel love, no, for anyone." Yet she seemed a model of maternal excellence, as everyone who saw the family remarked on what a great mother she was and how much she adored thesechildren. Only the mother and her children knew the truth about her family apathy: "they read it in each other's eyes." It was this lack of maternal love that made Paul seek another method to gain his mother's affection and attention. If he could not receive her interest as a child, perhaps he could earn it as a provider, thus filling the position in which his father was incompetent. His desperate attempts to make his mother understand how suitable he would be as a husband figure continue to fail because she will not seriously consider her child as a provider, even though she is grooming him to be one. On several occasions, Paul attempts to draw his mother's attention to her newfound ability to provide what he considers to be immense financial support. Even though he confides to his mother that he was lucky, he feels that “she didn’t believe him; or rather, that she paid him no attention to his statement. This irritated him somewhat and made him want to get his attention.” Paul finds only frustrating results in all his efforts to prove that he is good enough for his mother. His confusion is intensified by the contradictory messages he constantly receives from his mother who pushed him to become the ideal little man and who at the same time remained rejected by the child she still feels and with whom she feels no maternal bond. Yet Paul, in the limited understanding of a child's mind, determines that the only way to receive his mother's approval is to demonstrate even more fully his ability to care for her. Knowing that the only way to gain his mother's love was to assume the marital role of provider, it is no wonder that Paul would sink so deeply into his Oedipal role. Paul, however, is far too young to take on the responsibility of acting as the breadwinner of the house. The mission of protector and provider that Paul has imposed on himself, in his attempt to win his mother's long-sought love, is literally killing him. His need for his mother's love, a love he could not give her as a child, pushes him to find an effective way to obtain her affection. Yet it is the love initially sought, not that of a husband or lover, that Paul ultimately receives from his mother as she witnesses his breakdown and feels "all her tormented motherhood rushing over her » and rushes “to collect it”. Paul's action in the Oedipal conflict was not something he chose for himself – he would have happily welcomed maternal affection – rather it was something imposed on him. It was his last resort to get what he wanted, what he willingly gave his all for, what he had finally earned through the sacrifice of his own life: his mother's love. Annotated bibliographyBhugra, Dinesh and Kamaldeep Bhui. "Is the Oedipal complex universal? Problems for sexual and relational psychotherapy across cultures." Sex and Relationship Therapy 17.1, 2002. This article discusses the nature of Oedipal conflict. The authors describe the origin of the Oedipus complex in Sophocles' play Oedipus Tyrannus. Of particular note is that Sigmund Freud first referred to this complex in his work as a condition suffered only by men who wanted to replace their father and take over his role in the mother's life. Koban, Charles. "Allegory and the death of the heart in 'The Rocking-Horse Winner'". Studies in Short Fiction 15.4 (1978) 392. http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=7125117This article discusses the disintegration of the family unit's relationships in "The Rocking-Horse Winner" . The fact that the father “steps away” from his role as protector and provider..