I would definitely want to argue that it is. Throughout
this excellent short story it is the rocking horse that gives Paul his supernatural
ability to predict the next big winner, and, arguably, it is the rocking horse that
takes his life as he rocks ever more frantically on the horse to gain this knowledge.
Note how the mother views her son on his horse for the last
time:
Then
suddenly she switched on the light, and saw her son, in his green pajamas, madly surging
on the rocking horse. The blaze of light suddenly lit him up, as he urged the wooden
horse...
He screams out "in a
powerful, strange voice" and his eyes "blaze" with the effect of the horse. It is clear
that the horse does symbolise some sort of power external to Paul and his mother, yet we
are never given a precise indication as to what. We can, however, come up with a list of
various possibilities. We could say that the horse represents Paul's desire for his
mother's love, an instrument of supernatural forces, temptation or greed. Any of these
possibilities could be argued from the text.
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