Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Brighton Rock, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Catholicism
Pride and Ambition
Sex and Shame
Innocence vs. Experience
Summary
Analysis
Ida is back in Henekey’s bar, drinking a stout with Clarence. She has told him all about the affair with Hale and Pinkie and Rose. She feels a calm satisfaction with herself. It all turned out just as it should have, she says. There was no other way. She saved Rose, and Pinkie’s death was justice being served. She admits that she lied to Dallow about Prewitt—he did, indeed, make it to France—but the ends most certainly justified the means, and at least she can say that she delivered Rose into the safe bosom of her family. Clarence tells Ida she’s a terrible woman, but he will admit that she always acts for the best.
Ida has learned very little from her efforts to bring Hale’s murderer to justice. She feels no pity for Pinkie and has no compunction about causing grief to Rose, who despises her family and would not look upon being delivered to them as any sort of gift. Clarence is right when he describes Ida as “terrible;” she is a force of nature whose good intentions do not benefit everyone equally.
Themes
Ida returns home to her apartment and calls for Old Crowe, hoping that the two of them can take another turn at the Ouija board. There are no postcards from Phil Corkery waiting for her. She supposes she won’t get one of those again, but there is a letter from Tom. Old Crowe joins her at the board. Ida thinks about how it saved Rose’s life. What she wants to ask it this time is more personal. She wants to know if maybe she should finally go back to Tom.
Ida’s giving credit to the Ouija board for saving Rose’s life is doubly ironic. The board did very little to solve Hale’s murder. It was all Ida. Meanwhile, Rose is far from saved. She wanted only to live in love with Pinkie forever. Now she is cut off from that prospect. Ida, on the other hand, always has her ex-husband’s affections to fall back on.
Themes
