Blood Brothers. In the play we see that Mrs Johnstones life totally contrasts with Mrs Lyons life, we see this in many different ways during the play,

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Blood Brothers Essay

The play, Blood Brothers written by Willy Russell was set in Liverpool, Liverpool had been home to one of the highest levels of  unemployment within the developed world. The play was set in the 1960’s. Russell wrote it at this time because there was low morale and a lot of unemployment. Willy Russell set it at that time because there was a big difference between upper class and the working class. This affects our reading of the play because we feel sorry for the Johnstone family. We feel sorry for mrs Johnstone because she is struggling to keep up with payments for basic needs.

       At the beginning of the play we are introduced to the character Mrs Johnstone. “She is aged thirty but looks more like fifty” This illustrates how difficult her life has been. Immediately we, the audience feel sympathy for her. In the song “ Marilyn Monroe” we see how her life was when she young. We realise she has been abandoned by her husband and sympathise that she has, “seven hungry mouths to feed” and no support from anyone. She is struggling to keep up with payments for basic needs such as milk, we feel sorry for her because the milk man is stubborn and arrogant, we see this when he says “no money, no milk” This shows us that the milk man has no sympathy and is not being very understanding towards Mrs Johnstone’s situation. To earn some money Mrs Johnstone the house of Mrs Lyons, she is so desperate to keep the job she makes commitments and says things such as “I wont even need to take one day off, I love this job” She is just managing to scrape by now that she has the job, this shows that the job means everything to her and she cant afford to lose it. During the “fun song” Mrs Johnstone acquires a mop and bucket, this shows how her ‘boring’ job has changed her life.

In the play we see that Mrs Johnstones life totally contrasts with Mrs Lyons’ life, we see this in many different ways during the play, one way is when Mrs Lyons walks through the door with a package in hand, Mrs Lyons walking through the door with a a package highlights the fact that she can afford to buy packages where as Mrs Johnstone can’t afford to treat herself or her kids for that matter and struggles to pay for the basics. One of the other ways their lives contrast is when Mrs Johnstone comments on Mrs Lyons’ large house, this is one of the only ways Mrs Johnstone can get anywhere near such a house, we see this when Mrs Johnstone say “It’s a great job, It’s such a lovely house, it’s a pleasure to clean it” The shows us that she like cleaning the house not only for the money but to be able to be in a large house full of wealth and nicely decorated.  Mrs Johnstone is a very religious person and Mrs Lyons uses this in many ways to weaken Mrs Johnstone. An example of Mrs Johnstone being weakened and manipulated is Mrs Lyons saying “with two more children how can you possibly avoid some of them going into care?” This weakens Mrs Johnstone because it makes her think and she might get very upset about the thought of loosing one of her own children. Mrs Johnstone gets blacked mailed by Mrs Lyons about the welfare of the children, we see this when Mrs Johnstone announces that she will be having twins, Mrs Lyons says “Your already being chased by the welfare people” this would make Mrs Johnstone think about what she is going to do, Mrs Lyons takes advantage of this situation and quickly says “surely its better if you gave on child to me, at least if the child was with me you could see it every day, as you came to work” this could put Mrs Johnstone on the spot and make a quick decision. Mrs Lyons makes Mrs Johnstone swear on the bible because she is very religious and wouldn’t change her mind.

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Mrs Lyons uses the fact that Mrs Johnstone is religious to weaken her, because Mrs Johnstone swore on the bible to give one of he twins to Mrs Lyons, Mrs Lyons says “they say if either twin learns that they once were a pair, they shall both immediately die.” She says this so that Mrs Johnstone would not tell the twins that they are twins because she would be scared of loosing the twins.

Mrs Lyons comes to a conclusion of sacking Mrs Johnstone, She does this because she it frightened of Mrs Johnstone becoming too attached to Edward.

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