Reading Assignment Brighton Rock Reading Questions 1. Given that this novel begins with a murder, how is it l ike a murder mystery? It presents a possibility of murder without giving all the detai ls about the actual act and build up to the tension, making the reader speculate what he has done to deserve this fate, and if t here’s a high possibility that he will be killed or not. Is the re anyone who is really out to get him? After his death, I wonde red if Ida and Rose will die at Pinky’s hands or his friends, a nd how that will be accomplished. 2. Why does Pinkie respond so intensely to music? What eve nt in his past may have contributed to his responses to music? What effect does his response to music have on y our opinion of him? Pinky was raised to be a Catholic with firm view of right and wr ong. He associates the Latin verses that are sung during Mass wi th his last verge of humanity. He inadvertently seeks to find th e way in his life of clear Good and Evil: Lamb of God and Peace afforded to all who believe in the faith, but which escapes him and his evilness. He is also disgusted with secular music since it still stirs within him some kind of response to get out of th e path to destruction and evil, which he sees as being manly and “adult”. 3. Why is Ida Arnold important as a character? How is she described? Do you agree with the text when it describes her as a maternal character? Ida is the traditional sleuth in the novel. She asks “questions ” nobody has bothered to ask about Hale’s death and the circum stances around it. She is relentless in her quest despite misgiv ing she receives from many fronts: Rose, Phil, and the police th emselves. It is only through her doggedness that Rose “escapes ” from Pinkie’s machinations, and also dooms Pinkie and Rose: the people implicated from Hale’s murder. Ida is first presented as the saviour of Hale and possibly Rose from the evil grasp of Pinkie. She is described as exuberant and full of life: She is womanly to those older, hard-seasoned men a nd sometimes, motherly to those who are seeking reassurances in life (i.e. Hale). However, she is described as a busibody: a “b uer” who interferes with Pinkie’s peace and Rose’s attempt at happiness when she appears to interrupt Rose’s delusion of futu re with Pinkie. Ida is a firm believer in her own judgement of r ight and wrong, and doesn’t back down from her quest even at Ph il’s urging because it is the right thing to do and she is havi ng fun in the process. As CLarence states, Ida is a “terrible” woman who only sees the world in black and white who is willing to overlook and dismiss anything beyond her comprehension of jus tice to get her way. I agree she is described as an earthy woman; however, she is not motherly. Although Hale (who sees her as a motherly figure) begs her not to leave him, she is unable to empathize with him at the time to connect with his distress. She ignores Rose’s pleas to leave her alone and Pinkie who she is protective of to carry out justice and mission as she sees fit. If she was motherly, she wo uld have seen through Rose’s desperation for what it is and how motherly instinct is driving Rose in her attempt to save Pinkie. She is more like the warring Valkyries and Furies, only caring a bout meting out justice as she sees fit. 4. What is the difference between right and wrong, and goo d and evil in the novel? People can be driven to do what’s right and wrong; however , you are either born good or evil, and your intention to d o good justifies these mishaps. Even though she doesn’t kn ow the pretext in which Hale has died, Ida takes an interes t in his death because it is wrong not to be remembered in death and of her own part in backhandly aiding in his murde r. To Hale, even though it led to Kite’s death, he has no remorse for it because in his eyes, he was right in exposin g Kite’s illegal activities. Ida’s sense of right and wro ng doesn’t care about the means of getting retribution of any wrongs committed, just that it is done with poetic just ice: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” For Rose and Pinkie, their sense of good and evil comes fro m their Catholic backgrounds. Rose knows that Pinkie is unm istakably evil: She realizes she can’t change his nature a nd decides to “fall” into evil with him. For her, being g ood is restrictive: Being bound to her parents and their di smal moods and whims. Her hopeless situation and need to ge t away from her poor background make her choose Pinkie and becoming evil as her ticket out since being Good failed her . By abetting a murderer willingly and “using” Pinkie in her own way, her intentions are selfish and self-serving. Even though she believes that she will die with Pinkie to b e with him and not abandon him. Even though she is driven t o become evil, Rose’s nature is ultimately good