Catholicism, Violence, and Morality

Without a doubt, British literature has produced some of the most renowned and most prolific writers in history. From literary classics such as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to the works of William Shakespeare to the social commentaries by Charles Dickens to the world of fantasy crafted by J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling, British literature is a rich minefield with a long and established tradition of fascinating the world over. British literature remains one of the most influential literatures in the world. Among the long list of talented writers it has produced is Henry Graham Greene. Born on October 2,1904, Greene is regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.

Greene’s literary talents manifested at a young age. While attending school, he actively contributed stories to the school magazines. However, school life was not a pleasant experience for the young Greene. He was bullied and depressed. He even made several attempts on his life. When he tried to run away from his school, he was sent to London by a psychoanalyst; he lived in his house while undergoing treatment. Post-graduation from Oxford as a History major, he first worked as a private tutor then eventually shifted to a career in journalism. From 1926 to 1930, he worked as a copy editor for The Times. In 1929, Greene published his first novel, The Man Within. It would, however, take his fourth novel, Stamboul Train (1932; also published as Orient Express) before Greene gained recognition. It made him a household name.

With a prolific and critically acclaimed career that spanned seven decades, Greene has been repeatedly shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among the twenty-five novels he published over the course of his career, literary pundits have lauded his 1938 novel Brighton Rock as among his finest. Set in pre-Second World War England, the story opens with news reporter Charles Hale. On a weekend teeming with tourists, he was drinking alone in Brighton, a seaside resort. Working for The Daily Messenger, Hale was sent to Brighton to play a promotional game called Kolley Kibber, a game modeled after the real-life game, Lobby Lud. There was also palpably something nagging Hale. He can sense danger encroaching on him.

“She had an immense store of trivial memories and when she wasn’t living in the future she was living in the past. As for the present – she got through that as quickly as she could, running away from things, running towards things, so that her voice was always a little breathless, her heart pounding at an escape or an expectation.”

~ Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

The source of his discomfort was a story he wrote about Kite, the deceased former leader of a gang that referred to itself as “the mob.” The gang was now led by seventeen-year-old Pinkie Brown. Hale’s story involved a slot machine scam run by Pinkie and his associates. This scam, in turn, led to the death of Kite, Pinkie’s father figure. While the news piece was seemingly innocuous, it did not escape the attention of Pinkie. Hale sensed that Pinkie was going to come after him. His salvation then lies in securing company for the day. Company came in the form of middle-aged singer, Ida Arnold. Hale begged her to stay with him but she turned him down although she promised him that she would return. While Ida is in the lavatory, Hale suddenly disappears.

Which brings the story to the second important piece of the puzzle. Pinkie, along with his cohorts, have long sought revenge for Hale’s betrayal of their former leader. They were able to snatch Hale. However, in establishing an alibi – they placed the remaining Kolley Kibber cards all around town to confuse the police should Hale’s death come to light – the hasty actions of some of his associates, particularly Spicer, might have compromised the entire operation. Rose, a plain and timid but highly observant waitress, saw Spicer while he was placing a card under the table. Taking no chances, Pinkie personally took on tying up loose ends and cleaning every bit of evidence he could. The goal was to keep Rose from reporting any suspicions to the authorities and exposing the gang.

Meanwhile, during a visit to her favorite pub, Henekey’s, Ida learns about the death of Hale; she does not know it was him at first because she only knew him by his pseudonym, Fred. Upon reading details of his death in the newspaper, she noted several inconsistencies that made her question the veracity of the conclusion derived from Hale’s death. An inquest on his death ruled out any foul play and that he died of a heart attack. She was reminded of the look of terror etched on Hale’s face when she last saw him. It was a sad and tragic death but the more she read into it, her suspicions grew. Her strong sense of justice made Ida go back to Brighton. She wanted to solve what she perceived was a mystery and a miscarriage of justice.

