Blood Brothers- Context research: Themes Of The Play

 Nature v nurture in blood brothers 

Edward and Mickey are identical twins who are genetically similar however, were raised by contrasting families. mickey, with a poor large family and Eddie with a rich family and as an only child. mickey is more rebellious and rough whereas Edward is inelegant but innocent so hes very generous. 

even though the boys had never been told the truth about them being related, they were naturally drawn to each other anyway and called themselves 'blood brothers'. although they have many superficial differences, at core they are both loving, decent, and honest individuals, much like their real mother, mrs johnstone. And they also both fell in love with the same woman. 

Willy Russel brought up the question of nature v nurture in blood brothers to how people (mainly higher class) that even when you have the same DNA you're life experiences affect the opportunities we have in life. i think it has been made very obvious that how people are raised can completely change a person. for example, if it was mickey that was taken with Mrs Lyons he would be the smart, gentle, successful twin and if it were Eddie who stayed with his birth mother and raised in the rough side of town he would be the more rebellious child who didn't end up in a good place as an adult. 

Willy Russel showed this theme throughout his play to show the many many people that blamed poor people for struggling that with a better upbringing in life, there are many more opportunities to succeed in comparison to people with a more working class upbringing.

Social Class And Inequality

Willy Russel wrote the play in 1981 at the time the conservative prime minister Margaret Fletcher was in power. She took away a lot of jobs in the working class areas of northern england like Liverpool, where willy Russel is from and the play is set. this lead to large amounts of people losing their jobs which made the areas loose a lot more money. this is and example of making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. 

the johnstone family are a great example of what it was like to be working class in the 1980's who were negatively affected by the economic downturn, whereas the Lyons Family who were middle class who flourished during it.

Russel created such and extreme contrast between the lives the twins lead in the Johnstone and Lyons families to convey the impact that a social class title can have on their opportunities in life. from the beginning where Mrs Johnstone becomes a cleaner for Mrs Lyons we can see the ginormous difference between them and it only grown bigger thought the play through the characters of mickey and Eddie.

 Their Differences

When the twins first met at seven they were already living such different lives but as they were kids they didn't care about their differences as their friendship overpowers it. however as they got older the differences put a huge strain on their friendship and it becomes something they can’t move past. Mickey was resentful of the way Eddie lives. How he wasn’t forced to grown up and fend for himself. How he didn’t have to worry about money or a dead end future. He was envious of the life he had and he wished it was him, this tore their friendship apart completely.

Margaret thatcher was raised in a higher class family, this lead her to believe that if you weren’t successful it was because you didn’t work hard, she believed if you work hard you can be successful. Russel demonstrates that this isn’t true through Mickey. Since he didn’t get given the same opportunities as Eddie, even though they are the same genetically, his life turned out completely different. His prospects are very limited even though he’s worked extremely hard to be successful. 

Violence

Children in the rough working class are used to violence. They were introduced to violence at a very young age. When Mickey is just 7 years old he was already playing with toy/ imaginary guns with his friends as they were pretending to kill each other. This installs violence to be normal as a child. 

As the play goes on the violence quickly escalates and leads on to the tragic death of Edward and Mickey. I think that Sammy is a big cause of the violence he’s the one that probably introduced violence to his brothers and normalised it for them, he’s one of the most violent characters is the show.

Psychologists have said that violence isn’t only used to hurt someone. It’s used for control. When people feel powerless and feel a lack of control they use violence to gain it back. They use it to inflict fear and pain and to put themselves back in the drivers seat. This explains why Mickey came in with a gun when he felt like nothing in his life was his, he wanted to show Eddie that he has power. It’s also shown when Mrs Lyons doesn’t think she has power anymore because mrs Johnstone has told Edward she’s his real mam, that’s why she kills mrs Johnstone’s child (mickey) to show that if she’s going to try to take Eddie from her, she’ll take mickey from her.