The boys in "The Destructors" are in their teenage years, a period typically marked by the transition from youthful innocence to a more mature and worldly perspective. However, for these boys, innocence has already been replaced by cynicism, selfishness, and rebellion. When Mr. Thomas returns home unexpectedly early, T. is surprised because the old man had mentioned he would be away longer. Greene writes, "He protested with the fury of the child he had never been." These boys have grown up during wartime, in an environment that constantly reminds them of traumatic experiences. They gather in a parking lot near a bombed-out area, seemingly indifferent because such destruction is a routine aspect of their lives. The war years have robbed them of their youthful innocence, leaving them disenchanted and eager to impose their own world order, though all they truly understand is destruction.

Innocence often involves a surrender to the imagination. In "The Destructors," however, imagination takes a darker path. T. uses his imagination to devise a plan to demolish Mr. Thomas's house. Greene notes that the boys "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 imagination used to foresee the house's destruction starkly contrasts with the imagination that initially created it. In innocence, imagination is used to envision a better world, but the boys have lost their innocence and can only imagine a worse one.