Greene`s Brighton Rock is a religious story which begins as a battle between good (Ida Arnold) and evil (Pinkie).
This battle takes place in a resort area south of London called Brighton. Brighton contains all kinds of restaurants, amusements, slums, and higher class areas. One example of these slums is Nelson Place; where Pinkie and his later on to be wife Rose are from. Nelson Place in my opinion is what influences Pinkie to become a man of evil through his tragic youth.
Where Pinkie grows up under the influence of two horrible parents, a poverty-stricken neighborhood, and as a kid who is willing to do anything for a better life. Another horrible influence on Pinkie is Mr. Colleoni; a man with a business empire, control of his own powerful mob as well as the police and other governmental authorities, and shops in Brighton. This man has all that Pinkie wants, and this brings Pinkie to a life of crime and constant mortal sin.
Pinkie has in my opinion been misguided by Mr. Colleoni’s empire, and that is why he is just an evil boy who thinks that having a lifestyle like Mr. Colleoni will bring him happiness. Pinkie is also blind to the happiness that the descent people like Rose and Ida have because of his misguided life.
Pinkie’s evil desire is what causes him to do whatever it takes to get this life style. As shown by his uncontrolled killing of people such as Hale, and Spicer. Ida Arnold, a person who thinks of herself as an avenger as well as a rescuer for the people affected by Pinkie’s evil now comes in to the story. Although Ida does not have complete faith in God; she has a good heart. This is why she feels the need to declare her semi-covert battle against Pinkie not only to avenge Hales’ murder, but to rescue all the people who have not yet been affected like Hale, and Spicer from Pinkie’s desire.
I also feel that Ida must have had a better life as a youth in comparison to Pinkie and that is why there appears to be no sympathy from Ida towards Pinkie. Ida also seems to suffer from a kind of irony though; because when she might have unknowingly been able to save Hales life by not leaving him she went to “wash up and fix her face.” When she came back though he was gone and she never saw him again until the funeral. Later in the story this irony represents itself agin when she was about to find out critical information from Cubitt involving Hales murder, yet she again went to “wash up and fix her face,” and when she came back from the bathroom in the Cosmopolitan Cubitt was gone. During this battle between Ida and Pinkie (Good and Evil) Rose a person who appears to be a lonely, innocent, person of faith is used as a shield by Pinkie. Rose is such a lonely person that she only appears to be deceived by Pinkie when he gets her to marry him so she can’t be used as a witness against him in court. Yet later on we find out that she wasn’t that innocent when she reveals to Pinkie in their apartment that she new of his horrible acts, but married anyway because she was so lonely, and only wanted to be loved (since she too came from a broken home like Pinkie).
Rose wants to be loved and have some type of companion so badly that she momentarily turns her back to her faith in God. Now she repeatedly tells Pinkie that he has acquired her faith when she discusses “being damned together.” Rose seems to believe in her faith to Pinkie now, just as he also seems to when he repeats constantly after meeting her that “Rose completes me.” However Roses’ faith is tested over and over by Ida who continuously antagonizes Rose about her evil husband. Roses’ faith to her husband Pinkie is regularly tested by none other than her own husband when he shows that he doesn’t even feel love for by avoiding physical contact (such as kissing her) for as long as he can. Even the third person narrator reveals to the reader at times that Pinkie does not love Rose by revealing his inner thoughts when he is near her.
By the end of the story we can see that Roses’ faith in Pinkie is finally broken when he goes to far and asks her to commit suicide. Rose a kind hearted woman who may have been able to ignore, or forgive the abuse she had received from Pinkie, but this time he went to far. What he asked her to do was absolutely inexcusable, and proved to her as well as the reader that he didn’t love her, and had only been using her all this time. Therefore it really wasn’t good that won over evil, but faith that won over betrayal.
I say this because it wasn’t Ida who saved Rose from Pinkie; but Ida saved herself from Pinkie when she threw the gun away. Now Rose has also turned around her once damned life by finally going to confession in an attempt to not only reconcile with God about her mistake but also with her own conscience.
