Blackie symbolizes the more typical boys’ gang leader of the early part of the twentieth century. Like the other boys who join together in mischievous conduct for thrills and a sense of camaraderie and belonging, Blackie is one of the group, and is a friend of the other boys.

Conflicts in “The Destructors” by Graham Greene include conflict between the gracious pre-war world and the new world of devastation all around the boys, class conflict as the working-class boys experience discomfort with a home that represents upper-class tastes and oppressions, and inner conflict as the boys destroy …

“The Destructors” is about a group of teenage boys who call themselves the Wormsley Common gang, after the area where they live. They meet every day in a parking lot near a part of town that was bombed during World War II. Almost everything in this area is destroyed although one house stands with minimal damage.

Graham Greene himself once said, “Destruction, after all, is a form of creation.” Trevor represents class struggle; he also exhibits the nihilism that resulted from the great wars, especially World War II. They destroyed Old Misery’s house because it was there, and because mob mentality took over.

One of Greene’s strengths in “The Destructors” is to show young people as devoid of hope and promise. Thomas in the bathroom to be found by someone else is reflective of a reality in which young people lack hope and innocence both in their worlds and in themselves.

Mr. Thomas: Mr. Thomas is the most obvious choice as antagonist, because the boys attempt to circumvent his authority by destroying his house and locking him in the outhouse.

Protagonist: T/Trevor: He is a round character because we learn quite a bit about his personality. He is also a static character because he does not change throughout the story. Antagonist: The House: Although it is not a person, the house is the force that opposes T.

Trevor, also known as T., takes over the gang from Blackie. At first, they do not make fun of him even though everything about him means they usually would. This is one of the reasons his name gets shortened to T. He never wasted a word even to tell his name until that was required of him by the rules.

Trevor, or “T.” Character Analysis. T. is a brooding, unhappy, rebellious adolescent and the newest member of the Wormsley Common Gang. He comes from a wealthier background than the other boys, but his parents have lost their place in society and moved to the neighborhood.

Loyalty. One of the main themes of the story “The Destructors” is loyalty. Before Trevor becomes a member of the Wormsley Common Gang, their undisputed leader is a boy named Blackie, who is very much a “gang” boy.

This is the kind of environment in which the boys live. Old Misery’s stately home stands as a symbol of a bygone age, an age of elegance and nobility. The home is a representation of a vanishing heritage, one unceremoniously swept away by the Second World War.

The setting is in England after the end of World War II when everything is still bombed out and demolished. A parking lot in a town surrounded by bomb-destroyed neighborhood is where the boys meet. The one house left standing is where the action takes places.

The rising action includes the gathering of the boys and the actual destruction of the infrastructure of the house, the climax occurs when the boys must make a quick decision of whether to abandon the house or not, and the falling action is the complete destruction of Old Misery’s house.

He didn’t want to destroy Old Misery’s house because there was no need for it to be destroyed, and because they would have gotten caught. Blackie was thinking about the consequences of his actions more than anyone else in the gang, so I believe he can be saved from complete corruption.

Graham Greene

A driver who keeps his lorry in the lot near Mr. Thomas’s house. The lorry driver’s laughter suggests that the boy’s hostility to the old pre-war world of strict social class, and their affinity for destruction, is shared more broadly by the community of people around them as well.

fifteen-year-old

In “The Destructors,” the climax of the plot occurs when Mike arrives to tell the boys that Old Misery is approaching the home.

At the end of the story, a truck driver starts his truck and hears a crash behind him as he pulls off. He doesn’t realize that his truck has been tied to a main beam in the home and that he brought the entire home crashing to the ground until he steps out of his truck to look at it. Mr.

Suspense is created through the fear of the boys that they will not be able to destroy the entire house. This larger concern is involved. Also, suspense greatly increases when Mr. Thomas arrives early to the house and they have to devise a plan to contain him.

Suspense arises out of your readers’ anticipation of, and worry and fear about, what’s going to happen next. You create suspense by making your readers fear the worst for a character they care deeply about. To build suspense, make your readers worry about all the ways your hero’s plans could go wrong (see Klems).

Thomas “Old Misery,” and indeed he seems like a sad and lonely figure. While he is too much of a miser to fix his plumbing, he does show generosity in once giving the boys chocolates (an action the boys mistrust as a possible bribe).

The story suggests that destruction is part of human nature. It is infinitely more easy to destroy something beautiful, than it is to create it. The boys in the Wormsley Common gang are a microcosm of the senseless destruction and total war ideology of World War II.

Kathy Burke

I think that part of the significance of the ending is that it helps to bring out the reality of the world following the wanton destruction that was the child of World War II. The effect of the bombing on London is evident. There is nothing but destruction that surrounds the people of London.