Ida was single-minded and relentless in her pursuit of justice. She made inquiries left and right. From her initial investigation, including interrogations of Rose and even manipulation of Pinkie’s gang members, she was able to slowly craft a broad outline of what happened during the day Hale vanished and the events leading up to his death. The more that Ida digs into the case, the more convinced she is that it was not a heart attack that took Hale’s life. Unfortunately, no one was taking her side even as new pieces of evidence emerged. Ida, however, was nonplussed. She was willing to get to the bottom of Hale’s death despite the odds. Will she be able to make a breakthrough? Or will Pinkie wiggle himself out of palpable trouble?

“He only felt his loneliness after his third gin; until then he despised the crowd, but afterwards he felt his kinship. He had come out of the same streets, but he was condemned by his higher pay to pretend to want other things, and all the time the piers, the peep shows pulled at his heart. He wanted to get back – but all he could do was to carry his sneer along the front, the badge of loneliness.”

~ Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

In a way, Brighton Rock takes on the mold of what Greene referred to as his “entertainments.” He used the term entertainment to collectively refer to his works which are the quintessence of suspense and mystery fiction. What sets Greene’s entertainment novel is their probe into the moral complexities and depth. Brighton Rock features a protagonist who is a sociopathic teenager who inhabits the criminal underground of pre-war Brighton. As such, violence features prominently in the story. Growing up in a tough neighborhood – his childhood was marked by suffering and trauma – Pinkie believes that the only way he can gain the respect of older gang members and established gangs is to project an aura of toughness and exhibit a willingness to engage in acts of violence.

The novel, however, does not reduce itself to a mere probe into violence and the underworld. The exploration of violence was a probe into the nature of sin. By extension, it was a mantle upon which the ambiguities of morality were further elucidated. These were captured from the lenses of Catholicism, another seminal element of the story; Brighton Rock, it should be noted, is a part of Greene’s novels that deal with religion. Both Pinkie and Rose were devout Catholics, a quality that bound them together. However, their systems of belief take them to the polar opposites of the faith. While Pinkie brushed with violence and Hell, Rose believes in the power of redemption; this belief makes her fall for Pinkie. Interestingly, it was Catholicism that insulated Rose and Pinkie. Born in the lower rungs of society, they were both outcasts. Their religion provides them a means to rationalize the inequities they had to deal with.

In a way, Ida was a disruptive force. Ida has a more worldly understanding of the events surrounding her. She believes in ghosts, relies on superstitions, and is driven primarily by her sentimentality. An enthusiastic humanist, Ida was the antithesis of Pinkie. She was also the representation of bourgeois values. The dichotomies between social classes were astutely explored by the novel. The contrast between Ida’s values and Pinkie’s values further underlines the prevalence of contrasts in the story. Brighton, for instance, was a haven for tourists. However, the story captures the underbelly of the resort town. Greene painted a vivid portrait of the criminal underworld that lurked underneath the facade of hospitality. These dichotomies can be observed in the novel’s probe of shame and sexuality, and innocence and experience.

“She got up and he saw the skin of her thigh for a moment above the artificial silk, and a prick of sexual desire disturbed him like a sickness. That was what happened to a man in the end: the stuffy room, the wakeful children, the Saturday night movements from the other bed. Was there no escape – anywhere – for anyone? It was worth murdering a world.”

~ Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

The novel is largely character-centric, making it an evocative character study. Pinkie, in particular, loomed above the story. Seen from a different lens, the novel was his coming-of-age. He was referred to as “Boy” at the start but as the story moves forward, the story captures his journey into manhood. He was also the quintessence of masculinity albeit his definition of it was cruder than how an ordinary individual would see it. Masculinity, for Pinkie, was defined by violence and the shirking of emotions. For him, this entailed survival. He was single-minded in his resolve to follow through with his definition of manhood albeit other characters challenged his views. They provided him with alternatives to this ironclad definition, such as alcoholism and even sex.

As explained in the Note to American Readers, “Brighton Rock is a form of sticky candy as characteristic of English seaside resorts as salt-water fatty is of the American. The word ‘Brighton’ appears on the ends of the stick no matter what point it is broken off.” Pinkie was an adamant character. He was hardened by the trauma of his childhood. This hurt him as it clouded his vision and his judgment. He was incapable of accepting positive influences. He outrightly rejected Rose’s love. He also took for granted the loyalty of his cohorts. This was contrasted by his rejection of bourgeois values, yet another example of contrast that permeated the story. In a world that proliferated with violence, the undertones of romance provided the story with a different complexion.

