3 page Essay that compares and contrasts 2 stories from the Fiction Unit/ Also Thesis and Outline  -Humanities

you will write a 750-word (approximately 3 pages) essay that compares and contrasts 2 stories from the Fiction Unit. Before you begin writing the essay, carefully read the below guidelines for developing your paper topic and review the Fiction Essay Grading Rubric to see how your submission will be graded. Gather all of your information, plan the direction of your essay, and organize your ideas by developing a 1-page thesis statement and outline for your essay. Format the thesis statement and the outline in a single Microsoft Word document using current APA, style (whichever corresponds to your degree program); check your Perrine’s Literature textbook, the Harbrace Essentials Handbook and/or the link contained in the Assignment Instructions Folder to ensure correct citation format is used.Your Fiction Essay must include a title page, a thesis/outline page, and the essay itself, followed by a works cited/references/bibliography page listing any primary and/or secondary texts cited in your essay.I have attached 2 stories to compare and contrast from the textbook, and the Fiction Essay InstructionsI am paying for 2 assignments in theory, A Outline / Thesis and a 3 page /750 word Essay related to.
story_1_the_destructors.docx

story_2_the_lottery.docx

fiction_ess_instructions.docx

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(Plot and Structure)
The Destructors
Graham Greene
1
It was the eve of August Bank Holiday that the latest recruit became the leader of the
Wormsley Common Gang. No one was surprised except Mike, but Mike at the age of nine
was surprised by everything. “If you don’t shut your mouth,” somebody once said to him,
“you’ll get a frog down it.” After that Mike had kept his teeth tightly clamped except when
the surprise was too great.
The new recruit had been with the gang since the beginning of the summer holidays, and
there were possibilities about his brooding silence that all recognized. He never wasted a
word even to tell his name until that was required of him by the rules. When he said
“Trevor” it was a statement of fact, not as it would have been with the others a statement of
shame or defiance. Nor did anyone laugh except Mike, who finding himself without support
and meeting the dark gaze of the newcomer opened his mouth and was quiet again. There
was every reason why T., as he was afterwards referred to, should have been an object of
mockery—there was his name (and they substituted the initial because otherwise they had
no excuse not to laugh at it), the fact that his father, a former architect and present clerk,
had “come down in the world” and that his mother considered herself better than the
neighbors. What but an odd quality of danger, of the unpredictable, established him in the
gang without any ignoble ceremony of initiation?
The gang met every morning in an impromptu car-park, the site of the last bomb of the
first blitz. The leader, who was known as Blackie, claimed to have heard it fall, and no one
was precise enough in his dates to point out that he would have been one year old and fast
asleep on the down platform of Wormsley Common Underground Station. On one side of
the car-park leant the first occupied house, No. 3, of the shattered Northwood Terrace—
literally leant, for it had suffered from the blast of the bomb and the side walls were
supported on wooden struts. A smaller bomb and some incendiaries had fallen beyond, so
that the house stuck up like a jagged tooth and carried on the further wall relics of its
neighbor, a dado, the remains of a fireplace. T., whose words were almost confined to
voting “Yes” or “No” to the plan of operations proposed each day by Blackie, once startled
the whole gang by saying broodingly, “Wren built that house, father says.”
“Who’s Wren?”
5 “The man who built St. Paul’s.”
“Who cares?” Blackie said. “It’s only Old Misery’s.”
Old Misery—whose real name was Thomas—had once been a builder and decorator. He
lived alone in the crippled house, doing for himself: once a week you could see him coming
back across the common with bread and vegetables, and once as the boys played in the carpark he put his head over the smashed wall of his garden and looked at them.
“Been to the lav,” one of the boys said, for it was common knowledge that since the
bombs fell something had gone wrong with the pipes of the house and Old Misery was too
mean to spend money on the property. He could do the redecorating himself at cost price,
but he had never learnt plumbing. The lav was a wooden shed at the bottom of the narrow
garden with a star-shaped hole in the door: it had escaped the blast which had smashed the
house next door and sucked out the window-frames of No. 3.
The next time the gang became aware of Mr. Thomas was more surprising. Blackie, Mike
and a thin yellow boy, who for some reason was called by his surname Summers, met him
on the common coming back from the market. Mr. Thomas stopped them. He said glumly,
“You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?”
10 Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had
responsibilities. “Suppose we are?” he said ambiguously.
“I got some chocolates,” Mr. Thomas said. “Don’t like ’em myself. Here you are. Not
enough to go round, I don’t suppose. There never is,” he added with somber conviction. He
handed over three packets of Smarties.
