Greed and Destruction in Greene and Lawrence's Stories
This essay compares and contrasts Graham Greene's "The Destructors" and D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner," two British short stories that use child protagonists to explore the destructive power of greed. Despite surface similarities — British settings, young main characters, and tragic outcomes — the stories differ in tone and the nature of the evil they portray. The essay argues that both works condemn a society that places money and possessions above human compassion, and that greed functions as the central destructive force in each narrative, ultimately costing the characters and those around them everything that matters.
- Introduction: Two Stories, One Theme: Greed as shared destructive theme in both stories
- Surface Similarities and the Role of Possessions: British settings, boy protagonists, and jealousy of possessions
- Paul and the Cost of Family Greed in Lawrence's Story: Paul's gift exploited by family's obsession with money
- Tragic Endings and Society's Moral Failures: Kindness unrewarded; society values money over compassion
- Children in Adult Worlds of Greed and Despair: Child characters trapped in adult cycles of greed
- What Sets the Stories Apart: Lawrence tragic; Greene darker and more evil
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What makes this paper effective
- The essay uses direct textual quotations from both stories to ground its comparative claims, giving specific evidence rather than relying on plot summary alone.
- It maintains a clear, consistent thesis — that greed is a destructive force reflected in both works — and returns to that thesis in each section, giving the paper strong thematic coherence.
- The conclusion effectively synthesizes the comparison by noting an important distinction: Lawrence's story is tragic, while Greene's is more genuinely evil, demonstrating nuanced comparative thinking.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates the point-by-point comparative method, moving through shared themes (possessions, child protagonists, tragic endings, societal critique) and applying each to both texts before noting where they diverge. This approach keeps both works in dialogue throughout rather than treating them sequentially.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by establishing thematic common ground, then works through a series of comparative lenses: the role of possessions, the portrayal of greed through young characters, the significance of tragic endings, and the social commentary embedded in each story. It closes by distinguishing between the two works in tone and moral weight before offering a brief synthesizing conclusion. The structure is well-suited to a short comparative essay at the undergraduate level.
Introduction: Two Stories, One Theme
Greed has always been a powerful motivator, and it is one of the main themes in two works that seem quite similar at first glance: The Destructors by Graham Greene and "The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence. A closer reading reveals meaningful dissimilarities between them, but ultimately both stories point to greed as a powerful destructive force in human life, and to a society that reveres money and possessions above all else.
Surface Similarities and the Role of Possessions
Initially, these two short stories seem quite similar. They are both set in Great Britain, and they both feature young boys as their main characters. At first glance, they might appear to be stories about growing up in unfamiliar worlds, but underlying that first impression are dark and disturbing themes about how greed can destroy — and how destruction for its own sake is itself a form of greed. Both stories also illustrate how a love of "things," or possessions, can become a destructive form of greed.
Greene makes this explicit in his story, showing how young juvenile delinquents view possessions. He writes: "All this hate and love, he said, it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie, and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things" (Greene 236). The group of young boys tears down the old man's house because they see it as a symbol of everything they do not have — possessions they would love to own but cannot. They do not see the old man as a human being, and so they destroy everything that is dear to him. This dark tale shows how greed brings about ultimate destruction, and in this respect it closely resembles "The Rocking-Horse Winner," in which greed is equally destructive.
Paul and the Cost of Family Greed in Lawrence's Story
Paul is the young protagonist of "The Rocking-Horse Winner," and he is a sympathetic character because he is kind and ultimately gives his life to better his family. Throughout the story, his family is consumed with money — or the lack of it — while maintaining appearances to the outside world that they are well-off. Paul often hears his parents arguing about money and understands its central importance in their lives. Lawrence writes:
"There must be more money! There must be more money!" And the children would stop playing, to listen for a moment. They would look into each other's eyes, to see if they had all heard. And each one saw in the eyes of the other two that they too had heard. "There must be more money! There must be more money!" (Lawrence).
Paul discovers he has a magical gift for picking winning racehorses, and he earns enough money to erase his family's debts. He then tragically dies, leaving his parents in far better financial circumstances — which is all that seems to matter in the end. Lawrence writes:
"His eyes blazed at her for one strange and senseless second, as he ceased urging his wooden horse. Then he fell with a crash to the ground, and she, all her tormented motherhood flooding upon her, rushed to gather him up. But he was unconscious, and unconscious he remained, with some brain-fever. He talked and tossed, and his mother sat stonily by his side" (Lawrence).
This tragic ending parallels the conclusion of "The Destructors," in which the poor old man stands in the ruins of his house — ruins created for no reason other than the boys' jealousy of his possessions.
Works Cited
Greene, Graham. 21 Stories. New York: Viking Press, 1962.
Lawrence, D.H. "The Rocking-Horse Winner." Dowse.com. 2001. 20 March 2003. http://www.dowse.com/fiction/Lawrence.html
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