The rocking horse winner

            In the short story "The Rocking Horse Winner D.Lawrence uses his characters as symbols in support of the theme that innocence cannot survive when confronted with greed and selfishness. First the theme is shown through the corruption of Paul, which ultimately led to the more horrifying of his death. This story proves to be Lawrence's strongest indictment of materialism, and the strongest demonstration of the incompatibility of the love of money and the love of human beings.
             Paul is a symbol of innocence. He is a child, and, through their inexperience of the world and their surroundings, children are innocent. In the beginning of the story, Paul starts to question his mother's about their lack of money, in the pursuit of somehow understanding his mother unhappiness. It is a futile mission to begin with, but in his innocence, Paul does not realize this. At this point in the story, the mother makes her biggest mistake. She tells Paul that luck is what causes you to have money. If you are lucky, you have money (p.647). Paul then begins to believe that by becoming lucky, or making money, he can make his mother happy, and therefore gain his mother's love. Paul thus becomes a victim of his mother rationale. Paul should be a child who is secure in his mother's love. Instead, he is arrested in his development and unable to seek relationships outside of his family. .
             Secondly, the mother is a symbol of unquenchable greed. She feels that they are the poor members of the family as she tells Paul (p.647). In fact, she did not tell the truth. The family has a nice house, a garden and servants. The family is more superior to anyone in the neighborhood (p.646). The problem lies in the expensive tastes of the mother without sufficient means to support them. The family lived in style; they felt always an anxiety in the house. This shortage of money causes such tension that even the house calls out; "there must be more money" (p.