The irony presented in this story was centered around the notion of luck and how it will inevitably run out. Irony was at it's finest when Paul, a young boy who claimed to be lucky when predicting the winning horse in races, suddenly went insane and died. Situational irony played its part when Paul just happened to die the night of the Derby; the core horse race in the area. That evening was supposed to be his time to shine, to show the world that he was in fact lucky. Desolately, his reward for his hard earned victory was death. Through all of this, the reader is hit with an overwhelming amount of sympathy toward the family. Once while I was reading a newspaper, I noticed that a small child who had been diagnosed with a fatal heart disease had ‘miraculously pulled through’ only to die a week later of pneumonia. This struck me in an odd way, considering the baby had struggled not to die of a heart problem, only to die later of a lung failure. Consistently, when parents outlive their children, humans feel anguished, even though they might not know the family.

The symbolism in this story was primarily shown within the ‘whispering walls’ and the rocking horse. The main focus of the symbolism was found within the almost clairvoyant rocking horse that seemed to portray Paul’s indecision in life. He would ride the rocking horse to get away, yet he never wanted to leave. Readers can relate to this aspect mostly because at one point in everyone’s lives, we're unsure of ourselves and we tend to ‘cling’ to the things we know and love. Even though uncertainty is a part of life, we all must cope with it.

The theme of this story was expressed as: to some people, money will never and can never buy emotional contentment of any sort. Paul, in his misguided youth, thought that if he were able to produce money for the household, his family would be happier. Little did he know that by bringing in more wealth, he only deepened the family's greed. The same type of situation goes for gamblers. Once they have a craving for money, they'll do anything to have more. Eventually, it leads to a dependency that nobody can assist. In the end, Paul hadn't helped his family at all, he only made the problems worse, if that were even possible.

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