Blood Brothers cw

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Blood Brothers by Willy Russell is a common well known play, acted in many places. In this play, there are many themes which Russell wants us to think about, such as superstition, class status, poverty and motherhood. Motherhood plays a huge role in this play as it starts form the beginning and continues towards the end.

This play is about two twins who were separated at birth, and Mrs Johnstone being able to cope with her eight children, Mrs Lyons and the fact that she has a secret of the past, which stays with her throughout the play.

This essay will be focusing on Mrs Lyons and Mrs Johnstone and how their relationships and attitudes towards each other are developed and how the secret of separation affected the role of motherhood.

In the 1960s, Liverpool became known all over the world as the home of the Mersey Beat. This was one of the most extensive range of talent in any modern city. Russell sets ‘Blood Brothers’ in 1960s Liverpool and the audience sees the two brothers grow up through 1970s Liverpool, a time of massive re-development and high unemployment. The two women show the audience different attitudes to motherhood, social class, poverty and superstition.

Mrs Johnstone is the main character in the play; she has nine children, one in which is given away. Mrs Johnstone’s husband has left her and she has to live in poverty and the lack of normal necessities. Mrs Johnstone was in desperate need of money and finds a job as being a cleaner at a wealthy household of Mr and Mrs Lyons, wee know that Mrs Lyons is wealthy because she says that ‘its so big’, meaning that her house is big and that Mrs Johnstone has to clean the ‘big’ house to earn money. Here the relationship between Mrs Johnstone and Mrs Lyons is quite normal, and it seems that nothing is going to go wrong.

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However Mrs Lyons attitude changes when she finds out that her cleaner is expecting twins, ‘Twins? You’re expecting twins?’, this is where Mrs Lyons motherhood act starts to show because she always wanted a child but couldn’t have one and she knows that Mrs Johnstone cannot cope.

At the start of this section we discover that Mrs Johnstone is working for Mrs Lyons as a cleaner, it is clear that Mrs Johnstone likes Mrs Lyons and her job, ‘It’s such a lovely house it’s a pleasure to clean it’. Mrs Lyons clearly likes her ‘pretty house’ but finds ...

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