since she realizes at the last moment that she is incapable of that u ltimate sin of willingly “killing” herself: intentionally letting Pinkie commit another sin of “killing “ her and a bandoning him in his own hellish life like everyone who was and is in his life. 5. Is Rose a mirror of Pinkie, or is she fully enough deve loped to be a character in her own right? I think Rose is fully developed to be a character in her ow n right. When Pinkie says that he feels as if she completes him like furniture, I assumed she will be characterized as as his shadow for the rest of the novel. But, by including two episodes where Pinkie overhears her conversation with I da in defending and being faithful to Pinkie, she is given her own voice. Also, when she decides to save Pinkie, inste ad of dying together, she becomes an active participant of her own fate. She proves that she is not merely a tool for Pinkie to assure his freedom from the law but instrumental to his destruction by actively seeking her stamp of love fr om Pinkie. 6. Is Pinkie damned, as he thinks himself to be? Does he h ave other choices in the way his life will unfold, or d oes he seem destined to play out the ending of the nove l as it is? With his being determined that committing violence is the o nly way to wield influence and garnering respect from other s, Pinkie is damned. He is firmly ruled by his conviction t hat he needs to prove his worth my being ruthless in his de alings and consumed by his desire to become like Coleoni: T o be able to garner respect and not have to kowtow to anyon e else’s demands. He sees other people as hindrances to hi s path to greatness and even dismisses Dallow’s loyalty as undependable in the end. The only person who could really s ave him, Rose, is viewed as a societal trapping that forces him to be down below: a gutter rat through and through. 7. What might Rose’s reaction be to playing Pinkie’s rec ording? Does her conversation with the priest just befo re affect the way she might respond? I think she will either break, or persevere and find a new purpose if there is a baby involved. If she has heard the r ecording before her conversation with the priest, she may h ave blamed herself for not being able to instill love in Pi nkie, and mourned for the loss of her innocence. After the priest advises her that if Pinkie had loved her in his own way, he may have been saved, she will want to prove to hers elf that he was saved because she wasn’t able to follow hi m to the depth of Hell herself. If she has a baby, since Pi nkie is evil incarnate, she will want to redeem herself by raising the child to be a saint, embodiment of goodness: wh at Pinkie and herself could have been if raised in a loving environment. 8. What is important about the Brighton rock candy? How is it used as a metaphor within the novel? Brighton rock is described as a candy that always meets the expectations: No matter what part of the candy you break, y ou will always get the lettering “Brighton Rock” on the b roken surface. Ida uses this metaphor to exemplify that peo ple’s nature doesn’t change: Just as everyone can depend on the candy to have the letting at any break, she doesn’t believe in redemption because mercy will be wasted on the e vil ones. The candy is also mentioned when Pinkie and Rose go to the pier to visit the candy shop, the site of Hale’s murder. P inkie becomes gleeful when he hears that they are keeping t he broken candies on display. They are his trophies for eve ryone to look at: That he is more vicious and not afraid to kill as well as a successful carrying out of vengeance that will make other mobsters respect him and his accomplishment s. 9. What effect does the narration have on the novel? How m ight the novel read differently if it were first-person narration from Pinkie’s perspective? Rose’s? Ida’s? You would be able to employ the idea of unreliable narrator s if the story was told in first-person point of view. I do n’t think much of the narration will change in Rose’s poi nt of view. Her narrative is straightforward with no detail s left out of her own damnation by choosing to be with Pink ie. If it was written in Ida’s perspective, we may have ha d more hedonistic details about her past, and further logic s behind how she has helped those unfortunates and how her brand of justice has been met in the past. She may have bec ome more sympathetic character, a misguided hero like Don Q uixote, or something like “Of Mice and Men”. Likewise, we might have had more glimpses of the more evil side of Pinki e, including his past activities as a gang member, and the circumstances around Kite’s death. If the narrative was wr itten in first person point of view, I think the novel woul d have been more in the line of sensational novel and have had too much drama for it to be interesting in the end.
