‘Criminals are products of the society in which they live.’ To what
extent do you agree with this view?
Greene’s golden age crime novel ‘Brighton Rock’ is a literary device used
to portray the nature of criminals and how they are shaped by the society
in which they live in. Pinkie is deliberately positioned as a malcontent
psychopath, incapable of feeling sympathy for the crimes he commits. It
can be argued that Pinkie is oppressed by Greene’s condemning view of
the lower classes, as a Marxist critic may argue, serving as a caricature of
evilness and criminality. However, one may argue that the backdrop of
poverty and the ineffectual police force perpetuate a desire to seize
control over his own life within Pinkie.
It can be determined that the instability of Pinkie’s early deprived life
provided him with a lack of stable foundation of his character. Greene
portrays Pinkie as a volatile and violent criminal driven by chaos and
disorder. This is naturally reflected in the extreme poverty of ‘Paradise
Place’ where houses ‘looked as if they had passed through an intensive
bombardment’. The noun ‘bombardment’ evokes a vignette of a war-
devastated neighbourhood, torn apart by violence and suffering. Greene
emphasises the extent of the ruination through the irony of the title
‘Paradise Place’, which implies that the impoverished neighbourhood is
the pinnacle of luxury and opulence and can be considered a rare piece of
Utopia. A Marxist critic may argue that the desolation of Paradise Place is
symbolic of the ignorance of the middle classes who fail to acknowledge
the suffering concealed beneath the illusion of the title. The ignorance
towards poverty perpetuates and encourages disorder within Pinkie, who
adopts a desire within himself to further spread chaos and undertake
more destructive acts. This ultimately manifests as a malicious criminal
intent as he hungers to inflict pain against others through necessity.
Pinkie’s absorption into the criminal underworld echoes Fagin’s gang in
Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist’, where many impoverished children are forced to
undertake pickpocketing in order to survive. Wholly, Greene portrays
poverty as a force of instability that embeds itself within Pinkie, spurring
him to seek chaos through criminal action.
Contrastingly, Greene alludes to the fact that Pinkie is defined by his
inherently evil nature in demonstrating a display of sadism, Greene
reveals that Pinkie is excited at the prospect of violence and thrives in
displaying his own malevolence. Pinkie’s perverse desire to cause harm is
embodied through his treatment of Rose as he ‘pinched the skin on her
wrist’ so that ‘his nails nearly met’. Pinkie subtly asserts his control over
Rose as he ‘pinches’ her with such force that that he almost pierces her
skin. The action of a small and harmless ‘pinch’ is contrasted by Pinkie’s
violent intent, proving that his desire to inflict harm overpowers him.
Greene further highlights Pinkie as a natural born killer through the
appearance of the word ‘murder’ which ‘conveyed no more significance to
him than ‘box’ or ‘giraffe’’. Pinkie wholly dismisses the severity of the act
of murder and aligns it with common nouns learned by young children
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