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A* essay, 23/25, Elements of Crime Writing, Brighton Rock
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A* essay, 23/25 - 'Pinkie is an evil criminal for whom it is impossible to feel pity for'. Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
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Pinkie is an evil criminal for whom it is impossible to feel pity for.Whilst Graham Greene certainly does evoke ‘’pity’’ for the eponymous ‘’evil criminal’’ of the
novel, through Pinkie’s horrific childhood and consequent corrupted innocence, that ‘’pity’’
is often instantaneously undercut by Pinkie’s disturbing violence, manipulation, and abuse
of Rose.
Not only does Pinkie’s misogynism stem from his impoverished childhood and ‘’Saturday
nights’’, whereby he was subjected to the ‘frightening weekly exercise of his parents’’, yet
also his cruelty and criminality is arguably due to the atrocious economic circumstances
within the ironically named ‘’Paradise Piece’’. Indeed, his extremely narrow and derogatory
vision that ‘’every polony you had met had her eye on the bed’’, is a psychological product
of his parent’s (what would nowadays be deemed as) sexual abuse. Throughout the novel
he catalogues every woman into one promiscuous category. Contrary to Greene’s recurrent
descriptions of him as heartless and with eyes in ‘’which all human feeling had died’’, he is
not devoid of sensuality and does feel ‘’sexual desire’’. Nevertheless, due to the primeval
exercise of his parents, depicted by Greene with such visceral and animalistic language as
they go ‘’bouncing and ploughing’’ - instead of the positive connotations ‘’desire’’
conventionally excites, Pinkie feels ‘’disturbed’’ and equates this feeling to a ‘’sickness’’.
Such aversion to sex and his dehumanising objectification of women, without the context of
his parent’s sexual abuse would undoubtedly stimulate suspicion and anger. And yet,
Greene does provide us with the context of Pinkie’s upbringing, so we can only feel pity.
Furthermore, Pinkie himself justifies the criminal life when he is ‘’walking alone back
towards the territory he had left’’ (Paradise Piece) and enters Rose’s house thinking
‘’nobody could say he hadn’t done the right thing to get away from this, to commit any
crime.’’ This demonstrates crime was the only portal to escape poverty. In addition, once we
take into consideration the societal context of the 1930’s, namely the depression that hit
during the inter-war period, the lack of opportunities and deprivation would only have been
exacerbated, which certainly evokes some sympathy for Pinkie who has been maltreated by
society itself.
However, the Marxist interpretation that Pinkie’s background is responsible for his
misogynism, crime and perhaps cruelty, are arguably challenged by Greene’s title ‘’Brighton
Rock’’, and so the ‘’pity’’ these Marxist theories excite is also challenged. In naming the
novel after the stick of candy found on Brighton’s tourist-heavy piers, Greene is promoting
an allegory: whilst the rock says the same thing all the way through, this too is reflected in
human nature which is unchangeable and resolute in its foundations from birth to death.
This notion is further supported when Pinkie exclaims, ‘’it’s in the blood. Perhaps when they
christened me, the holy water didn’t take. I never howled the devil out.’’ This undermines
theories that it is Pinkie’s lack of nurture and a stable, safe environment that has shaped
him into the criminal he is - rather, it suggests such cruelty is imbibed in his nature, stripping
away the pity brought from the former interpretation.
Perhaps the major element of Pinkie’s characterisation that utterly dashes any pity formerly
felt for him, is depicted in his ruthless abuse and corruption of Rose. Greene depicts this
through many forms, one being physical abuse when Pinkie pinches ‘’the skin of her wrist
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