Without a doubt, Brighton Rock was a complex novel with its various elements carefully woven together into a lush tapestry by Greene’s prose. It is the intersection of suspense, mystery, and morality. It is these different elements that give the readers a distinct reading experience. It probes into a bevy of subjects such as violence, morality, sinfulness, and the criminal underworld, mainly viewed from the lens of Catholicism. Paradoxes pervade the story as it also explores social classes, the definition of masculinity, and sexuality. Brighton Rock is, however, a book that is not for everyone. Brighton Rock is a bleak novel with a sense of menace but is populated with compelling characters.

“Driven to her hole the small animal peered out at the bright and breezy world; in the hole were murder, copulation, extreme poverty, fidelity and the love and fear of God, but the small animal had not the knowledge to deny that only in the glare and open world outside was something which people called experience.”

~ Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
Book Specs

Author: Graham Greene
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publishing Date: 1970 (1938)
No. of Pages: 247
Genre: Historical, Literary, Crime

Synopsis

Graham Greene’s chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare in the pre-war underworld is a classic of its kind.

Pinkie, the teenage gangster, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of the spirit or of the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed Kite and also for the death of Hale, he is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, he is convinced that his retribution does not lie in human hands.

He is therefore not prepared for Ida Arnold, Hale’s avenging angel. Ida, whose allegiance is with life, the here and now, has her own ideas about the circumstances surrounding Hale’s death. For the sheer joy of it she takes up the challenge of bringing the infernal Pinkie to an earthly kind of justice.

About the Author

Henry Graham Greene was born on October 2, 1904, in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England. He was the fourth of six children born to Charles Henry Greene and Marion Raymond Greene. His mother was a cousin to Robert Louis Stevenson. His father was promoted to school headmaster of Berkhamsted School in 1910. Graham attended the school as a boarder. However, the young Greene was bullied and depressed. He made several attempts on his life. When he was 16, he was sent to a psychoanalyst in London; he lived in the psychoanalyst’s home while he received treatment. He returned to school after his treatment. While at school, he contributed several stories to the school magazine.

Greene attended Balliol College, Oxford where he studied history; among his classmates was his contemporary Evelyn Waugh. It was during his time at Balliol that he published his first work, Babbling April, a collection of poems. Unfortunately, it was poorly received. Post-university, he worked as a private tutor before turning to journalism. He worked at the Nottingham Journal and then became a sub-editor at The Times. It was while working at Nottingham that Greene started corresponding with Vivien Dayrell-Browning who he would later marry. However, before marrying her, Greene converted to Catholicism; he was agnostic.

In 1929, Greene published his first novel, The Man Within. It was met with a lukewarm response, along with the two novels that succeeded it: The Name of Action (1930) and Rumour at Nightfall (1932). It was with his fourth novel, Stamboul Train (1932) that he would achieve a modicum of success. Stamboul Train was also the first of a string of novels that he termed “entertainments.” These are novels akin to thrillers but with a greater moral depth. It was followed by three more entertainments: A Gun for Sale (1936), The Confidential Agent (1939), The Ministry of Fear (1943), and The Third Man (1949). His other works include Brighton Rock (1938), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The End of the Affair (1951), and The Quiet American (1956). Some of his works were also adapted into film.

Greene’s extensive oeuvre also featured several collections of short stories, among them Nineteen Stories (1947; revised as Twenty-one Stories, 1954). He also wrote plays, including The Living Room (performed in 1952) and The Potting Shed (1957). He also published a collection of essays and a memoir. For his works, Greene received several accolades across the world, including the 1941 Hawthornden Prize for The Power and the Glory and the 1948 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Heart of the Matter. He also received the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize. In 1986, he was awarded Britain’s Order of Merit. He was also shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.

Greene died of leukemia on April 3, 1991, in Vevey, Switzerland.