Blood Brothers: the issues of a class system and the theory of nature versus nurture

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Blood Brothers

Willy Russell’s play, ‘Blood Brothers’ is set in Liverpool in the early eighties and follows the life of two main characters, Eddie Lyons, and Mickey Johnston.  Throughout the course of the play we are shown the issues of a class system and the theory of nature versus nurture.  Russell encourages the audience to question everything they see, as the characters seem realistic, but we are reminded constantly that what we are watching is a construction.  He achieves this by using many dramatic devices, which prove to be very effective throughout the course of the play.  This includes the use of the traditional narrator, to also using other characters as tools in the play to help reveal further information to us, which we may not have otherwise seen.  In ‘Blood Brothers’ the characters fall into two very stereotypical groups, the working class Johnston’s, and their friends and family, and the middle class Lyons.  The main characters, Eddie and Mickey are people that we can relate to, as we feel sorry for them, when they face the trials and tribulations of life. Russell uses this to involve the audience so they feel pity when Mickey loses his job, fear at the end of the play when the shooting scene takes place, and experience childhood joy when Eddie and Mickey share jokes. Humour, in its various forms, plays a large part in the play.  By the end of the play, our opinions of the twin, the mother, and Mrs Lyons have been completely split, to such an extent that the audiences’ reaction is very diverse.  This drama ends in Act 5 scene 5 as both twins are killed and the audience is left to question why this happened.

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From the beginning of the play we are alerted to the Johnston’s family severe financial situation when we are shown that they cannot even afford to pay the milkman in Act 1, scene 2, ‘Look, honest, I will pay you next week’.  A modern audience would perceive this as very strange, although we have to take into account that the play is set during the recession.  So a contemporary may view it as being something that they themselves may have even gone through.  We are given another alarming insight from the Mother in Act 1 scene 5, ‘the welfare’s already ...

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