木马赢家写作技巧分析

Third person narration
• Objective • Without author’s intrusion Most of the time the author objectively show the words and behavior of the characters but seldom go deeper into the inner world of characters. The author tells the story by simple conversations and details. the real meaning or theme lies beneath the words.
Irony(2/4)
• Seemingly they live in a beautiful house with a boy and two girls, they are not poor family instead lead a favorable life and we would think at the beginning this must be a very happy family with good atmosphere but it is a family full of indifference, greedy for money, vanity specially rise to climax with the tragedy death of the son. • Happy family ? Actually tragic family
This is a conscious attempt on the part of the author to use the traditional oral storytelling technique.
Fable-like narration(2/3)
• Ending： "My God. Hester, you're eighty-odd thousand to the good, and a poor devil of a son to the bad. But, poor devil, poor devil, he's best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner." The end conveys message to readers
Irony(4/4)
• The use of irony contributes to verify the theme: Money-oriented society, the bourgeoisie bring disasterrocking-horse can bring Paul to fortune and win the game. But the rocking-horse cannot move ,it is fixed cannot be moved, how can this kind of horse win the champion of game.
• Beginning “There was a woman who was beautiful, who started with all the advantages, yet she had no luck.” “There were a boy and two little girls. They lived in a pleasant house, with a garden…”
Narrative Techniques
• • • • • • Fable-like narration Repetition Third person narration Use of symbolism Sharp contrast Irony
Fable-like narration（1/3）
Fable-like narration(3/3)
• Advantages Brevity Straightforward Easy-understood Short but enlighting
Repetition
• “There must be more money” echoing through this novel. • Use intentionally • Function: help gild the theme
Contrast
• Paul VS his mother • Innocent VS greedy
• By using contrast, the author successfully show corrosion society exert on people
Irony(1/4)
• “when her children were present, she always felt the center of her heart go hard. This troubled her, and in her manner she was all the more gentle and anxious for her children, as if she loved them very much. Only she herself knew that at the center of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody. Everybody else said of her: "She is such a good mother. She adores her children." Only she herself, and her children themselves, knew it was not so. They read it in each other's eyes. ” • To outsiders: a good mother • Actually it’s a illusion
Use of symbolism
• The Rocking-Horse → Destruction • Its 1st appearance → vanity As a Christmas present, beyond their capacity to pay 2nd appearance → luck As a tool to find fortune for his mother, earn 5000 pounds to his mother Last appearance → self-destruction shabby，the boy falling from it and dead
Narrative Techniques in The Rocking-Horse Winner
By Makegang
summary
• In "The Rocking-Horse Winner," a young boy, Paul, perceives that there is never enough money in his family, he sets out to find a way to get money through luck. He discovers that if he rides his rocking-horse fast enough, he will somehow "know" the name of the winning horse in the next race. He begins to make money and secretly funnel this money to his mother, but the desire for more money only grows more intense instead of going away. He finally rides his rocking-horse so furiously in order to discover the winner of the Derby that he falls into illness and dies,