SOURCE: "Fancy or Imagination?: The Rocking-Horse Winner'," in College English, Vol. 24, No. 1, October, 1962, pp. 64-5.

Martin is a South African-born, Canadian educator and critic. Here he upholds the accomplishment of "The Rocking-Horse Winner, " citing its adept depiction of one of Lawrence's major themes: the danger of the "unlived" life. For a response to Martin's assertions, see the 1963 essay by William D. Burroughs and the 1964 essay by Donald Junkins.

D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner" appears in several anthologies, and I think it worth while to defend it against the strictures of F. R. Leavis (D. H. Lawrence: Novelist) and Graham Hough (The Dark Sun). This can be done by starting with a close analysis of a paragraph to be found near the end of the story:

Then suddenly she switched on the light, and saw her son, in his green pyjamas, madly surging on the rocking-horse. The blaze...