Love is a theme, shown by the two women who love their sons but show it in completely different ways, and how Linda’s Close friendship slowly gets replaced with love for Eddie and Mickey. Along with superstition, this is the basis of the whole story and is a theme that continues throughout the whole play, the consequences of most of the happenings can be traced back to superstition. It is also the reason for the tragic end of the play. Superstition also features heavily in some of the songs, the best example of this is the song “Shoes upon the table” that features quite early on, when Mrs Lyons uses Mrs Johnstones fear of superstition to her advantage, as can be seen from the following lines just before the song. “Mrs. Lyons:
They...they say that if either twin learns that he was one of a pair, they shall both immediately die. It means Mrs. Johnstone that these brothers shall grow up unaware of the others existence. They shall be raised apart and never, ever told what was once the truth. You won't tell anyone about this, Mrs. Johnstone, because if you do, you will kill them.”
Followed by the Narrator busting into song:
“ Shoes upon the table
An' a spider's been killed.
A full moons shinin'
An' the salts been spilled.
You're walkin' on the pavement cracks
Don't know what's gonna come to pass.”
All of these are bad omens foretelling what is to come.
There's also the theme of friendship, linked between Mickey, Eddie and Linda and how they are all friends, but it gradually brakes apart, Mickey and Linda's friendship develops into love, and Mickey and Eddie's friendship firstly breaks up when Eddie is forced to move away by his parents, then again later in the play when Mickey becomes depressed he begins to become jealous of Eddie, again leading up to the tragic consequences. Hate then becomes part of the play, as Mrs Lyons comes to despise Mrs Johnstone because of the situation both women are in with the twins.
Violence features heavily in the play. The most notable example of physical conflict is when Mickey shoots Eddie. The audience are reminded of the superstition that the brothers would die if they were to find out they were in fact twins. This builds dramatic tension and then this tension dies away after the climax of the shooting. The verbal conflict in the play takes place mainly between the female characters. A striking example is when Mrs. Lyons goes in to Mrs. Johnston house and they argue. The sentences are short - "Don't lie!" for example in order to create a build up of tension. This tension is released when Mrs. Lyons attempts to stab Mrs. Johnston. The theme of violence is present from the start of the play, although is more subtle at the begging, for example when the children are playing games, their song depicting several deaths, but at the end of each one, the audience is reminded of the children’s innocence and that they are just playing, by the repetition of the verse
“But you know that if you’re cross your fingers,
And if you count from one to ten,
You can get up off the ground again,
It doesn't matter the whole thing's just a game.”
Mrs Johnstone is fulfilled with the theme of guilt through out most of the play because of giving her son Edward away to Mrs Lyons, but also Mrs Lyons feels guilt because she has lied to everyone about Edward being her own son, she lied to her husband, friends, family and even Edward himself. Mickey also becomes to feeling guilt because he is so depressed he cannot support himself or his family (Linda and their child) and he has to rely on Linda and Mrs Johnstone to actually support him.
The Narrator in Blood Brothers is used in many ways, his main role is to be a foreboding figure or a “voice of fate”, Warning as time gets closer to the ending Tragedy a good example of this is in one of his songs, he warns that the time of Eddie and Mickey’s death is getting close by singing:
“Yes, y' know the devil's got your number
He's gonna find y'
Y' know he's right behind y',
He's standin' on your step
And he's knocking at your door.
He's knocking at your door,
He's knocking at your door”
This is added to by the use of superstitions about bad luck in each of his speeches, for example his listing of many superstitions quoted earlier in this essay..
As the story progresses the Narrators Speeches are gradually getting more serious as time goes on, until right before the shooting when he is literally shouting out trying to warn them. This is Probably the reason that the Narrator is usually presented as quite a shady character, who is telling the story through someone else’s eyes other than the people involved giving us a better idea of what’s going on, from the view of someone there, and someone who is not biased at all. This is much better as the viewer can relate to what the Narrator is seeing; yet he adds much more to the overall suspense and excitement.
The Narrator also plays a important part in keeping the story flowing, because he acts as a vital of link between each part of the play, this means that he can give hints about the next scene and act without anything being preformed, this results in the audience being more entertained by the suspense even though nothing important or exiting may be happening at that time in the play.