The Destructors
In ‘the destructors’, how does the author convey a sense of menace and raising tension?
The author of the destructors ‘Graham Greene’ uses lots of different techniques to convey a sense of menace and tension during the story. He starts off by introducing the characters, and all the characters have nicknames ‘Blacky, T’, this gives a sense of mystery as we wonder what some of their real names are. The gang clearly has rules and a sense of self restraint and if you break the rules, or utter the wrong word ‘run along home, Trevor’ this use of his real name ruins his reputation creating tension among the characters. Blackie is the leader of the gang at the start but when T comes along he does bow down to him, but then when T messes up Blackie is there to take control and he does so swiftly and efficiently. Trevor is a man with a plan, and he is cleverer than all the other members of the gang but he also comes from a higher class which the others are unwary about. T is a man with a plan. His aim is to destroy someone else’s life because his father, the architect, recently lost his job to men like Mr. Thomas, so when he joins the gang he creates a plan that will ruin Mr. Thomas’s life forever. T being so hell-bent on destroying someone else’s life creates a big sense of menace which makes us wary of him. As soon as T announces his plan to destroy the house, we are shocked, this is a very evil ting to do and it creates a dangerous, scary atmosphere. Trevor comes across as an innocuous, even vulnerable, character, yet under his placid exterior he is frighteningly aggressive. He plans to pull the house down (‘and then we’d pull the walls down’) from the inside out. Greene makes Trevor all the more disturbing as his aggression is hidden behind eyes ‘as grey and disturbed as the drab August day.’ This simile suggests that Trevor is a troubled individual. It is clear that Blackie is having some regrets: ‘the plan had been a wild invention: they had woken wiser.’ Greene’s
The author of the destructors ‘Graham Greene’ uses lots of different techniques to convey a sense of menace and tension during the story. He starts off by introducing the characters, and all the characters have nicknames ‘Blacky, T’, this gives a sense of mystery as we wonder what some of their real names are. The gang clearly has rules and a sense of self restraint and if you break the rules, or utter the wrong word ‘run along home, Trevor’ this use of his real name ruins his reputation creating tension among the characters. Blackie is the leader of the gang at the start but when T comes along he does bow down to him, but then when T messes up Blackie is there to take control and he does so swiftly and efficiently. Trevor is a man with a plan, and he is cleverer than all the other members of the gang but he also comes from a higher class which the others are unwary about. T is a man with a plan. His aim is to destroy someone else’s life because his father, the architect, recently lost his job to men like Mr. Thomas, so when he joins the gang he creates a plan that will ruin Mr. Thomas’s life forever. T being so hell-bent on destroying someone else’s life creates a big sense of menace which makes us wary of him. As soon as T announces his plan to destroy the house, we are shocked, this is a very evil ting to do and it creates a dangerous, scary atmosphere. Trevor comes across as an innocuous, even vulnerable, character, yet under his placid exterior he is frighteningly aggressive. He plans to pull the house down (‘and then we’d pull the walls down’) from the inside out. Greene makes Trevor all the more disturbing as his aggression is hidden behind eyes ‘as grey and disturbed as the drab August day.’ This simile suggests that Trevor is a troubled individual. It is clear that Blackie is having some regrets: ‘the plan had been a wild invention: they had woken wiser.’ Greene’s