The gang were puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. “Bet
someone dropped them and he picked ’em up,” somebody suggested.
“Pinched ’em and then got in a bleeding funk,” another thought aloud.
“It’s a bribe,” Summers said. “He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall.”
15 “We’ll show him we don’t take bribes,” Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole
morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no
sign from Mr. Thomas.
Next day T. astonished them all. He was late at the rendezvous, and the voting for the
day’s exploit took place without him. At Blackie’s suggestion the gang was to disperse in
pairs, take buses at random and see how many free rides could be snatched from unwary
conductors (the operation was to be carried out in pairs to avoid cheating). They were
drawing lots for their companions when T. arrived.
“Where you been, T.?” Blackie asked. “You can’t vote now. You know the rules.”
“I’ve been there,” T. said. He looked at the ground, as though he had thoughts to hide.
“Where?”
20 “At Old Misery’s.” Mike’s mouth opened and then hurriedly closed again with a click. He
had remembered the frog.
“At Old Misery’s?” Blackie said. There was nothing in the rules against it, but he had a
sensation that T. was treading on dangerous ground. He asked hopefully, “Did you break
in?”
“No. I rang the bell.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I wanted to see his house.”
25 “What did he do?”
“He showed it to me.”
“Pinch anything?”
“No.”
“What did you do it for then?”
30 The gang had gathered round: it was as though an impromptu court were about to form
and to try some case of deviation. T. said, “It’s a beautiful house,” and still watching the
ground, meeting no one’s eyes, he licked his lips first one way, then the other.
“What do you mean, a beautiful house?” Blackie asked with scorn.
“It’s got a staircase two hundred years old like a corkscrew. Nothing holds it up.”
“What do you mean, nothing holds it up. Does it float?”
“It’s to do with opposite forces, Old Misery said.”
35 “What else?”
“There’s paneling.”
“Like in the Blue Boar?”
“Two hundred years old.”
“Is Old Misery two hundred years old?”
40 Mike laughed suddenly and then was quiet again. The meeting was in a serious mood.
For the first time since T. had strolled into the car-park on the first day of the holidays his
position was in danger. It only needed a single use of his real name and the gang would be
at his heels.
“What did you do it for?” Blackie asked. He was just, he had no jealousy, he was anxious
to retain T. in the gang if he could. It was the word “beautiful” that worried him—that
belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common
Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent. He was
tempted to say, “My dear Trevor, old chap,” and unleash his hell hounds. “If you’d broken
in,” he said sadly—that indeed would have been an exploit worthy of the gang.
“This was better,” T. said. “I found out things.” He continued to stare at his feet, not
meeting anybody’s eye, as though he were absorbed in some dream he was unwilling—or
ashamed—to share.
“What things?”
“Old Misery’s going to be away all tomorrow and Bank Holiday.”
45 Blackie said with relief, “You mean we could break in?”
“And pinch things?” somebody asked.
Blackie said, “Nobody’s going to pinch things. Breaking in—that’s good enough, isn’t it?
We don’t want any court stuff.”
“I don’t want to pinch anything,” T. said. “I’ve got a better idea.”
“What is it?”
50 T. raised his eyes, as grey and disturbed as the drab August day. “We’ll pull it down,” he
said. “We’ll destroy it.”
Blackie gave a single hoot of laughter and then, like Mike, fell quiet, daunted by the
serious implacable gaze. “What’d the police be doing all the time?” he asked.
“They’d never know. We’d do it from inside. I’ve found a way in.” He said with a sort of
intensity, “We’d be like worms, don’t you see, in an apple. When we came out again there’d
be nothing there, no staircase, no panels, nothing but just walls, and then we’d make the
walls fall down—somehow.”
“We’d go to jug,” Blackie said.
“Who’s to prove? And anyway we wouldn’t have pinched anything.” He added without
the smallest flicker of glee, “There wouldn’t be anything to pinch after we’d finished.”
55 “I’ve never heard of going to prison for breaking things,” Summers said.
“There wouldn’t be time,” Blackie said. “I’ve seen housebreakers at work.”
“There are twelve of us,” T. said. “We’d organize.”
“None of us know how …”
“I know,” T. said. He looked across at Blackie. “Have you got a better plan?”
60 “Today,” Mike said tactlessly, “we’re pinching free rides …”
“Free rides,” T. said. “You can stand down, Blackie, if you’d rather …”
“The gang’s got to vote.”
