Blood Brothers Coursework Thesis Essay Example For Students

Blood Brothers Coursework Thesis Essay Blood Brothers is a story of a pair of twins who are separated at  birth. They are brought up in totally different ways and this is shown  through the characters register, body language and reactions to each  other. They story is told by various methods such as the use of an  interventionist narrator and soliloquy in the form of songs by the  characters. In this essay I intend to analyse various techniques and themes which help establish this play to the succesful status it has attained. The Play is written by Willie Russell. Willie Russell was born just outside  Liverpool in Whiston, 1947. After leaving school with one English O-level, he then went on became a ladies hairdresser. In his spare time he would write comical songs but would never sing them in public until one night at his local pub, his  friend put him up to sing, and for the first time sang a song he wrote  about the Kirkby Estate where he had his audience in gales of  laughter. Blood Brothers is set at a crucial time in British  history. It is set in Liverpool in the early 1980s at a time when many  of the working class were being replaced by machines as it was  cheaper. The educated people, though were hardly affected. We see Mrs  Johnston a hard-working woman, pregnant, alone with seven children and  struggling to pay her debts. Then we see her bright and breezy,  middle class employer Mrs Lyons. At first glance both women seem  different, but they both share similar difficulties. They both are  mostly alone and have been abandoned by their husbands. Mrs Johnstons  husband totally abandoned her when the pressure was too much,  mehusband walked out on me. Mrs Lyons has not been totally abandoned by  her husband, yet he is always away for long gaps of time when he is on  business trips,  the company sent him out for about nine months.  This is a huge space in time and is almost like abandoning her.  The themes of the play were very obvious, such as class, innocence,  superstition and family love. These themes were developed by movement,  speech and mime. For example the theme of superstition was developed  from the start when Mrs Lyons put the new shoes on the table and Mrs  Johnstone reminded her about the saying  New shoes on the table arebad luck. It was then later developed by Mrs Lyons by her saying  Come on or the bogey man will get you.  This makes the theme of superstition more effective because the script makes more than one reference to it. Also this themes back up the theme of innocence with  the children because Edward believed it and so this also helped the  theme develop. Another big theme in the play was class. This was  clearly shown from the start because of Mrs Johnstone working for Mrs  Lyons. When Edward and Mickey first meet, the simple fact that they do not realise that theyre twins, especially when they find out that their birthdays are on the  same day, shows that their physical appearances must have been changed  quite a lot by their parents and environment. Mickey: Whens your birthday?  Eddie: December 12th.  Mickey: So is mine.  It does not give any specific images of any of their appearances but  you would expect Eddie to have a side parting, clean face and may be  chubbier than Mickey due to a better diet and he would have been more  knowledgeable about hygiene. Mickey would probably be quite a grubby  boy and perhaps not as tall as Eddie but he will probably be stronger  than Eddie because of the amount of time spent outside playing. Eddie  would probably have watched the TV or played on a computer because it  was available to him.