more pride from every body around him including their parents. The
greed of pride urged him to teach many other treatments.
From the explanations above the writer can see that Mother in The Rocking Horse Winner has the same attitude with Doodle’s
brother in The Scarlet Ibis. They force the person they love to fulfill their desire. Their unending dissatisfaction hurt their family
member. Even more, it caused them died in very early age.
2. Killed by Love
Both stories describe death in the end of the stories. Both are two young men who were struggling to pursue love and care from the
person they love. Paul in The Rocking Horse Winner and Doodle in The Scarlet Ibis died in early age because of a journey in pursuing the
love of a mother and an older brother. Paul struggled to find luck in order to get his mother’s love. Doodle struggle to be a normal boy in
order to be accepted by his brother who was ashamed to have him as a crippled brother. Both were killed by the journey to obtain love and
care from the person they love. Paul’s mother always feels lacking of money in her life. It
caused her accept the risk which is losing her son’s life. Actually, if Paul’s mother stop to feel lacking of money, Paul
might not worry and would not try very hard guessing The Rocking - Horse Winner to earn more money to give it to his mother. Since after
Paul gave money to his mother, the condition in the house is getting
worse because money is just like ecstasy. As we can see in the quotation below:
“Pauls mother touched the whole five thousand. Then something very curious happened. The voices in the house
suddenly went mad, … simply trilled and screamed in a sort of ecstasy: There must be more money Oh-h-h; there must be
more money. Oh, now, now-w Now-w-w—there must be more money—more than ever More than ever
It gave Paul anxiety because he desired to obtain more money to recover the condition of the house. As it is told in the story, “It
frightened Paul terribly”. This condition makes him force himself to know the winner of the rocking horse race to win the race. The
dissatisfied feeling of his mother that cause Paul try harder to obtain money make his mother even has to get the risk to lose her son’s life.
Even though, he could guess the winner and win over eighty thousand pounds, he should pay it with his life. And his mother who always lacks
of money had to get the risk lose her son’s life, to lose everything. Because money has no more value when her son’s life has been taken
away. As it can be seen in the quotation below: I never told you, Mother, that if I can ride my horse, and get
there, then Im absolutely sure—oh, absolutely Mother, did I ever tell you? I am lucky
No, you never did, said the mother. But the boy died in the night.
And even as he lay dead, his mother heard her brothers voice saying to her: My God, Hester, youre eighty-odd thousand to
the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, hes best gone out of a life where he rides his
rocking-horse to find a winner.
In the scarlet Ibis, the dissatisfied feeling is owned by Doodle’s brother who embarrassed to have a crippled bother like Doodle and it
caused him to have a plan to train to do hard activities for his crippled
brother. However, the little progress got by Doodle is not enough for his brother. He wanted Doodle to be normal like others. The greedy
ambition brings death to Doodle because he could not do all the tough activities that forced by his brother. The dissatisfied feeling of Doodle’s
brother can be seen when he forced Doodle to swim. Doodle’s brother thought that he had succeeded to teach Doodle to walk.
“At breakfast on our chosen day, when Mama, Daddy, and Aunt Nicey were in the dining room, I brought Doodle to the door in
the go-cart just as usual and had them turn their backs, making them cross their hearts and hope to die if they peeked. I helped
Doodle up, and when he was standing alone I let them look. There wasn’t a sound as Doodle walked slowly across the room
and sat down at his place at the table. Then Mama began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him and kissing him”.
But, it is not enough for him, it is the happiness and pride that Doodle’s brother got in making Doodle could swim, run, climb, fight,
and row. “Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to
believe in my own infallibility and I prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of
course. I would teach him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now believed in my infallibility, so we set the
deadline for these accomplishments less than a year away, when, it had been decided, Doodle could start to school”.
One day, without considering the physical condition of Doodle, he was sure that Doodle would be able to swim. As the result, Doodle
warned his brother not to hurt him by forcing him to swim. As in the below quotation:
Don’t hurt me, Brother, he warned. Shut up. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to teach you to
walk. I heaved him up again, and again he collapsed. This time he did not lift his face up out of the rubber grass.
I just can’t do it. Let’s make honeysuckle wreaths. Oh yes you can, Doodle, I said. All you got to do is try.
Now come on, and I hauled him up once more.
It seemed so hopeless from the beginning that it’s a miracle
The dissatisfied feeling of doodle’s brother ended when the activities set up by him brought Doodle into death. Doodle’s brother
supposed to be realistic to see Doodle’s physical condition. It supposed to sufficient to see Doodle was able to walk as a progress. However,
Doodle’s brother wanted more. He wanted his crippled brother to be able to do activities that are usually done by other normal boys. The
dissatisfaction didn’t bring any advantages. Even more, it makes his lost everything by the death of his brother.
In both short stories, high ambition bring little grateful of the small result and lead to get the risk of loosing everything because of
the dissatisfaction of Paul’s mother in The Rocking Horse Winner and of Doodle’s brother in The Scarlet Ibis. Both characters in each story
lost person they love. Their high ambition brings death to them. In both stories the writer sees the sub themes similarity that is
something that is gained with voraciously even will end disaster. In both stories, it was described that Paul’s mother in The Rocking Horse
Winner and Doodle’s brother in The Scarlet Ibis pursued their desire voraciously until they even lose their member of family.
3. Mistreating Children
