SOURCE: "Lawrence's The Rocking-Horse Winner': A Dickensian Fable?" in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. XV, No. 1, Spring, 1969, pp. 525-36.

In the following essay, Goldberg outlines the similarities between "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, suggesting that "Lawrence's vision had been shaped in part by the Dickensian tradition. " The critic also takes issue with the numerous Freudian analyses of "The Rocking-Horse Winner."

"The Rocking-Horse Winner" is best read as a Dickensian social fable. It presents obvious parallels in mode, tone, and structure to Dombey and Son, and its central themes of parental neglect and the sacrifice of humanity entailed in the worship of Mammon are, after all, major Dickensian preoccupations.

In exploring the parallels between Dombey and Son and "The Rocking-Horse Winner" I also hope to suggest that Lawrence's story owes more to literary tradition than to psychological theory. Most contemporary readings of the tale identify its...