Explore the role of the narrator in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers

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Explore the role of the narrator in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers

The play, Blood Brothers, written by Willy Russell, is a very interesting play. It is about a mother with seven children and twins nearly due. Her employer cannot have kids and the mother is worried about financial support for her self and children(((((did they have child support in 1986??)))))))), she has trouble supporting seven as it is never mind eight, but nine is too much for her. She gives one of them away to her employer. Before the twins are born they makes a pack that the two boys  will never know the truth and they will be kept apart. She gives one of her new babies to her employer. The boys do meet and become ‘Blood Brothers’ at the age of seven. They were friends until they were adults, until they found out the truth, that they were real brothers, they were twins, which leads to their tragic death. The play is mainly about the two boys, but it is also about how poverty, single painting, education, and discipline can effect an upbringing of a child and how it effect them when they are older in what type of lifestyle they live in.                        Willy Russell wanted this play to be different to all of the anther basic plays, the wanted his to have a reality to it, he wanted the audience to be thinking what actually was meant by a scent while still watching the play, he wanted the audience to always be thinking about the play and what is going to happen next. Russell’s aim was achieved by the character that he put to take part in certain times of the play, this character wasn’t a normal character, and this character was the narrator. He is so different to any other character in the play because he is a non-character, he commentates on action rather than participate in the play, he knows everything about it and what is going to happen before it actually happens. He opens and closes the play and links the scenes between.

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The narrator sets the scene,

“There’s on use clutching at your rosary

The devils in the back yard, he can see

Through the gaps in the certain he sees it all.”  

He opens the play

“….bring on the mother let the story begin”

He closes the play and links the scenes.

“Seven years later…….. Several years later……Two years later”

The narrator does all of these thing so that the audience knows what is happening in the play, when the actual story begins, ends if any significant time has passed in the play, because if ...

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