Based on your reading of the first two parts of Brighton Rock, make notes and answer the following questions. The 200 words and the comparison grid are what I will expect to see next Thursday!
Read the following and make brief notes:
How does Greene present Brighton to the reader? Does it seem, already, to have any close or necessary association with the events narrated? (We know the novel is called Brighton but do not yet know if this has any significance other than what is obvious, i.e. that Brighton, as a famous seaside resort, is associated with sticks of rock in the popular imagination.) The rock has the words Brighton Rock running the whole way through, so that where you bite into it the name is still there. The significance of this is hinted at later in the novel. Can you think why this might be important? Might this have a symbolic meaning?
What have we learned about the characters of Pinkie and of Ida in this part of the novel?
The novel is narrated in the third person but the narrative viewpoint is not neutral or objective; we see things usually as they appear to Pinkie or Ida, although the first chapter is narrated very much as events appear to Hale. In what ways does Greene achieve this?
A more general idea to consider is the novelist's choice of subject; given that any story could be told, why this one? Behind this question (impossible to answer certainly) lie many other questions: is the novelist merely documenting typical events naturalistically (what you mean when you say realistically) or is he trying to interpret/ make sense of the world by means of fiction? Is the novel written for a didactic purpose (that is to teach some moral or philosophical view)? On the surface, Brighton Rock looks like a fast-paced crime thriller, and it was a best-selling novel when it first appeared, so why is it considered a "modern classic" and worthy of close study by people like yourselves? What is the relationship between places in fiction and real places? Brighton, here, is, arguably, as much a state of mind as a real place with streets and houses, even though Greene makes several precise references to the topography (layout) of the real town. Compare how Brighton is presented with the setting of A Clockwork Orange.
Write 200 words on the following:
Consider the character of Pinkie. When discussing A Clockwork Orange, it might be possible to argue that Alex is a product of the society that he lives in. To what extent can this be said of Pinkie in Brighton Rock?
Create a comparison grid (split the page down the middle with book on one side and film on the other) on the following:
Compare the opening of Brighton Rock (the book) with the film. You can find the first 10 minutes in a previous post. Search for it on the side bar to the right. It is in Blog Archive under November 2009.
