Luck

"'Well anyhow,' he said stoutly, 'I'm a lucky person'"(Bohner and Grant 711).

In "The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence, Paul's mother explains to him the if one has luck, the person would "always get more money" (Bohner and Grant 710). Paul identifies himself, to his mother, as being lucky, and surely, after that, he starts winning money in horse races. When he had arranged to give the money to his mother, he said, "I shouldn't like Mother to know I was lucky...[because] she'd stop me" (Bohner and Grant 715). This is curious because his mother wanted more money, and in order to get them constantly, she describes, one needs luck. Wouldn't she be happy if her son was lucky and he got money persistently? Anyhow, he does not tell his mother: possibly because he doesn't want to make her envious of him or because he has a feeling, if not conscious, superconscious, that there is something wrong with this "luck."

Nevertheless, his life doesn't seem to get well, and except for the fact that he was winning at the races, he seemed to get crazier and crazier until he dies. Was he really lucky if he wasn't achieving happiness which he thought he would be able to attain once he got "lucky" and started winning money? He even died by achieving the "luck." Was Paul really lucky? Was this an illusion or a quality he had achieved in exchange of a compensation-his life? What is luck? Is it necessarily "good"? Having too much luck could be scary because it could be a premonition of something "bad" happening. Are we, as human beings, actually happier with luck or without luck?