A. The Similarities of Themes in “The Rocking Horse Winner” and in “The Scarlet Ibis”.
1. Unending Dissatisfaction Leads Disharmonious Family
The setting in The Rocking-Horse Winner starts with the mother, who is described as beautiful but shown as having no luck. She has a
very handsome husband and 3 beautiful children, a boy and 2 girls. They live in a pleasant home, with a garden and discreet servants.
They live in style with little income and felt superior to anyone in their neighborhood. In this story, the one who is never satisfied is Paul’s
mother. She is a mother of one son and two daughters who is never satisfied of what she has already had in her household. She always
needs more money to fulfill her desire of luxury. However, her husband earned less so she debt large mount of money that she can’t pay and
blame her husband as an unlucky person who cannot earn much money.
People can see from this quotation, “the mother, who had a great belief in herself, did not succeed any better, and her tastes were
just as expensive. And so the house came to be haunted by the unspoken phrase: There must be more money There must be more
money”.p.4. She has an expensive taste but has a low income so it bears anxiety and dissatisfaction around the house. Actually, she
deserves to grateful to have complete family comprises a handsome
husband, one son and two daughters. The lack of money leads dissatisfaction in her self. It effected to her son who define money as
luck. Paul does the rocking horse race to pursue the love of her mother by giving her money to let her know that he is a lucky boy. However,
after Paul gave her the money through his uncle. She wanted more and more. As quotation below:
Paul, handed over five thousand pounds to his uncle, who deposited it with the family lawyer, who was then to inform
Paul’s mother that a relative had put five thousand pounds into his hands, which sum was to be paid out a thousand pounds at
a time on the mother’s birthday, for the next five years. So, she’ll have a birthday present of a thousand pounds for five
successive years. However, “Paul’s mother had had a long interview with the
lawyer, asking if the whole five thousand could not be advanced at once, as she was in debt”.
It was all not sufficient because, the voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on the spring evening. It
made Paul try harder to find out the next winner in next rocking horse race to gain more money to disappear the voices.
The attitude of his mother who spends money lavishly he had given caused the house screaming “there must be more money
no, more than ever”. The dissatisfied of the mother of money led Paul to earn more money with hard struggling and it caused him
into death. In the story of The Scarlet Ibis, the one who is never
satisfied is Doodle’s brother. He arranges the plan to make Doodle to be like other boy to be normal. He has succeeded at first to make
Doodle to be able to walk. As people can see in this quotation, “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”. p.56 He does not satisfied of just making Doodle able to walk. He wanted
more progress. Then he forced the clapped Doodle to do hard activity like swimming, as people can see in this quotation, “I made
him swim until he turned blue and row until he could not lift an oar…his face turned red and his eyes become glazed. Once he
could go no further, so he collapsed on the ground and began to
cry” p.62.
The fact that Doodle can walk after being taught by his brother does not make his brother satisfied. In fact, he taught
Doodle roughly to swim. He wanted more progress of Doodle’s ability. However, the dissatisfaction of Doodle’s brother has hurt
Doodle. Brother realizes that it hurt Doodle. His desire of being proud as someone who can make Doodle to be a normal boy make
him ignored Doodle’s painful. Doodle’s brother did not feel grateful of the fact that he can
make his handicapped brother able to walk. It was actually a miracle. But he thinks that it came from his effort in giving treatment
to Doodle. He wanted more progress of Doodle so that he can gain
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
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