“Put it up then.”
Blackie said uneasily, “It’s proposed that tomorrow and Monday we destroy Old Misery’s
house.”
65 “Here, here,” said a fat boy called Joe.
“Who’s in favor?”
T. said, “It’s carried.”
“How do we start?” Summers asked.
“He’ll tell you,” Blackie said. It was the end of his leadership. He went away to the back of
the car-park and began to kick a stone, dribbling it this way and that. There was only one
old Morris in the park, for few cars were left there except lorries: without an attendant
there was no safety. He took a flying kick at the car and scraped a little paint off the rear
mudguard. Beyond, paying no more attention to him than to a stranger, the gang had
gathered round T.; Blackie was dimly aware of the fickleness of favor. He thought of going
home, of never returning, of letting them all discover the hollowness of T.’s leadership, but
suppose after all what T. proposed was possible—nothing like it had ever been done
before. The fame of the Wormsley Common car-park gang would surely reach around
London. There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the
betting at the all-in wrestling and the barrow-boys would hear with respect of how Old
Misery’s house had been destroyed. Driven by the pure, simple and altruistic ambition of
fame for the gang, Blackie came back to where T. stood in the shadow of Misery’s wall.
70 T. was giving his orders with decision: it was as though this plan had been with him all
his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with the pain
of puberty. “You,” he said to Mike, “bring some big nails, the biggest you can find, and a
hammer. Anyone else who can better bring a hammer and a screwdriver. We’ll need plenty
of them. Chisels too. We can’t have too many chisels. Can anybody bring a saw?”
“I can,” Mike said.
“Not a child’s saw,” T. said. “A real saw.”
Blackie realized he had raised his hand like any ordinary member of the gang.
“Right, you bring one, Blackie. But now there’s a difficulty. We want a hacksaw.”
75 “What’s a hacksaw?” someone asked.
“You can get ’em at Woolworth’s,” Summers said.
The fat boy called Joe said gloomily, “I knew it would end in a collection.”
“I’ll get one myself,” T. said. “I don’t want your money. But I can’t buy a sledgehammer.”
Blackie said, “They are working on No. 15. I know where they’ll leave their stuff for Bank
Holiday.”
80 “Then that’s all,” T. said. “We meet here at nine sharp.”
“I’ve got to go to church,” Mike said.
“Come over the wall and whistle. We’ll let you in.”
2
On Sunday morning all were punctual except Blackie, even Mike. Mike had had a stroke
of luck. His mother felt ill, his father was tired after Saturday night, and he was told to go to
church alone with many warnings of what would happen if he strayed. Blackie had had
difficulty in smuggling out the saw, and then in finding the sledgehammer at the back of No.
15. He approached the house from a lane at the rear of the garden, for fear of the
policeman’s beat along the main road. The tired evergreens kept off a stormy sun: another
wet Bank Holiday was being prepared over the Atlantic, beginning in swirls of dust under
the trees. Blackie climbed the wall into Misery’s garden.
There was no sign of anybody anywhere. The lav stood like a tomb in a neglected
graveyard. The curtains were drawn. The house slept. Blackie lumbered nearer with the
saw and the sledgehammer. Perhaps after all nobody had turned up: The plan had been a
wild invention: They had woken wiser. But when he came close to the back door he could
hear a confusion of sound hardly louder than a hive in swarm: a clickety-clack, a bang bang,
a scraping, a creaking, a sudden painful crack. He thought: it’s true, and whistled.
85 They opened the back door to him and he came in. He had at once the impression of
organization, very different from the old happy-go-lucky ways under his leadership. For a
while he wandered up and down stairs looking for T. Nobody addressed him: he had a
sense of great urgency, and already he could begin to see the plan. The interior of the house
was being carefully demolished without touching the outer walls. Summers with hammer
and chisel was ripping out the skirting-boards in the ground floor dining-room: he had
already smashed the panels of the door. In the same room Joe was heaving up the parquet
blocks, exposing the soft wood floorboards over the cellar. Coils of wire came out of the
damaged skirting and Mike sat happily on the floor clipping the wires.
On the curved stairs two of the gang were working hard with an inadequate child’s saw
on the banisters—when they saw Blackie’s big saw they signaled for it wordlessly. When he
next saw them a quarter of the banisters had been dropped into the hall. He found T. at last
in the bathroom—he sat moodily in the least cared-for room in the house, listening to the
sounds coming up from below.
“You’ve really done it,” Blackie said with awe. “What’s going to happen?”
