Piedmont-Morton is the coordinator of the Undergraduate Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. In the following essay, she discusses various aspects of "The Rocking-Horse Winner."

"The Rocking-Horse Winner" belongs to the group of stories D. H. Lawrence wrote in the last years of his life. During this period, critics have noted, he abandoned the realism that characterizes his mid-career work, and turned toward a style of short story that more closely resembles the fable or folktale. In the words of Janice Hubbard Harris, in The Short Fiction of D. H. Lawrence, "The Rocking-Horse Winner" and other stories of the period, represent the "desire of a fierce and dying man to prophesy, sum up, assess the world he is leaving rather than present or imitate it." The story also presents several themes that held Lawrence's attention throughout his career.

The style and tone of "The...