TWO
MODERN INCEST HEROES
649
I am suggesting that a case-history approach to the Oedipus
complex is · a blind alley for a storyteller. The best gifts of the
novelist will
be
wasted on the reader who is insulated against any
surprises the novelist may have in store for him. Incest is still a
durable theme, but if it wants to get written about it will have to
fmd ways to surprise the emotions, and there is no better way to
do this than that of concealment and symbolic representation. And
the best way to conceal and disguise the elements of an incest story
is ~ot
to set out to write an incest story. Which brings to mind
another Lawrence story and some interesting comparisons in the
treatment of the Oedipal theme.
"The Rocking Horse Winner" is also a story about a boy's love
for his mother.
If
I now risk some comparisons with
Sons and
I
Lovers
let it be clear that I am not comparing the two works or
judging their merits; I am only singling out differences in treat–
ment of a theme and the resultant effects. "The Rocking Horse
, Winner" is a fantasy with extraordinary power to disturb the read–
er-but we do not know why. It is the story of the hopeless love
of a little boy for his cold and vain mother. There are ghostly
scenes in which the little boy on his rocking horse rocks madly
\ toward the climax that will magically give him the name of the
winning horse. The child grows rich on his winnings and conspires
with his uncle to make secret gifts of his money to his mother.
The story ends in the child's illness and delirium brought on by
\ the feverish compulsion to ride his horse to win for his mother.
The child dies with his mourning mother at his bedside.
I had read the story many times without asking myself why
it affected me or caring why it did. But on one occasion when I
encountered a similar fantasy in a little boy who was my patient I
began to understand the uncanny effects of this story. It was, of
course, a little boy's fantasy of winning his mother to himself, amI
• replacing the father who could not give her the things she wanted
-a classical oedipal fantasy if you like-but if it were only this the
i
story would
be
banal. Why does the story affect us? How does the
rocking exert its uncanny effect upon the reader? The rocking is
actually felt in the story, a terrible and ominous rhythm that
prophesies the tragedy. The rocking, I realized,
is
the single ele–
ment in the story that carries the erotic message, the unspoken and
