Document summaries the contextual underpinnings of Brighton Rock, particularly how the contemporary urbanisation led to problems with poverty and increased crime rates. Notes also extract key points from the novel's introduction and explore Greene's inspiration for the novel, providing a greater in...
Contextual notes for Brighton Rock
“To the wider world, the Brighton of the 1930s presented the face of an
attractive seaside resort. but behind that face lay another Brighton: tracts of
shoddily built houses, dreary shopping areas and desolate industrial suburbs.
Brighton was also a nest of criminal activity centering on its race track. It was
this aspect of Brighton life that drove Graham Greene as a professional
writer.” J.M. Coetzee, 2004 (the opening of the introduction of Brighton Rock.
Key points from LIT CHARTS notes:
· Greene set out to write a crime or detective novel, but in creating a vicious
protagonist, whose Catholic feelings lead him to be tormented by mortal sin
and visions of hell, and an adversary, who is pragmatic and believes only in
ensuring right triumphs over wrong, the novel has much more in common with
the morality plays of the medieval period.
· Greene’s greatest novels, including Brighton Rock, all treat Catholic themes;
in everything he wrote, moral failure takes centre stage and he wrote in one of
his essays that ‘human nature is not black and white but black and grey’.
· Rose and Pinkie’s Catholicism contrasts directly with Ida Arnold’s free-
wheeling spiritualism and her belief in herself as an agent of justice.
· Ida doesn’t believe in God, but turns to her Ouija board for guidance
whenever she is in a quandary, though this is rare as Ida sees the world as a
very simplistic place in which there are good people who should be praised
and bad people who should be punished.
· Pinkie’s Catholicism is fatalistic; convinced that he has been damned since
birth, he kills and kills again because hell isn’t going to get any hotter. Rose’s
faith, in contrast, is concerned with redemption, hope and heaven.
Cities, Urbanisation and Crime
Real life crime is generally considered to be a product of the city and urbanisation
because...
· High population and population density
· Easy to go undetected- not everyone knows each other and there is a lack of
community spirit
· More social deprivation leads to more crimes such as robbery and prostitution
· The close proximity of the rich and poor
· It is historically proven that a growth in city leads to a growth in crime.
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