Hester

Throughout the Rocking-Horse Winner”, Hester was overly materialistic, emotionally cold towards her children and in self-denial over her own faults.

Hester had expensive tastes and she insisted in keeping up the latest style. The “expensive and splendid toys” that filled the nursery were more than the parents modest income could afford. Paul asked for an explanation of luck. Hester responded by saying “it’s what causes you to have money”, quickly making a connection between luck and wealth. And while she discovered she had a knack for sketching “furs and dress materials” she adored, making hundreds of pounds per year did not appease her elegant tastes, for it still wasn’t enough to keep up her extravagant lifestyle. When Hester found that she had mysteriously acquired five thousand pounds, she quickly asked for the whole sum at once. This money was not used to pay off the debts the household so sorely needed; it was used to purchase more cozy and unneeded items. The “sprays of mimosa and almond blossom” emanated from the home and was more pungent than before. Hester felt that her financial state couldn’t afford to buy a car but ironically she purchases tutors for Paul and expensive items for their home.

While Hester fancied lavish items, she also strived to be prestigious and gain social stature. This stature was always hard to preserve for “there was never enough money”. Hester toiled to maintain her superior status and was willing to sacrifice her money to buy “iridescent cushions” and pay for servants than purchase a car. As a prestigious woman, she disliked being inferior to another person, “Paul’s mother only made hundreds, and she was again dissatisfied. She so wanted to be first in something”. Eton was amongst the most expensive schools in the area, and just like her husband who went to that school, she desired her son to be one the elite who attended. She enrolled Paul at Eton; aware that she should be using her money more wisely but still “felt themselves superior to everyone in the neighborhood.”

Hester could not come to terms with her own problems and constantly turned to external reason (not including herself) that kept her from