The Rocking-Horse Winner

            As an important image, the rocking-horse in the short story plays a vital role symbolically and thematically. It bears different symbolic meanings as the story goes, revealing the changes of the protagonist's inner world, and deepens the theme, intensifying the irony.
             The symbolic meaning of the rocking-horse varies with the development of the plot. When the "shining modern rocking-horse" makes its entrance at Christmas along with other "expensive and splendid" toys, it stands for vanity. In order to keep up their social position and maintain superiority over anyone in the neighborhood, the household struggles to live an elegant life with a small income and regularly spends beyond their means. The financial trouble doesn't prevent the parents from buying fancy gifts, including the rocking-horse to fill the nursery at Christmas as other upper –class families do. Therefore, their vanity finds expression in the rocking-horse which in turn aggravates the anxiety in the house. The haunting and unspoken phrase, "There must be more money" keeps whispering from the spring of the rocking-horse, always reminding the protagonist Paul the shortage of money. In this sense, the rocking-horse also symbolizes endless greed.
             After the conversation with his mother Hester about luck and money, Paul is eager to convince her of his luck to gain her attention and affection. However, as a little boy, Paul was not able to earn a significant amount of money to please her mother, so he can do nothing but ride the rocking-horse furiously. In this case, the rocking-horse is a symbol of Paul's frustration and helplessness. No matter how hard he forces the horse or slashes it with the whip, the wooden horse is only swaying back and forth, impossible to bring him to the place where there is luck, just like it is not possible for Paul at that time to do anything practical to satisfy his mother's desires.