Paul starts betting on the horses because he senses a fundamental lack in his house, a missing thing. The house’s whispering of “there must be more money” is a kind of subconscious expression of another lack—his mother’s love. Lawrence writes that the mother had "at the centre of her heart . . . a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody" that only she and her children understood. This unspoken truth is just one of many unspoken truths that make up Paul’s world—along with the whispering about money, Paul is also driven by the mysterious desire to be “lucky,” or the mysterious feeling of "being sure" about winners. But the story shows that luck is not the same as love; it’s clear at the end of the story that even though he’s won eighty thousand pounds for his mother, it will never be enough to fill the empty place inside her.
Paul starts betting on the horses because he wants his mother to love him. He senses she does not truly love him or his siblings, and he knows she constantly needs money. Because he can supernaturally predict the winners of races by riding his rocking horse, he begins to do it obsessively, then gives all the winnings to his mother. However, no matter how much Paul wins, it never seems to be enough for her, so he feels he has to rock harder and harder. Paul is too young to realize he cannot win his mother's love by winning money for her at the races. She has a fundamental hole in her heart, which is her incapacity to love others, and no amount of money will ever compensate for that empty space.
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