“We’ve only just begun,” T. said. He looked at the sledgehammer and gave his
instructions. “You stay here and break the bath and the wash-basin. Don’t bother about the
pipes. They come later.”
Mike appeared at the door. “I’ve finished the wires, T.,” he said.
90 “Good. You’ve just got to go wandering round now. The kitchen’s in the basement.
Smash all the china and glass and bottles you can lay hold of. Don’t turn on the taps—we
don’t want a flood—yet. Then go into all the rooms and turn out drawers. If they are locked
get one of the others to break them open. Tear up any papers you find and smash all the
ornaments. Better take a carving-knife with you from the kitchen. The bedroom’s opposite
here. Open the pillows and tear up the sheets. That’s enough for the moment. And you,
Blackie, when you’ve finished in here crack the plaster in the passage up with your
sledgehammer.”
“What are you going to do?” Blackie asked.
“I’m looking for something special,” T. said.
It was nearly lunch-time before Blackie had finished and went in search of T. Chaos had
advanced. The kitchen was a shambles of broken glass and china. The dining-room was
stripped of parquet, the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its hinges, and the
destroyers had moved up a floor. Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters
where they worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction after all is a form of
creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become.
Mike said, “I’ve got to go home for dinner.”
95 “Who else?” T. asked, but all the others on one excuse or another had brought
provisions with them.
They squatted in the ruins of the room and swapped unwanted sandwiches. Half an hour
for lunch and they were at work again. By the time Mike returned, they were on the top
floor, and by six the superficial damage was completed. The doors were all off, all the
skirtings raised, the furniture pillaged and ripped and smashed—no one could have slept in
the house except on a bed of broken plaster. T. gave his orders—eight o’clock next morning,
and to escape notice they climbed singly over the garden wall, into the car-park. Only
Blackie and T. were left: the light had nearly gone, and when they touched a switch, nothing
worked—Mike had done his job thoroughly.
“Did you find anything special?” Blackie asked.
T. nodded. “Come over here,” he said, “and look.” Out of both pockets he drew bundles of
pound notes. “Old Misery’s savings,” he said. “Mike ripped out the mattress, but he missed
them.”
“What are you going to do? Share them?”
100 “We aren’t thieves,” T. said. “Nobody’s going to steal anything from this house. I kept
these for you and me—a celebration.” He knelt down on the floor and counted them out—
there were seventy in all. “We’ll burn them,” he said, “one by one,” and taking it in turns
they held a note upwards and lit the top corner, so that the flame burnt slowly towards
their fingers. The grey ash floated above them and fell on their heads like age. “I’d like to
see Old Misery’s face when we are through,” T. said.
“You hate him a lot?” Blackie asked.
“Of course I don’t hate him,” T. said. “There’d be no fun if I hated him.” The last burning
note illuminated his brooding face. “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. “I’ll race you home, Blackie,” he said.
3
Next morning the serious destruction started. Two were missing—Mike and another boy
whose parents were off to Southend and Brighton in spite of the slow warm drops that had
begun to fall and the rumble of thunder in the estuary like the first guns of the old blitz.
“We’ve got to hurry,” T. said.
Summers was restive. “Haven’t we done enough?” he said. “I’ve been given a bob for slot
machines. This is like work.”
105 “We’ve hardly started,” T. said. “Why, there’s all the floor left, and the stairs. We
haven’t taken out a single window. You voted like the others. We are going to destroy this
house. There won’t be anything left when we’ve finished.”
They began again on the first floor picking up the top floorboards next to the outer wall,
leaving the joists exposed. Then they sawed through the joists and retreated into the hall,
as what was left of the floor heeled and sank. They had learnt with practice, and the second
floor collapsed more easily. By the evening an odd exhilaration seized them as they looked
down the great hollow of the house. They ran risks and made mistakes: when they thought
of the windows it was too late to reach them. “Cor,” Joe said, and dropped a penny down in
the dry rubble-filled well. It cracked and spun among the broken glass.
“Why did we start this?” Summers asked with astonishment; T. was already on the
ground, digging at the rubble, clearing a space along the outer wall. “Turn on the taps,” he
said. “It’s too dark for anyone to see now, and in the morning it won’t matter.” The water
overtook them on the stairs and fell through the floorless rooms.
It was then they heard Mike’s whistle at the back. “Something’s wrong,” Blackie said.
They could hear his urgent breathing as they unlocked the door.
“The bogies?”
Summers asked.
110 “Old Misery,” Mike …
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