The Rocking-Horse Winner is the short story written by British writer D.H. Lawrence. By exploring the relationship between people, it reflects that money distorts the healthy and harmonious interpersonal relationships in Western industrial society. In the story, Paul hates their house for whispering——There must be more money! He asks his rocking-horse to take him to where there is luck and manages to know the winner in the horse race. He starts to bet on horses for his mother. After winning in the races, he gives 5000 pounds to his mother secretly. What makes him unexpected is that the voices go mad. He fails to know the winner in the next two races. So he is eager to know the winner in the Derby. When his mother finds him, he surges on the rocking-horse and falls to the ground. He speaks the winner’s name. On the third day of his illness, the gardener tells that his choice is right. But he dies in the night tragically. The historical background of the story is 1920s. At that time, British capitalism was booming and people’s desire expanded infinitely. Many people ignored the yearning for spirit and emotion while pursuing the money, which led to a lot of tragedies. This paper focuses on a family under this background. By analyzing the relationship between Paul and his family members, this paper explores the reasons of Paul’s Oedipus complex and inferiority complex from the aspect of conjugal relation and family education. Through the study of the end of the story, which describes the contrast between the earning of money and Paul’s death, this paper reveals the harm of greedy pursuit of material.

Since the industrial revolution, Western capitalism has highly developed. Many people stick to the pursuit of material life. As is shown in the story, the parents have a small income, but their tastes are expensive. So they always want more money and never feel content. Looking into the situation at home, money worship has come into being in recent years. A great number of people tend to make friends with rich people or marry them in order to satisfy their material needs and vanity. The phenomenon indicates that people give up the spiritual life due to pursuing the materialism. This paper explains that the excessive pursuit of money can lead to the alienation of family relations. Paul makes money by betting on horses. In fact, his mother, uncle and other people who are crazy for money are also gambling. They sacrifice the human values. Under the negative effects of his mother, Paul sacrifices his life. They lose values and life to gain the money which is actually not the most important. They don’t realize it. But when they come to know it, it is too late. From the analyses of a short story, this paper reminds people not to lose the most precious things such as emotion and love on account of blind pursuit of money.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

This paper concentrates on the family depicted in the work The Rocking-Horse Winner. It analyzes the relationship between Paul and his mother, father and uncle. Then it explores the influence that the relation of his parents and his mother’s education have on him. Next it does research into the psychological change of him——Oedipus complex and inferiority complex. Finally, it studies the ending that Paul becomes a victim in the process of satisfying his mother’s desire for money. This paper demonstrates the story’s theme of criticizing the destructive effect of excessive pursuit of money in Western industrial society.The desire of Paul’s mother for money is endless, which results in the alienation of family relations. There is no love in his mother’s heart. And he only wants to earn more money for his mother. Last, he loses life and his mother loses son. This paper aims to show the significance of enriching the spiritual world while pursuing the material. It warns people of not losing the most important things in order to obtain something not necessary. This paper is to be carried out by analyzing the text, turning to the references and drawing the conclusion.

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