The Destructors Symbolism

Literary Analysis of “The Destructors”
While living in the United Kingdom, Graham Greene wrote and published "The Destructors" in a magazine called the Picture Post. It is a novel about a group of boys who call themselves the “Wormsley Common gang” and range in age from nine to fifteen. They are in an old, run-down town directly following World War II, and they do everything they can to destroy it, including the only remaining house. This house belongs to Mr. Thomas who lived there before and after the war. The boys ultimately demolish his home and all of his possessions. Greene uses symbols such as the top hat, Mr. Thomas's house being destroyed, and the sound of destruction in the story to show and explain the overall meaning and message

Thomas to be a sad and lonely old man who is surprisingly wealthy after the war. After the bombing, his house is the only one left standing, and the boys hate it. Because they had to grow up in a barren town, obliterated from the war, they do not care that much for material items. Mr. Thomas takes good care of his possessions because he carried them from pre-war to post-war times, and he understands the value of his things. Greene uses symbols to demonstrate Mr. Thomas’s differing social status, and he states in the novel, "It was the word ‘beautiful’ that worried him–that belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent” (3). The top hat and the monocle symbolize that he has more assets than the boys do, although he does not boast. Unfortunately for Mr. Thomas, the boys automatically think that he looks down on them because he is from the

Thomas's house because they cannot bear to see the house still standing. As Greene states, "A smaller bomb and incendiaries had fallen beyond, so that the house stuck up like a jagged tooth” (1). To the boys in the gang, the standing house demonstrates that Mr. Thomas is well-off and has more money and valuable items than they do. The boys are so used to most things being destroyed, and in turn, they believe that it is only fair if everything is destroyed. Greene states, "There was no house beside the car-park, only a hill of rubble” (10). The hill of rubble was the only thing remaining in their society, because they decided to demolish the home of a man who simply had more than they did. They did not care about the value of material items because they were raised in a time where most everyone had nothing.
The sound of the house being destroyed symbolizes the boys finally being able to move on and adapt to their life of nothingness. Green says, "The lorry moved forward, was momentarily checked as though something were pulling it from behind, and then went on to the sound of a long rumbling crash” (10). They achieved their goal to destroy Mr. Thomas’s house and ensured that no person in their town had more than they did. Now, it was time for them to move on. They were raised with nothing, and because they felt inferior to Mr. Thomas, they believed that the house should no longer be