The Destructors

The Destructors is an interesting story about the irony of destruction being form creativity. In the mid 1950’s, the Wormsley Common Gang has a change of protagonists as they dismantle a house from the inside out. The gang does not even touch the money as T and Blackie burn Thomas’s, the owner of the house, savings. This is purely for Trevor to prove he belongs even though he leaves Mr. Thomas homeless though done so in a clever plan.
The setting in the Destructors takes place in a two hundred year-old house that amazingly is held up by nothing other than a wooden cork shaped staircase. The role of the staircase is to access other floors and act as the main support for the house by using “opposing forces”. By the end of the story, the house came crashing after the lorry driver pulled a wooden strut from the staircase.
The rising action is the difficult demise and disassembly of the behemoth of a house. Floors were torn apart and struts were destroyed on the way down floor-by-floor as each level collapsed. Everything was taken apart and flooded, but only the windows were left because the forgotten about them. The only act left was to pull the wooden strut in the staircase and watch the house implode.
Trevor, or T, in the Destructors is trying to prove his worth after losing his popularity. His father was a great architect and his mother was snooty. Like all the boys, T wanted to prove his worth by devising a plan to implode Old Misery’s house without stealing and looting. This shortly puts him in charge as the head until he has to speed up the process. After Old Misery returns and is locked away, control is distributed between Blackie (the original gang leader) and T.
The tone in the Destructors is one full of awe and malicious. A group of kids managed themselves in an organized fashion so that tools were provided and distributed, a plan was laid and followed, and they succeeded to collapse the building and home of Mr. Thomas. The cleanliness of how smooth the Wormsley Common Gang worked. They efficiently and purposely destroy a relic of history and a man who trusted Trevor and left him homeless.
The form of destruction can and is a form of creativity. Trevor simply removed the floors and removed the staircase holding the house together. The amount of damage proved T was capable and an intellectual member to the gang. Old Misery was maliciously left homeless after losing a two hundred year old house that seemed invincible to a war, but not a small child.