English Literature / Drama GCSE: Themes: Blood Brothers by Willy Russell

EDWARD:It's a magpie. Never look at one magpie.

NARRATOR:'Superstition and fate.'

MRS LYONS:I've told you never to go where that boy-- Where boys like that live.

NARRATOR:'Society and class.'

MRS LYONS:I took him, but never made him mine.

NARRATOR:'And nature versus nurture.

NARRATOR:'These are the key themes of Blood Brothers.'

MICKEY:Why didn't you give me away? I could have been… I could have been him.

NARRATOR:'Underneath Blood Brothers, there is a strong current of anger against social inequality.'

LINDA:The Blood Brother twins are identical, apart from their upbringing. Eddie had money, a job, an education. Whereas Mickey was driven to crime by poverty.

NARRATOR:'Blood Brothers was written in 1983. A time when Britain's unemployment stood at a record 3 million.'

MR LYONS:Take a letter, Miss Jones. Due to the world situation, the shrinking pound, the global slump, and the price of oil, I'm afraid we must fire you.

MR LYONS:We no longer require you.

MICKEY:It was a time when the rich was getting richer, and the poor was getting poorer.

MICKEY:And what made it worse, is those rich folks seemed incapable of understanding the problems of us working people.

EDWARD:Why-- Why's a job so important? If I couldn't get a job I'd just say sod it, and draw the dole. Live like a bohemian. Tilt my hat to the world and say, "Screw you".

NARRATOR:'Small wonder that Mickey feels bitter toward his wealthy twin.'

MICKEY:He got opportunities I would never get, because wealth gets you education, and connections. He went to public school, and university. Sets him up nicely for his career in politics. Me? What did I get? What's my job? Standing there all day? Never doing nothing? I put cardboard boxes together.

NARRATOR:'It's only the circumstance of poverty which drives Mickey to crime.'

LINDA:Mickey always rejected the criminal life. When Sammy mugged the bus conductor, he tried to talk him out of it, tried to get him to put the knife away.

MICKEY:Sammy! Sammy, put that away. It's still not too late.

LINDA:But in the end, when he's unemployed and he's broke, Sammy recruits him as a lookout man on a fill-in station raid.

SAMMY:All we need is someone to keep the eye for us. Look at you Mickey. What have you got? Nothing. Like me mam. Where you taking ye tart for New Year? Nowhere.

NARRATOR:'And it's clear that social class also confers respect. The way that the police respond to working class kids…'

POLICE OFFICER:There'll be no more bloody warnings from now on. Either you keep them in order, Mrs. Or it'll be the courts for you, or worse. Won't it?

NARRATOR:'is different to the way they respond to the posh ones.

POLICE OFFICER:And as I say, it was more of a prank really Mr. Lyons. I'd just dock his pocket money if I was you.

MRS JOHNSTONE:It's a bit unfair if you ask me. Because both rich and poor are capable of serious crime.

MRS JOHNSTONE:When Mrs. Lyons menaces me with a knife, that's exactly what our Sammy did with the bus conductor.

NARRATOR:'Despite creating opportunities, money also has its limitations.'

MRS LYONS:After we'd moved, he talked less and less of you and your family. I started–

MRS LYONS:After a while I came to believe he's actually mine.

NARRATOR:'Despite using money to acquire Mrs. Johnstone's child, Mrs. Lyons can't buy the child's affections.'

MRS JOHNSTONE:He is yours.

MRS LYONS:No.

MRS LYONS:I took him.

MRS LYONS:But I never made him mine.

NARRATOR:'Nor can it buy her a clean conscience.'

MRS LYONS:Wherever I go, you will be just behind me. I know that now. Always and forever and ever, like like a shadow!

NARRATOR:'So, is the fate of the characters dictated by their wealth, status, and education? or is it by supernatural reasons?'

THE NARRATOR:And do we blame superstition for what came to pass, or could it be what we, the English, have come to know as class?

MRS LYONS:I think there's the suggestion that fate is at work. There's all sorts of signs.

EDWARD:Don't look, Mummy. It's a magpie. Never look at one magpie. It's one for sorrow.

THE NARRATOR:There's a black cat stalking, and a woman who's afraid that there's no getting off without a price being paid.

MRS JOHNSTONE:You never put new shoes on the table.

NARRATOR:'The pull of fate is stressed at the very beginning. The Narrator tells us the play's conclusion before the action commences.'

THE NARRATOR:And did you never hear, how the Johnstone's died? Never knowing that they shared one name till the day they died.

NARRATOR:'The destiny of the characters is fixed before we even meet them.'

MRS LYONS:They say if either twin learns that he was once a pair, they shall both immediately die.

MRS JOHNSTONE:'Maybe there is some kind of fate at work.'

MRS JOHNSTONE:Both our families moved away in an attempt to split the boys up. But fate drew us back together. By sheer coincidence we ended up living close to one another.

MRS LYONS:Are you always going to follow me?

MRS JOHNSTONE:We were rehoused here. I didn't follow.

MRS LYONS:But you know you can make too much of it. I'm sure I was looking out for signs of divine punishment because I had a guilty conscience. What did I say to her again? I curse you! Witch!

MICKEY:And in the end, it's not some spooky divine force which decides my fate, either. It's the people with money.

MICKEY:And Linda.

MICKEY:I didn't sort anything out, Linda. Not a job, not a house. Nothing. It used to be just sweets and ciggies he gave me because I had none of me own. Now it's a job, and a house.

MICKEY:I'm not stupid, Linda. You sorted it out. You. And Counsellor Eddie Lyons.

NARRATOR:'We've already shown the twins would be identical, but for their different upbringings. They are both attracted to the same woman. They both get suspended from school. And both share an uncanny physical likeness.

MRS LYONS:When were you photographed with this woman?

EDWARD:Mummy, silly old thing. That's not me. That's Mickey.

MRS JOHNSTONE:And my Mickey certainly believes that if they'd swapped their upbringings, they'd swap their fates too.

MICKEY:Why didn't you give me away?

MICKEY:I could have been… I could have been him!

NARRATOR:'In their youth, the boys are good friends. They have a lot in common. It's the eventual effects of society and education that take them along different paths.'

EDWARD:I thought we always stuck together. I thought we were were blood brothers.

MICKEY:That was kid's stuff, Eddie.