Getting Accustomed to Literature, Research Paper Example

From the very beginning of the story, I had an impression of some mystery behind. There were two things that strike me right away in this story – lack of mother’s love for her child and the persistent voice of the house – lack of money or rather their irrational spending.  I thought the story followed regular model – people appreciate money, but forget to value what is really important – other people and feelings between them. During the reading, there were various questions rising. The idea of some people being lucky and others not and how luck can be transferred from one person to another was quite intriguing. The boy’s curiosity was quite obvious, but his desire to prove something and persistence seemed to be odd and even unnatural for a normal kid. I was wondering how Paul would gain the comprehension of luck through a mere riding of a toy horse. The lack of horse’s name was quite symbolic since it changed each time and gave the name of the winner, but where did that knowledge come from? By the end of the story, it was questionable whether Paul’s revelation had been a curse or luck. My personal response to the story is that luck is not about fortune or status in society, and it is not about family, one may have all that and still be miserable. It is about human perception of luck and their ability to value what they have and be grateful for it. The précis of the story is that the boy having a gift of guessing the winning horses was stimulated by his mother’s desire for luxuries and corresponding social status; he was ruined by the prevalence of her social desire to be accepted over real feeling to her family. The story deals with the issues of real values in life, how the atmosphere in the family and mistakes of parents traumatize their children. Overall, while preparing this journal, I found out that a good and interesting story should keep the reader intrigued until the end. All the questions that appeared during the reading were responded only at the end, when the boy died, and his uncle questioned the meaning of luck and happiness for Hether. She had £80 thousand and a dead son. Luck is not about gaining what one wants but to value what one already has.