"And do we blame superstition for what has come to pass? Or is it what we, the English, have come to know as class?"

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And do we blame superstition for what has come to pass? Or is it what we, the English, have come to know as class?”

‘Blood Brothers’ is a musical based on superstition and class, and Willy Russell has used various techniques to make a point to the audience that social class makes a difference in our society. This is why he asks the question above. In this play some things occur because of superstition, but most are due to the social class of the characters. The first few lines have great significance to the rest of the play, as they create suspense and confusion towards the audience. First of all, Russell creates dramatic irony with the audience, as he explains the whole story in the form of a short poem. This is then repeated at the end of the play, just before the question above is asked. The quote “How one was kept and one given away” is very significant, as this is the main story of the play. The audience now know what is going to happen - “An’ did never you hear how the Johnstones died,” and they see “a re-enactment of the final moments of the play- the deaths of MICKEY and EDWARD”, but they do not know how it happened. This leaves the audience in suspense, and confused as to why the twins died, “Never knowing that they shared one name”.

The first line the narrator speaks is “So did y’ hear the story of the Johnstone twins?” and this rhetorical question is directed at the audience. The effect of this will catch the audience’s attention, and hopefully make them want to know about the Johnstone twins. What the narrator says about Mrs Johnstone is also very important, because it influences the audience’s thoughts of her, “a mother, so cruel”. This gives the audience the image that she is an evil person, with “ a stone in the place of her heart”. Even though the narrator tells the audience to “Come judge for yourselves”, they have already been influenced by the narrators description. The style of language the narrator uses is also very persuasive, as his speech is in an effective rhyming poetic form. He also talks to the audience instead of just narrating what is going on. “An’ did you…” is a quote showing that the narrator is talking as a friend to the audience. This is an effective technique because it makes the play more interesting and helps the audience stay in tune with what is going on. The accent of the narrator is also interesting, as some of it is slang, which in some way can relate to the audience more, and it also ties in with the rest of the play.

 Mrs Johnstone sings the first song trying to demonstrate to the audience that she is not a bad person. This is because the narrator had just told the audience that she had given away her child, so she is trying to change the audience’s thoughts about her, hoping that they will eventually understand why she did it.  Firstly, we can see that she is quite naive, as she was easily taken in by the comment her husband made, “He said I was sexier than Marilyn Monroe”. She then got pregnant, so she “...Got married at the registry”, showing that she takes life as it comes, and doesn’t really plan anything. The audience are already questioning what the narrator had just said about Mrs Johnstone, because by the first few lines of the song she comes across as someone who would not even hurt a fly.

In between each chorus the same two lines were repeated, “and we went dancing, we went dancing”, and “Marilyn Monroe” was repeated at the end of each verse. This give you an idea that these two things are important factors in Mrs Johnstone’s life. The dancing seems to be related to her life a lot because when she was happy, she went dancing, but once life started to get harder and harder there was “no more dancing, no more dancing”. When there was no more dancing she was already worn out because by the time she “was twenty-five” she “looked like forty-two”, and she had “seven hungry mouths to feed”. In every day life the audience would say that she should have taken more care, but as she is a catholic it is against her religion to use contraception. While heavily pregnant her husband left her. Later on in the play the audience discover that Mrs Johnstone is very superstitious, which relates to the question asked at the end.

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There is also the repetition of “Marilyn Monroe”. This shows that Mrs Johnstone is just like a young teenage girl with a role model, in this case Marilyn Monroe, which also relates to her life, as when she was “sexier” and “lovelier than Marilyn Monroe”, she was happy, but once she was “twice the size of Marilyn Monroe” her life had got harder, and there was “no more dancing”. The words of this song should have by now persuaded the audience to think twice about what the narrator said, and to see that Mrs Johnstone has had quite a hard ...

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