These notes cover the main aspects of crime in Graham Greene's 'Brighton Rock'. There are detailed notes on crime, murder and violence, criminal psyche, victims, suspense, detection, punishment/justice, social commentary and setting. It also has notes on the structure of the novel.
Brighton Rock – Aspects of Crime
Crime, murder and violence
• Pinkie is a dangerous criminal who calculates his next move but keep making mistakes and has to correct them
• Alongside the darker murder in Brighton there is petty crime – Ida is a victim of theft in the first chapter
• Kite, the former leader of the gang, is killed at St Pancras. Hale is murdered in a revenge killing. Pinkie betrays
Spicer leading to their brutal attack, Spicer is killed by Pinkie
• It is easy for people to get drawn into crime and the gang mentality forces them to go further than they wanted
too
• Suggests that it is somewhat an unconscious process, that criminals are already too far emerged in crime
before they had a realisation, and when they do realise it is already too late for them
- ‘it was always easy to kill a lonely man at a railway station…it was at a station that Colleoni’s mob had killed
Kite’
- ‘They’re an alibi…they proved he kept to programme. They show he dies after two’
Criminal Psyche
• Pinkie uses violence as threat to intimidate and control
• Pinkie is unable to feel positive emotions and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t commit more crimes as he is already
condemned to hell
• Pinkie is a paradox of a violent and murderous thug and a frightened boy on the edge of adulthood
• He has an immense capacity for hatred
• He is determined and intelligent
• Pride is his motivating force; he fears being laughed at and becomes angry when he thinks he Is not being
taken seriously
• He is unable to take opportunities for redemption and he suppresses any hint of goodness or sensitivity that he
might have
• He feels no remorse for his crimes
• He isolates himself and drives the gang away
• His final act is to commit suicide – a self-fulfilling prophecy about his damnation
• Most of the gang eventually feel out of their depth and are against what Pinkie is doing
• Colleoni seems to be very calm and in control – contrasts with Pinkie
Victims
• First line of the novel highlights Hale’s victim status
• Hale is an easy target because he has a programme to follow and he is too proud to get away
Suspense
• In medias res – it starts in the middle of the action. The first sentence builds suspense effectually
• The first chapter creates a lot of suspense as Hale tries to escape from the mob who keep appearing. The
reader doesn’t know why they are after him or who they are which makes them seem more dangerous
• The later suspense comes from Ida’s pursuit of them
Detection
• The police are an absent and useless force in the novel
• Hale sees them but knows they will do nothing to save him
• Police medal with the evidence so they don’t have to face the crime problem facing Brighton and because
they are possibly in league with Colleoni – could be to preserve Brighton’s reputation as a good tourist
destination
• The police are so ineffectual that it falls to Ida to investigate the crime. She knows that she will have to resort to
bribery to get uncover the truth and also cannot rely upon the police – they fail Hale when he is alive and when
he is dead
• There is no mystery to be solved in the novel for the reader as it is made clear who kills Hale long before Ida finds
out
- “a mounted policeman came up the road…like an expensive toy a millionaire buys for his children…it never
occurred to you that the toy was for use”
- ‘Fred’s own paper only gave him half a column’
- ‘they cut him up and they say he dies natural’
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