The Rocking Horse Winner

The Rocking Horse Winner is a story about a boy who wants to make money on racehorses and then dies.

1) What is the boy's name?
2) Why does he want money?
3) Is the story right? Can money not replace happiness?

This story's theme was that money cannot bring happiness and that luck doesn't concern itself only with bringing money.

This story was good because it (like the one we read in class the other day) utilized the element of suspense very well. In addition, it made the characters slightly disturbing, which added to the sense of intrigue. The added supernatural-ish parts (the way he got his answers from the rocking horse, the whispering house) added to the interest of the story and made it much more fascinating to read than if the author had simply let the point of his story be known through the description of a boy who tried to make money because his family was in debt through their own desire for money. The story goes deeper than that, the characterization is much more interesting and the point is not painfully obvious. The parts about the house whispering were particularly interesting because they added the atmosphere of suspense and the sense of something unusual happening. I got the impression somehow that the boy, Paul, did not actually try to win money to please his mother, though he didn't mind doing so. That was a minor motivation. I felt that he was actually taking his child's idea of 'luck solves everything' to the extreme because of the house- he felt its message and tried to get money because of that. He had luck of both kinds: good and bad, although maybe they're the same thing. What he thought was good luck brought bad things more than good, after all.

I'm not sure what exactly to say about the actual theme and idea of the story. The mechanics were all great and I enjoyed reading the piece. However, the idea of 'money does not bring happiness' is so cliché and well-worn that I seriously cannot find anything new and original to say about it.