"The Destructors" is a 1954 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 about teenagers who destroy a house, written by Graham Greene

Graham Greene

Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...

. The story is ironic—showing how destruction is allegedly a form of creation.
The story is set in the mid-1950s, and is about a boys' gang

Gang

A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...

 named the "Wormsley Common Gang", after the place where they live. Trevor, or "T.", the protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, devises a plan to destroy a beautiful two hundred-year-old house that survived The Blitz

The Blitz

The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...

. Under T., their new leader, the gang accepts the plan and executes it when the owner of the house, Mr. Thomas (whom the gang call "Old Misery"), is away during a bank holiday

Bank Holiday

A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract...

 weekend. Their plan is to destroy the house from inside, then tear down the remaining outer structure. Mr. Thomas returns home early, however, and the gang locks him in the outhouse and leader, T., refuses to stop until the destruction job is complete, because even the facade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

 is valuable and could be reused. Inside, they find a mattress filled with money—but they burn it nonetheless. The final damage to the house is done when a parked lorry

Lorry

-Transport:* Lorry or truck, a large motor vehicle* Lorry, or a Mine car in USA: an open gondola with a tipping trough* Lorry , a horse-drawn low-loading trolley-In fiction:...

 pulls away a support pole from the side of the house. Mr. Thomas is released from the outhouse by the aforementioned lorry's driver and after being laughed at is left with the dusty rubble of what once was his home.

The Main Characters

Mike : The youngest member of the gang.
Trevor (T) : The new leader of the gang after he revealed his plan to destroy Mr. Thomas'(old misery) house.
Blackie : The ex-leader of the gang

Television adaptation

"The Destructors" was adapted for television as part of the 1970s British drama series Shades of Greene

Shades of Greene

Shades of Greene is a British television series based on short stories written by the author Graham Greene. The series began in 1975, with each hour-long episode featuring a dramatisation of one of Greene's stories, many of which dealt with issues such as guilt and the Catholic faith, as well as...

. It starred Michael Byrne

Michael Byrne (actor)

Michael Byrne is an English actor noted for his roles on film and television. He has often been cast in Nazi military roles such as Colonel Vogel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik in the BBC radio dramatisation of the novel Fatherland by Robert Harris...

, Phil Daniels

Phil Daniels

Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...

 and Nicholas Drake.

Allusions and references in other works

• In the film Donnie Darko
  Donnie Darko
  Donnie Darko is a 2001 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Jena Malone, and Mary McDonnell...
  
  (2001), the title character contributes to discussion of "The Destructors" in his English class. Several of Donnie's acts of vandalism are drawn from influences in "The Destructors", for example, the flooding of his school and the arson of the house of a pedophilic motivational speaker. A teacher protests this choice of curriculum during a PTA meeting, implying that it inspired a copycat incident of vandalism to the school—which was flooded by a broken water main—in a way similar to the protagonists of the Greene story.

External links

• The Destructors Study Guide