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In "The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence, what is ironic about what the mother does with the 5,000 pounds? What do you think her motivation is?

It is ironic that the mother immediately spends the five thousand pounds she receives on flowers when it is winter, a tutor for Paul, tuition for Paul to go to Eton in the fall, and "other luxuries" when she insisted she needed the money to pay off her debts. Why would a person so constantly worried about money not save some of her windfall or use it to get out of debt? The answer is that the mother is using the money to try to fill a hole in her psyche. We learn early in the story that she is incapable of truly loving her children and that her husband is a disappointment to her. There's a void inside of her that she tries to fill with material goods, but the more money she gets, the more her appetite for money grows. She will never have enough to plug the emptiness she feels inside because money, in the end, can't replace the love she lacks.

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