We read the short story The Destructors this week in class. This story really...caught me off guard. This gang of little boys- Mike being only 9 years old- came off as so....cold. It's hard top think about it. It was just plain odd. In the story they destroy a man's (Old Misery/Mr. Thomas) house- from the inside out. They said they didn't hate him, nor did they want to steal, they just wanted to destroy the house. When Old Misery came back early they lock him in his outside bathroom and bring him a blanket and food-saying they don't want him to be uncomfortable. Yet they want to destroy his house that he's so proud of. Old Misery is the only person that seemed to accept them- giving them back their ball, giving them a tour of his house, saying they could use his restroom as long as they asked first, and he has nothing -no family, no hobbies, just his house. But these kids....didn't want to be accepted by him. They wanted to be a gang. They wanted to be known for sneaking free bus rides and destroying this house. These are children. What children don't want to be accepted? If it hadn't been for their small acts of kindness towards Old Misery when they locked him up, I would've forgotten they were children at all!
When I think of children, I think of innocence. That's not true though.... as kids, did we not have to be taught our morals? Did our parents not force us to share our toys and not hit people when we're angry(maybe I was just a bad kid....)? I still felt guilt about it as a child, and I liked having friends and seeing people happy, but that didn't mean I was innocent of all cruelty and meanness. Kids' personalities lie somewhere between what they want, and what they see. So what must these children in the story must have seen to do this? Well, after paying closer attention to the text, it came to my attention that this story took place in the era barely past WWII. These kids had seen such pointless destruction all around them. Event he driver at the end of the story had laughed when Old Misery's house had collapsed- due to the rope put on his car. How twisted does war make people? Though this may be a fictional story, I can't help but feel a connection to it, like these characters were real children who had become so desensitized to destruction that they destroyed a man's- who only offered them kindness, which they refused to see or accept- home, and thought that since they weren't thieves(and therefor didn't want to keep anything from the house), the acceptable thing to do would be to burn the old man's money, to make sure he really lost everything- but yet they weren't so low as to sink to thievery which could have them arrested. Does anyone else notice the parallels between the mindset of these British children and that of Germany in WWII? Doing a horrible thing, but making it okay in their minds? I want to find these kids, I want to scold them, I want to hold them, and teach them that life doesn't have to be like it was in war. I want to keep that nine year old kid from being in a gang and running around town to church(or skipping church) alone. I want to keep that pretentiously named kid from having to go by T to get respect and from destroying peoples will to entertain himself. I want to keep Blackie from having all his friends and followers betray him so easily to follow another. I want to keep people from ever having to experience war or reach a point where they don't want to be accepted by others or each other.
I agree with you like, hmm... probably around 3482%. Give or take. The attitudes of these kids are so sick and messed up, it's terrifying, yet fascinating to observe. It makes me feel for the children who actually dealt with all the mass destruction of WWII, or any war for that matter. Talk about some emotional scarring that's got to cause. Fun fact: my grandpa was born in Germany during the war, it ended when he was two, yet he still can remember bombs going off, and it's messed with him quite a bit, even after all these years.
ReplyDeleteI was most intrigued by you consideration of where we get our morals. How would we treat each other if we weren't taught some behavioral expectations. I like to think that we'd eventually mature and "figure it out," and I'm sure there are psychological experiments and case studies out there that have explored this topic, but who knows. However, I think the story makes an interesting point that when we experience a traumatic thing like war (or child abuse or neglect or lack of basic necessities or whatever), then all bets are off, and who knows how messed up we're going to turn out.
ReplyDeleteI also liked your empathetic desire to reach out to the boys. Obviously you can't help the boys in the story, but maybe you can find a way to help children who have been through comparable situations.
Your opinion on why the boys destroyed the house raised a great point. I think that sometimes we take for granted the morals and values we were taught as children and try to hold others to the same standards. Seeing the WWII leaders destroy innocent people's lives seems "right" and "acceptable" so how can we say we are "right" when we were taught be example of our parents just as the boys were?
ReplyDelete