Quotes BR

• First line of the book, medias res, sets up genre of crime, creates suspense that lasts through chapter.


  "Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him."
• A sense of unreality in Brighton - it is like a picture postcard. Shows the unrealistic, idealised surface of Brighton - it is deceptive as there is a dark underworld behind this image.


  "the new silver paint sparkled on the piers, the pale cream houses ran away into the west like a pale Victorian watercolour"
• Any happiness in Brighton is false. The crowd force happiness with immense labour (two quotes)


  "an air of sober and determined gaiety""they extricated from the long day the grain of pleasure"
• What is the first description of Ida? She has a slightly debauched, yet motherly and inviting image.


  "She was only a little drunk in a friendly accommodating way. You thought of sucking babies when you looked at her."
• From the first description of Pinkie, we instantly see his moral and physical depravity, as well as his poverty.


  "a shabby smart suit, the cloth too thin to wear, a face of starved intensity, a kind of hideous and unnatural pride"
• Pinkie is immediately established as predatory and dangerous, he is like a hunter searching for prey (Hale)


  "you might expect a hunter searching through the jungle for some half-fabulous beast to look like that (...) before the kill"
• What drink does Pinkie ask for at the bar with hale?


  "grapefruit squash"(grapefruits are bitter, yet squash is a child's drink. He is almost like a bitter child?)
• We see the initial resentment Pinkie has for Ida when they are placed together at the beginning. Foreshadows the antagonism to come?


  "won't anybody stop that buer's mouth?"
• misogynistic attitudes towards women when Hale sees two women. (two quotes)


  "a fat spotty creature in pink" "a pale bloodless creature".
• Pinkie sees the sea as a greater and more powerful force than him. Almost a hellish force. Ida matches the "sparkle" of the sea - is she a physical manifestation of this hellish force?


  Ida is "sparkling back at the bright sea"
• Rose is immediately presented as vulnerable and weak. Very victim-like in this sense - easily exploited.


  "one of those girls who creep about, he thought, as if they were afraid of their own footsteps"
• On their first meeting in Snow's Greene suggests Pinkie and Rose have things in common despite their contrasting natures. This later will emphasise how even though both have had the same upbringing they are so utterly different in character. (2 quotes)

  "something in common perhaps - youth and shabbiness and a kind of ignorance", "You an' me have things in common."
• Ida has an air of searching for the truth, yet she is nothing like a 'real' detective as she bases her findings off "instincts", not concrete evidence.


  "her instincts told her there was something off, something which didn't smell right"
• After Hale's death ida uses the word "pathos" - an Aristotelian term for tragedy. It as if she has just watched a performance, a piece of entertainment. Perhaps she pursues Pinkie because she desires a catharsis - she wants to feel fulfilled.


  "the easy pathos touched her friendly and popular heart"
• How is Hale's cremation described? Creates a parallel with Pinkie's death, who is swallowed up by the sea and whose vitriol meant "it was like the flames had literally got him". Karma for Pinkie?

  "the coffin slid smoothly down into the fiery sea"
• Why does Ida like a funeral? Does it link with Pinkie's view of Hale's death as "trivial"?

  "She liked a funeral - but it was with horror - as other people like a ghost story"
• Ida's beliefs are the antithesis of Christianity. What does she believe in? She is open to multiple possibilities.


  "She didn't believe in heaven or hell, only in ghosts, Ouija boards, tables which rapped..."
• How does Ida view life? Juxtaposition of "life" and "deadly" suggests she's willing to end life in order to protect life. Foreshadow's death of Pinkie?


  "She took life with a deadly seriousness"
• First sign of language that suggests Ida is waging war - "territory"


  "her familiar territory, to the bars and the electric signs and the variety theatres"
• According to Ida, how is "man" "made?

  "Man is made by the places in which he lives"
• What is Ida's view to leaving vengeance with God? She puts herself in a God-like position, taking control of vengeance and rewards. She doesn't trust the higher power so takes on this role herself. Contrasts to Pinkie's belief that "Hell was something you could trust".


  If you believed in God, you might leave vengeance to him, but you couldn't trust the One, the universal spirit. Vengeance was Ida's, just as much as reward was Ida's"
• Vengeance and reward are fun... is this all a game to Ida? Is she really in the moral right?


  "vengeance and reward - they both were fun"
• Ida chants something to herself to motivate her to continue her quest. She calls it a "refrain" - the chorus of a song - it's like a form of entertainment to her.


  "her heart beat faster to the refrain: it's exciting, it's fun, it's living."
• how does Pinkie see the sea? It is as if he is surrounded by a dangerous and tumultuous darkness. Is this the unknown the afterlife, the possibility of going to hell? As there are later links between the sea and hell.

  "the dark wash of sea"
• Pinkie feels intimate and sensual with the vitriol bottle - it is as if this is of more value and comfort to him than human life.


  "a faint secret sensual pleasure he felt, touching the bottle of vitriol with his fingers"
• Pinkie threatens Rose with vitriol when he spills some on the wooden plank of the peer. What effect does the vitriol have on the wood? "hissed" evokes snake-like imagery, not only makes Pinkie seems more menacing but highlights how the vitriol will come back to bite him.


  "it hissed like steam"
• Rose has an immense story of what kind of memories? Ironic as Hale's death is later described as "trivial" - does she know more than she gives away? Complicit in the crime?

  "she had an immense store of trivial memories"
• Greene compares Rose to a mole emerging into daylight - it's interesting that moles are blind. They also live underground - Nelson Place represents the murky underworld of Brighton


  "In Nelson place from which she had emerged like a mole into the daylight of Snow's restaurant"
• Pinkie caresses the vitriol bottle


  "caressed the vitriol bottle"
• Pinkie pinching Rose's wrist - sensual rage


  "He was working himself into a sensual little rage, as he had done with the soft kids at the council school"
• Causing pain is like a game to Pinkie. He is child-like even in his violence, wants to have "fun" and make people "squeal". Undermines his role as gang leader.

  "the tricks he'd learnt (...) with a razor blade: what would be the fun if people didn't squeal?"
• Pinkie's certainty of the existence of hell, flames and damnation.

  "Of course there's Hell. Flames and damnation"
• How does Pinkie feel when he is with Dallow? We get the sense that Pinkie is like a child in a playground, undermining his position as a gang leader.


  "as a physically weak but cunning schoolboy"
• In the elevator at the Cosmopolitan. A sharp contrast to the hellish imagery associated with Nelson Place. Colleoni is no way "angelic" or a man of "peace" - yet his surroundings suggest this. Criminals can come from all walks of life.


  "They rose angelically towards peace"
• The richness, colour and luxury of the Cosmopolitan


  "stately red velvet couches stamped with crowns in gold and silver thread"
• Pinkie doesn't belong in the wealthy, glorified world of the Cosmopolitan. He is like an "alien".


  Pinkie "looked like an alien in this room"
• Colleoni looks like he owns the world. he is almost God-like, Pinkie is inconspicuous compared to him.


  Colleoni "looked as a man might look who owned the world"
• The corruption of the police force. They give permission to pinkie to be violent - seem to be complicit in crime?


  "I don't mind you carving each other up in a quiet way"
• After being insulted by the police and Colleoni, Pinkie revels in the fact that he got away with murder. The use of "glory" is ironic as we have just seen how little glory he has when compared to Colleoni - the epitome of glory and grandeur.

  "He trailed the clouds of his own glory after him: hell lay about him in his infancy"
• For Ida, what does the word "Whitsun" mean to her? (the place of Hale's murder) Seems to confirm suspicions that this is all a form of entertainment for her?

  "TRAGEDY in capital letters"