The Destructors & The Rocking-Horse Winner
Graham GreeneÆs ôThe Destructorsö and David H. LawrenceÆs ôThe Rocking-Horse Winnerö share a common thread. Both short stories entertain while carrying a theme that revolves around destruction. In ôThe Destructors,ö we are treated to the antics of a group of children who destroy property because of the destruction they experience living in the shadows of the destruction of war. In ôThe Rocking-Horse Winner,ö a child is destroyed because of his motherÆs destructive obsession with wealth and materialism. In both ôThe Destructorsö and ôThe Rocking-Horse Winner,ö the children succumb to the forces of destruction because of their ôdestructiveö environments.
In ôThe Destructors,ö we see that the boys wish to destroy Mr. ThomasÆ home because it is a symbol of wealth in an environment otherwise devastated from the forces of war. Even though he gives them chocolates and permits them to play ball, the boys are emotionally scarred from the forces of war and do not trust Mr. Thomas. War has made them unable to trust in anything, knowing it can be brutally ripped away. Mr. ThomasÆ home represents a beauty to them they resent in such an environment, ôIt was the word beautiful that worried himùthat belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empireö (Greene 386).
The boys are not blamed by Greene for their penchant for destruction. Rather, the author appears to blame a society that willfully destroys through acts of war for their tendency to destroy. The boysÆ natural tendencies toward empathy or compassion have been as bombed out of their characters as the bombed targets during war. We see this near the end of the story when the drive demolishes the rest of Mr. ThomasÆ house. His comments in looking at the pile of rubble suggest that destruction is only natural as a tendency in a war-torn environment, ôOne moment t
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