Pinkie Brown

Pinkie Brown is a fictional character, the antihero of Graham Greene's 1937 novel Brighton Rock. He was portrayed by Richard Attenborough in the 1947 film adaptation.

Related Topics:
Fictional character - Antihero - Graham Greene - 1937 - Brighton Rock - Richard Attenborough - 1947

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Brown is an up-and-coming gangster, the teenaged leader and enforcer of a powerful gang in the Brighton underworld. A violent sociopath, he finds sadistic pleasure in brutalizing and murdering people, even his own henchmen. In the beginning of the novel, he kills a member of the gang he considers disloyal; that crime sets the rest of the story in motion.

Related Topics:
Brighton - Sociopath - Sadistic - Murder

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He is also deeply neurotic. He abhors sex (as a child, he spied on his parents making love, and was both aroused and disgusted by it), is obsessed with the idea of sin to the point that he believes himself to be pure evil and beyond redemption, and loaths women as the embodiment of weakness. These neuroses are rooted in his Roman Catholic upbringing, even though he often mocks the Church. He is not without normal desires, however; he wonders what it would feel like to love someone, even as he thinks himself incapable of it, and his phobia of sex does not prevent him from being as preoccupied with losing his virginity as any other teenaged boy.

Related Topics:
Neurotic - Sin - Evil - Redemption - Roman Catholic - Phobia - Virginity

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The two main conflicts Brown is faced with throughout the course of the novel come from the two other main characters: Ida Arnold, a local busybody who wants to bring him to justice because it's "the right thing to do," and Rose, a young waitress who falls in love with him. The former is morally upright, with a deep empathy for people in trouble; she is Brown's total opposite and, strangely, the novel's antagonist. The latter is far more troubling for Brown, as he sees in her the chance to experience a normal life, even though he does not really love her and looks down on her as his inferior. To him, she is not a person, but a symbol of "pure good" forming an alliance with his "pure evil." He is so taken with her that he unwisely brags about murdering his henchman to impress her.

Related Topics:
Justice - Empathy - Antagonist - Symbol

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Brown eventually marries Rose, mostly to make sure she doesn't go to the police. It is a dysfunctional union from the start: he degrades and abuses her, can find no common ground to relate to her on, and is sexually inadequate. Arnold aggravates the situation by continuously appealing to Rose to leave the marriage. Rose refuses, even though she knows deep down that her husband is a monster; a devout Catholic, she believes her suffering at his hands is her penance for indulging in sex.

Related Topics:
Dysfunction - Abuse - Penance

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Through dogged, self-righteous persistence, Arnold infiltrates Brown's gang and unravels it, bringing the police down upon him. Panicked, Brown attacks Arnold at the novel's climax and tries to kill her, only to burn to death when he falls into his apartment's furnace.

Related Topics:
Climax - Furnace

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Brown is considered to be a precursor to modern antiheroes such as Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange) and Patrick Bateman (American Psycho).

Related Topics:
Alex DeLarge - A Clockwork Orange - Patrick Bateman - American Psycho

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