Breaking from Society

Society forms a very structured bond with us, one that is very strong for our safety, yet inflexible for it’s protection. When an individual finds that the relationship is oppressive or undesirable they may resort to extremes to prove to themselves that they are finally free. Painting their worlds with vivid symbolism The Destructors by Graham Greene and The Ring by Isak Dinesen effectively portray individuals turning their backs on society’s support. There are many times in which society is favorable, yet through the twists and turns of life, these characters change faster than their world can keep up with, and their passionate separation from their past lives is accentuated by their methods of parting.

Both Trevor of The Destructors and Lise of The Ring come from a post apocalyptic world, both literally and figuratively. Lise’s pristine world comes tumbling down to here feet, and she is left with the decision to either run back to the safety of her old life, and embrace a dangerous new world. Lise makes her chance encounter at a moment of significant doubt in her life. She goes to the forest, the safest place she knows: “She had felt at that moment that she had come into the very heart of her new home.”(1073). This is a message in itself, because symbolically the forest represents not only a place of refuge here, but also a place of the anti-societal to hide. This being the place that she finds safest seals her fate as an outcast even before she realizes it. Although the forest contains no bombs or fighting, the very foundations of her life are uprooted, and the shock is far more effective that what a war could be. Trevor has a similar story, although he does come from a world that is on fire with the mistakes of its fathers. World War II has caused many of the buildings in his town to be leveled; yet there is another kind of destruction present. The very class structure that was as firmly entrenched as the structures lining the streets had seemed has now fallen, and in this new void Trevor looks to create a better way of living that what the world had before. Old Misery, although an amicable old man, represents the entirety of the social structure that Trevor if fervently against. His very name shows how separate he is from the vibrant new youth that is trying to take its place in the world. Even in descriptions Old Misery seems out of place such as when he is locked in his outhouse and is described as feeling “felt dithery and confused and old”(955). He seems like such an endangered relic amongst children like Trevor. Although Trevor claims not to hate Old Misery, it is what he represents that makes Trevor destroy his home.

The turning points for each character occur when they are forced to look within themselves and decide which path they want. Trevor is torn between his admiration of the old architecture, and his dream of destruction. He describes the staircase, saying, “It’s got a staircase two hundred years old like a corkscrew. Nothing holds it up… It’s to do with opposite forces, Old Misery said.”(950). Of course, this also refers to the opposite forces that hold Trevor from destroying the house. Ultimately, its beauty is not enough justification to keep it standing, and Trevor decides that its fate should be destruction along with the rest of the house. In Lise’s forest, she encounters the thief, who “during the last months had broken into the sheepfolds of the neighborhood like a wolf, had killed and dragged away his prey like a wolf, and like a wolf had left no trace after him.”(1073). His wolf like appearance signifies not only deception, but also an attempt to lure Lise away from society and into the forest. She follows him, and sacrifices her marriage, thinking that “She had no object of value about her, only the wedding ring which her husband had set on her finger…”(1074). When she offers out her ring to the thief, she rejects all that has bonded her to the world she had known. Yet however vast the internal conflict was for either character, an outside observer couldn’t have perceived the significance of the changes without knowledge of the meaning of all the things present.

Lise and Trevor cast away their commitments with society in favor of using their own method. One never knows how successful either is; yet the focus being on the rejection is sufficient. Watching them change from conformists to revolutionaries shows a decision everyone is faced with, and brings a new light to that point of one’s life.