Greene on pre-Restoration drama:
'... the abstraction - the spirit of Revenge (Hamlet), of Jealousy (Othello), of Ambition (Macbeth), of Ingratitude (Lear), of Passion (Antony and Cleopatra) - still rules the play... the old abstract drama had dealt with important things: with "the base Indian who threw away a pearl richer than all his tribe", with the lark in the cage and soul in the body' (British Dramatists, Graham Greene, p.19)
Greene on post-Restoration drama:
'... that had gone, perhaps for ever, and the theatre had become a kind of supplement to The Ladies' Magazine. The religious sense was at its lowest ebb... Man's interests shrank like a rockpool in the hard bright sunlight of reason.' (ibid., p.38)
He extends this judgement to the novel:
'... with the death of James the religious sense was lost to the English novel, and with the religious sense went the sense of importance of the human act. It was as if the world of fiction had lost a dimension... ' (Ways of Escape, Graham Greene, p.62)
Brighton Rock is more than a thriller. It is a 'Catholic novel' only in so far as it rediscovers the 'lost dimension' of the pre-Jamesian novel, the abstraction from reason that gives the human act the sense of importance.
The preceding section relates the character of Pinkie to the unhappiness of his creator's adolescent years. This is necessarily limited because Pinkie - and all the other characters - are fictional. I quoted earlier, Greene's comment on Brighton Rock, 'I have never again felt so much a victim of my own inventions' . We can try to understand the forces that shape Greene's imagination but if we wish to understand the characters in any terms deeper than as pieces on a thriller-chess-board, we must try to understand the 'religious sense' of the book.
In some respects, Brighton Rock is an exposition of the 'religious sense'. Two worlds are in contrast: Pinkie and Rose inhabit a world imbued by 'religious sense', a world of Good and Evil; Ida inhabits a world lit by the 'hard bright sunlight of reason', a world of right and wrong, a world where life is...
'... sunlight on brass bedposts, Ruby port, the leap of the heart when the outsider you have backed passes the post and the colours go bobbing up.' (36)
The dialogues between Ida, Rose and Pinkie reveal the contrast between these worlds. Note particularly pages 120-123 and 196-200:
'... Ida said, "Listen, I'm human. You can take my word I've loved a boy or two in my time. Why, it's natural. It's like breathing. Only you don't want to get all worked up about it. There's not one who's worth it - leave alone him. He's wicked. I'm not a Puritan mind. I've done a thing or two in my time - that's natural... But I've always been on the side of Right"... ' (122, my ellipsis)
'The Nelson Place eyes stared back at her without understanding. 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.' (123)
Rose's naïveté lends added gravitas to her sense of importance of the human act. Greene's emphasises this by likening Ida to a battleship, guns ablaze (cf. 199), and Rose to a small animal, too frightened even to leave its hole. Rose knows nothing of Ida's bright and breezy world but she knows her own world, the world of Nelson Place with its murder, copulation and extreme poverty, the world of Romans with their love and fear of God. Speaking to Pinkie earlier in the novel, Rose derides Ida's world:
'"You're a Roman too. We were all Romans in Nelson Place. You believe in things. Like Hell. But you can see she don't believe a thing." She said bitterly, "You can tell the world's all dandy with her"' (91)
It is a world that lacks Greene's, 'sense of importance of the human act'. Ida's rhetoric is slot-machine cliché: "I don't want to let the Innocent suffer", etc. Her high-minded moral principles - Justice, Right and Wrong, an eye for an eye, etc. - are as slot-machine 'literature' (cf.156) is to Dickens when you compare her to Rose or Pinkie. When Rose defends herself against Ida with references to "Confession... repentance", Ida replies:
'"That's just religion... I know one thing you don't. I know the difference between Right and Wrong. They didn't teach you that at school"
'Rose didn't answer; the woman was quite right: the two words meant nothing to her. Their taste was extinguished by stronger foods - Good and Evil.' (198-199)
This is the principal theme of the book - Right and Wrong versus Good and Evil. Within this theme there are other themes to be explored, most importantly Hell, damnation and salvation. In The Lawless Roads, Greene writes, 'One began to believe in heaven because one believed in hell.' (p.14) This is echoed by Pinkie:
'"Of course it's true," the Boy said. "What else could there be?" he went scornfully on. "Why," he said, "It's the only thing which fits. These atheists don't know nothing. Of course there's Hell. Flames and damnation, " he said with his eyes on the dark shifting water and the black struts of the Palace Pier, "torments."
'"And Heaven too," Rose said with anxiety, while the rain fell interminably on.
'"Oh, maybe," the Boy said, "maybe"' (52)
Hell is the prime motive for Pinkie's faith. It is significant that Pinkie understands Prewitt when he quotes Mephistopheles, "This is Hell, nor are we out of it" (210) whilst Dallow does not (cf. 212). Greene refers elsewhere to a conversation between Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling in which they agree that 'this world is one of the hells' ('Rider Haggard's Secret', Collected Essays, p.159-160). Pinkie's religion is divorced from the dogma and liturgy of the church,
'"I don't take any stock in religion. Hell - it's just there. You don't need to think of it - not before you die."
... 'He closed his eyes under the bright empty arch, and a memory floated up imperfectly into speech. "You know what they say - 'Between the stirrup and the ground, he something sought and something found'."
"Mercy."
"That's right. Mercy."' (91)
Pinkie's faith is divorced from the church and is based on his certainty that Hell exists, but Hell is not divorced from Heaven nor damnation from salvation. He admits the possibility of heaven - it 'fits'. Similarly, the concept of mercy seems to make sense. He pursues, throughout the book a quest for damnation - his own and others' - but he cannot help wishing for salvation. He professes to Dallow, "Credo in unum Satanum" (cf. 165) but often finds himself murmuring, "Dona nobis pacem".
' "Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.' In his voice a whole lost world moved - the lighted corner below the organ, the smell of incense and laundered surplices, and the music - 'Agnus dei', 'lovely to look at, beautiful to hold', 'the starlings on our walks', 'credo in unum Dominum' - any music moved him, speaking of things he doesn't understand.' (52)
Music moves Pinkie in a mysterious way. Exactly what it represents is not exactly clear but he seems to recognize in it a certain peace, an escape - perhaps, the presence of God:
'He sang again under the restless stars in a wash of incredible moonshine and, suddenly, inexplicably, the Boy began to weep. He shut his eyes to hold in the tears, but the music went on - it was like a vision of release to an imprisoned man. He felt constriction and saw - hopelessly out of his reach - a limitless freedom: no fear, no hatred, no envy. It was as if he was remembering the effect of a good confession, the words of an absolution: but being dead it was a memory only - he couldn't experience contrition - the ribs of his body were like steel bands which held him down to eternal unrepentance.' (179)
Rose is in a similar position at the end of the book. ' "I want to hope," she said, "but I don't know how."' (246). It does not seem to be despair ('Corruptio optima') but rather inexperience. Damned to inexperience in worldly matters and damned by inexperience in spiritual matters. It seems a bit tough but we can hope: Rose is at least seeking hope; and maybe the vitriol, Pinkie's tool of torture, saved him, burnt through the bands that held him down and freed him to repentance.