Discussion Topic
The tone and irony in "The Destructors" by Graham Greene
Summary:
The tone of "The Destructors" by Graham Greene is detached and cynical, reflecting the post-war disillusionment. The irony lies in the gang's systematic and unemotional destruction of Mr. Thomas's house, which they see as an act of creation, highlighting the absurdity and futility of their actions in a world scarred by war.
What's ironic in Graham Greene's short story "The Destructors"?
It would seem that Graham Greene expresses in his story, "The Destructors" that the greatest irony of the World War II Blitz on London is that the children of this era do not find destruction as an aberration. Rather, it seems to them the norm. This is why the boys who are lead, significantly, by an architect's son, imitate what has occurred to buildings throughout their city; for Old Misery's house to be standing seems somehow wrong to them. Their act of taking the house apart in such an ingenious way is, in effect, an inverse form of architecture, a deconstruction.
Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators--and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become.
The underlying climate of war is present in the...
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descriptions:
- "They squatted in the ruins of the room...." Later, "the doors were all off,,,the furniture pillaged and ripped and smashed...."
- "...the slow warm drops that had begun to fall and the rumble of thunder in the estuary like the first guns of the old blitz...."
That the boys do not think it unethical to destroy this house is demonstrated in their otherwise ethical behavior:
- They work seriously at their task.
- When T. discovers bundles of pound notes stuffed in a mattress, Blackie asks if these will be shared, but T. replies, "We aren't thieves....Nobody's going to steal anything from this house. He has kept seventy for the boys to burn, "a celebration."
- One of the boys takes food and a blanket out to Mr. Thomas: "We don't want you to starve, Mr. Thomas."
The most obvious irony in "The Destructors" by Graham Greene concerns the leader of the Wormsley Common gang. At the beginning of the story, the leader is Blackie; however, when Trevor (who prefers to be called "T") takes over, the entire tenor of the gang and its activities changes, or at least intensifies.
One of the things the boys in the gang talk about doing concerns one of the most unusual sights in the poor neighborhood known as Wormsley Common. In the midst of the poverty and the post-war rubble, a two-hundred-year-old house is still standing, though it is clearly not as strong and unshakable as it once was. Its simple presence is remarkable enough, but the fact that it was built by the famous Christopher Wren, the country's (Britain's) most famous architect, sets this house apart. The boys have nicknamed the old man who lives "Old Misery."
Blackie and the boys always want to kind of "stick it" to the rich, and one of the things he and the gang want to do is sneak into Old Misery's house just to see if they can do it. He has no intentions of their stealing or destroying anything. When T suggests that they destroy the place instead, the boys have to be convinced; but eventually they are captivated by the idea, and that is when T takes over the gang.
Irony is a contrast between two things; in this case, the contrast is between what we expect and what happens. Fifteen-year-old Trevor is the son of an architect (albeit an out-of-work one), and we would therefore expect him to have the greatest appreciation for such a grand old structure--especially after he is allowed to see what an architectural wonder it is. Instead, he sees wants to destroy it. Even after he sees firsthand the magnificent stairway and the fine furnishings and finishes, he still wants to destroy it. This unexpected act from a boy who no doubt learned to appreciate fine architecture generally and Christopher Wren specifically is an example of dramatic irony.
A similar example happens during the gang's destruction of the house. For a young hooligan who has no qualms about participating in a gang and routinely committing illegal acts, T is curiously and surprisingly ethical about Old Misery's money. Blackie is the one who assumes the boys will all get a share of the money they find in the old man's mattress, but T mixes that idea promptly:
“We aren’t thieves.... Nobody is going to steal anything from this house.”
It is unexpected to hear such high-minded morality from a criminal who is about to burn money and destroy a man's house, in addition to the lesser crimes surrounding this act. How ironic for a gang member to claim that he is not a thief. No, he is not a thief, but he is a...fill in the blank however you wish. Whatever you say there, it is ironic.
Be sure to check out the excellent eNotes sites below for more analysis of Graham Green and his works.
References
What is the irony in "The Destructors"?
The irony in "The Destructors" is that the teenaged boys in the story destroy what is left of the beauty of the world around them rather than using their energy and talent to preserve and improve it. In destroying the lovely, architecturally significant home in their neighborhood that has survived the Blitz, they further impoverish their own lives.
It is clear that the home's owner, Old Misery, is trying to reach out to boys and build community. For example, he gives them three packets of chocolate. Rationing still went on in 1950s Britain, and chocolate was not necessarily easy to come by, but Old Misery makes the gesture. He is willing to share with the boys what he has.
But the boys are suspicious of his gift:
The gang were puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. “Bet someone dropped them and he picked ’em up,” somebody suggested.
Rather than see it as a kind gesture, the boys take it as a way to "bribe" them into not bouncing a ball against the side of his house. They bounce the ball to show they can't be bribed.
Ironically, if the boys had forged a relationship with the past that Old Misery represents, they all could have helped each other forge a path of creation; however, for them the world is entirely a material place, devoid of the spiritual, and they reject the beauty and graciousness that Old Misery's house represents. Greene implies that this lack of respect for the past is as destructive to England as the Blitz once was.
What is the tone and irony in "The Destructors" by Graham Greene?
The overall tone is one of unremitting gloom. As Greene is putting forward a fairly grim view of human nature, this is entirely appropriate. There's a horrifying sense of inevitability about the delinquent actions of the Wormsley Common gang. They live in a part of London that was pretty run-down before the war but which, in the aftermath of sustained German bombing raids, has turned into a post-apocalyptic landscape. In such an environment, there is no hope, no aspiration. Everything is ruined, both people and buildings alike, and the narrative's tone reflects this.
The irony of all this is that the boys, in wrecking Mr. Thomas's house, are doing what the Germans couldn't do. That beautiful old house had withstood the might of the Luftwaffe over many years, but now it's taken a bunch of kids a matter of hours to reduce it to rubble. The greatest single act of wanton destruction in this part of town has come not from the Germans, but from some of the people who actually live here.
I think that one of the strongest points to Greene's short story is its tone. If we define tone as the attitude an author details towards its subject, I think that we can see clearly that the tone of Greene's story is one in which there is a sense of uncertainty and deconstruction in a setting that once had stability and a sense of absolutist direction. The hollowed out cavern that London is from what it used to be is the setting that helps to convey this tone. The fact that the boys really seek to engage in destructive elements in the midst of the absolute horrors of war is also a part of the narrative that helps to convey the tone. There is a lack of construction that the tone conveys in both the physical condition of the setting, but also in the emotional configuration of the people in it. T. and the boys only destroy. There is no creation. They only tear down. Even this is something that cannot be finished as it is interrupted by Mr. Thomas' return. The truck driver does not share the sense of Mr. Thomas' horror at the gutted remains of the home. He indicates that it's "nothing personal" but rather "funny." This helps to bring out a tone that shows there is a reality that is steeped in deconstruction and a lack of totality. The values and structures that used to guide human action in England are gone. In their place is an unknown where only destruction is evident. Indeed, the lorry driver's words ring true: "It's nothing personal." As Mr. Thomas and the reader discover through Greene's tone, there is nothing personal left in this setting.