It all starts with one mother: Mrs. Johnstone, she has too many children, no benefits and a low paid job. Her job is to clean a large house run by an old women: Mrs. Lyons. Now Mrs Lyons is childless and sees that Mrs.Johnstone has too many children and two more on the way. And she decides to make her move, using education to scare Mrs.Johnstone into giving up her own flesh and blood by means of superstition and ‘bad luck’(the more educated could obviously see that she is weaving tales).Mrs.Johnstone is manipulated into giving up one of he twin and then the older women manipulates her even further into never revealing the ‘secret’. She uses fear and superstition to scare Mrs.Johnstone, but what if Mrs.Johnstone was more educated, would she have fallen for it, would she have believed Mrs. Lyons, would the whole story have been told, or could it just be fate that the two boys were meant to split at this time?
Mrs.Johnstone is already giving in as she already doubts the children’s future and upbringing, she says (page 7)”They say I am incapable of controlling the kids I’ve already got: they say I should put some of them into care”.
Mrs. Lyons plays on her fear by saying on page 8”your’e being threatened by the welfare people, Mrs Johnstone with two more children how can you possibly avoid some of them being put into care?”( Mrs Lyons is saying over all it’s better if I help as it’s either all the kids gone or just one).her education is allowing her to twist Mrs Johnstone around her finger, remember that the richer are better and the poorer and worse off.
So Mrs Johnstone, out of fear for her own children and herself, decides to give him away leaving the twins separated.
Through the time of the play, people were suffering so much, Mrs, Johnstone probably would not have given up her child if there was not a depression on, whereas Mrs Lyons even offered money for the baby (maybe as a sort of bribe) as she was well endowed with money as she was rich and the rich became richer through the depression.
But more to the question, I believe Mrs Johnstone plays a big role in the killing, as she was the one who gave into giving her child away, she was so close to her children, but some fear and a manipulative old women made her give up her own flesh and blood, her own child. But was it just Mrs Lyons, well I do not think so, I think she just helped, I think I was mainly Mrs. Johnstone As she was obsessed with buying items from a catalogue, she even bought so much that she was “living on the never never” (p15) it was a conscious decision of Money vs. Family, a normally tough decision but somehow she made it seem so easy, maybe a little too easy.
She was completely in debt and all because she could not stop buying and couldn’t control herself and her control problem did not stop there. She found it hard to control her kids as in page 9 she say “I’m incapable of controlling the kids”.
Her complete lack of control led to ½ of her twin being given away for a few measly pounds. Her lack of control led to Edward growing up different to Mickey, in a different class, in a different way, he may have been brought up to a better standard. This class Edward was brought up in made him seem better then Mickey. Mickey wanted this well brought up class and through the lack of control and giving away of a child, Mickey shot Eddie because he was jealous, his mother had not given him away, and this was the reason why Mickey was so angry, this is also the reason why Mickey tried to kill Eddie. Mickey was completely distraught when he found out he could have been Eddie. He even said “You, why didn’t you give ME away? I could have been him!”
But there is more to the deaths of the two boys then meets the eye. One thing is dividing them – class.
The way Edward was treated was far from the way Mickey was treated, even when a crime was committed; the stereotypical poor people got the blame. The police officer on page 45 is very harsh on Mrs. Johnstone, he said “they’ll be no more warnings from now on, you keep them in order or it’ll be the courts for you”
Whereas to Mrs. Lyons he only says “it was more of a prank really, I’d just dock his pocket money if I was you (laughs), don’t let him mix with the likes of ‘them’ in the future. Keep him to his own kind” (even though they are basically the same person, class makes one seem higher then the others.)
The way people from different backgrounds are treated is very clear, the sympathy to the rich and the coldness and stern to the poor. The law almost expects them to be bad or commit crimes.
Mickey again wants to be in Edwards’s shoes, he sees that posh people are much better off, even if they do exactly the same thing, as they are genetically identical, one will always go further then the other just because of the class divide.
Even Edward’s mother tells him to stay away from Mickey, saying “you are not the same as him” could this have been un-ignorable wisdom that would have ensured Edward lived to an old age?
Even the author believes class could have played apart in the killing (p100) “do we blame superstition for what came to pass or what the English have come to know as class?
So split second decisions have been the reason of the occurrences so far, but what if they weren’t? What if from the moment they were born, they were destined to die?
I believe fate also plays a big part. But of all these points, could fate be the most important? Could any one of these points be the most important or could they all have the same value?
The author and even the narrator destined the boys to die from the start saying “and who should tell the lambs in spring what the later seasons bring” something very clearly is going to happen; something very clearly is going to change someone’s life. After all what happens to the lambs in the later seasons! This is a very strong foreshadowing of what’s about to happen. There are very strong points throughout the book that hint at fate. Another strong foreshadowing phrase that destined death was “Broken bottles in the sand and oil in the water” (p77) broken bottles are something hard and sharp that are hidden, something that rips your feet. And oil doesn’t mix with water as oil is flammable and water puts out fire. Two very powerful foreshadowing phrases.
This recurring theme courses all the way through the book right up until the end when the narrator say “and maybe if you kept your fingers crossed, it would have all been a game and nobody would have lost.”
But now all the final points have been weighed up and evaluated, the task is to decide on what killed the two brothers.
There are many suspected murderers: some more obvious then others, but the biggest and therefore the killers are fate and Mrs.Johnstone. All the others are rash decisions based on weak evidence, but Mrs.Johnstone is not, she made the deliberate decision to put money and debt over family and her own child, she had a conscious decision to make and went with the easy option. This is why she is ½ of what killed the brothers.
The other is fate, now you may ask why fate and not superstition, it is because fate is the journey of life, no matter what you do, fate will always draw you closer, and after all fate is on deaths side: it will eventually burry you. Whereas superstition only makes short changes in your life “walking on pavement cracks” (p8) that theory can not really be blamed, that theory could not really change your life, it’s just superstition, the fear of doing certain things, it could not be blamed whereas fate starts from the moment you are born. So fate and Mrs.Johnstone are the killers are they are based on hard facts and calculated decisions.
