Discuss the tone and irony in "The Destructors" by Graham Greene. Write two paragraphs for each.

The
overall tone is one of unremitting gloom. As Greene is putting forward a fairly grim view of
human nature, this is entirely appropriate. There's a horrifying sense of inevitability about
the delinquent actions of the Wormsley Common gang. They live in a part of London that was
pretty run-down before the war but which, in the aftermath of sustained German bombing raids,
has turned into a post-apocalyptic landscape. In such an environment, there is no hope, no
aspiration. Everything is ruined, both people and buildings alike, and the narrative's tone
reflects this.

Theof all this is that the boys, in wrecking Mr. Thomas's
house, are doing what the Germans couldn't do. That beautiful old house had withstood the might
of the Luftwaffe over many years, but now it's taken a bunch of kids a matter of hours to reduce
it to rubble. The greatest single act of wanton destruction in this part of town has come not
from the Germans, but from some of the people who actually live here.