'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 misognism 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 misognism, 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 until his nails nearly met’’. One could potentially argue that Rose’s rather disturbing masochistic response, ‘’if you like doing that, go on,’’ only highlights her desperation and vulnerability even more so, which Pinkie continues to take advantage of. Another form of his abuse is portrayed in his exploitation of legal laws, which can be evinced when Greene expresses Pinkie’s thoughts; ‘’He’d got to close her mouth one way or another: he had to have peace.’’ This illustrates that Pinkie’s only objective is self-preservation, so he will marry Rose to legally prevent her from testifying against him. Such cunning can be further seen in the final scenes when Pinkie is manipulating Rose into suicide. In faking a façade of unity: ‘’We don’t want to wait any longer? Do you want me to do it first’’ – through utilizing the plural ‘’we’’, as well as deceivingly offering to go ‘’first’’, an in-genuine, spurious offer, Greene is emphasising Pinkie’s selfish and manipulative extremities. Although Pinkie supresses his sexual desire, this repression seems to be alternatively directed and concentrated in violence, which he finds a sadistic, disquieting pleasure in. Any pity felt is usurped by disgust upon witnessing Pinkie’s ‘’secret sensual pleasure’’ he finds in ‘’touching’’, ‘’caressing’’ and ‘’tickling’’ the bottle of vitriol. Additionally, the sibilance only accentuates the macabre, twisted passion he feels in possessing something capable of ruining and harming others: in possessing power over others. Yet this power he needs to obtain in hurting others is wicked and shameless, as he only attacks the vulnerable and weak. Such cowardice is most prominent in the race-course scene where Pinkie has deceptively brought Spicer to be killed by Colleoni’s men, only to find they start attacking himself too. Despite having his ‘’razor blade out’’ to defend himself, we are shocked and sickened to find ‘’he had never yet used it on an armed enemy.’’

Despite stimulating some pity through constantly referencing Pinkie as ‘’The boy’’, thereby constantly highlighting his youth, Greene juxtaposes this with his corrupted innocence which has destroyed any naivety orthodoxly associated with boyhood. The parallel dynamics of innocence and experience is an intertextual reference to William Blake’s poems, and illustrates that Pinkie’s ‘’concentrated and limited experience of the Brighton slum’’, has vanquished innocence and turned him into an ‘’old man’’ with ‘’soured false age.’’ Also, Greene evokes pity through Pinkie’s lack of a parental figure: whilst Kite initially filled this void, when ‘’he died it had been as if a father had died.’’ The loneliness and sense of isolation felt from this certainly makes us feel sorry for Pinkie. Moreover, the position that Kite left seems to be too large and ambitious for a ‘’boy’’ and there are moments when Pinkie feels he is ‘’being driven down a road he only wanted to travel a certain distance.’’ This metaphor indicates the extent of his crimes, which has spiralled out of his control due to a lack of support and guidance from someone like Kite. Nevertheless, pity felt for his premature loss of innocence and loneliness, is again undercut when Greene displays Pinkie’s inhumanity and complete lack of emotions. Indeed, ‘’the word murder conveyed no more to him than the word, ‘box’, ‘collar’, ‘giraffe.’’ In the final scenes of the novel, Pinkie is not ‘’shocked’’ by the extent of his cruelty but rather ‘filled with awe at his own powers’’ in being able to corrupt Rose. Such pride and triumph only evokes anger and disgust, and the disturbing nonchalance towards his sinful and atrocious acts is best portrayed in the sheer number of explicit murders he plans and commits in the novel: Hale’s, Spicer’s and Rose.

To conclude, whilst Greene does create some moments of pity for Pinkie, in the form of his horrific upbringing and lack of care, this pity is then destroyed and overthrown by stronger emotions: emotions of indignation and revulsion when we are faced by traits that would certainly make Pinkie fall into the category of an ‘’evil criminal’’: his dastardly lack of humanity, morality and emotion.