Monday, September 7, 2015

Why does Blackie not go home after he loses his position of leadership in "The Destructors"?

Although Blackie is initially very angry about the way that he
has been deposed from his position as the leader of the gang by the upstart T., and is aware of
"the fickleness of favour," he quickly gets over his anger and rejoins the gang in their task. If
we look at the text carefully, we can see his reasons for doing
this:



...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 bettering 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.



Thus
it is that Blackie is inspired by the potential success of T.'s plan and the respect and fame it
would win for the gang if it is successful. To him, this is worth more than his own feelings of
anger at losing his position of leadership. Because T.'s plan is something that has never been
done before and that it is on such a monumental scale, it would ensure the fame of his gang. To
be part of that would definitely be worth the humility he needs to summon up to rejoin the gang
and work under T.'s leadership.

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