In the following essay, Stinson discusses the conflicts of order/chaos and good/evil in "The Destructors."

"The Destructors," a masterfully controlled and deeply resonant short story, occupies the final position in Graham Greene's collection, Twenty-One Stories. Although it is very possibly the best of all the stories save the lead-off story, "The Basement Room," and although it has been collected in several textbook anthologies including the widely used Story and Structure by Laurence Perrine, "The Destructors" has as yet provoked no extended comment in print.

The story, which concerns itself with a particularly egregious case of vandalism among London youth, has failed, perhaps, to be fully understood. "The Destructors" attempts not so much to provide a sociological or psychological explanation for the causes of juvenile delinquency (although it does do this to some extent) as it does to provide a parable-like comment on man's inborn depravity...