Blood Brothers: Themes (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Themes

Exam responses that are led by ideas are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the ideas of the text, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about the play.

Below are some themes which could be explored in Blood Brothers. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to consider other ideas within the play. Below you will find sections on:

• Nature vs Nurture

• Social Class 

• Superstition and fate

• Violence

Nature versus Nurture

This is one of the most prevalent themes within the play and challenges ideas related to personal and social responsibility. Throughout the play, Willy Russell presents the contrasting experiences and consequences relating to Mickey and Edward’s separate childhoods. Russell challenges audiences to consider bias or stereotypes by demonstrating the influences of both genetics and upbringing on the twins’ fate.

Knowledge and evidence:

• The nature vs nurture debate questions the influences of our innate qualities determined by our genetics (nature), compared with our life experiences and the way we are raised (nurture)

• The narrator presents the twins as similar in nature in the prologue: “as like each other as two new pins”

• As the twins grow up, they become foil characters to each other, highlighting differences caused by upbringing and environment (nurture):

  • Foil characters are used to convey themes by highlighting differences between the characters’ opposing characteristics 

  • Mickey is shown, aged seven, using bad language and being unfamiliar with generosity amongst his peers

  • Edward, aged seven, is articulate, unfamiliar with bad language and shares his sweets easily

  • Russell contrasts the innocence that comes with Edward’s sheltered home life with the jaded attitude of Mickey’s disadvantaged home life this way

  • This contrast explores the theme of nurture as influential in their fate

  • The boys, without knowing their kinship, become blood brothers, suggesting an innate connection between them

  • They refuse to stay apart despite being instructed to, highlighting their bond

  • When the boys are teenagers they are both rebellious at school, suggesting their similar nature

    • Mickey goes to a comprehensive city school and is suspended for being rude to a teacher

    • Edward, in a private school, is suspended for wearing a locket

• Their different upbringings (nurture) become a barrier to their friendship as they reach adulthood, perhaps suggesting the power of nurture:

  • Mickey becomes envious of Edward’s privileged life

  • As they reach adulthood, Mickey tells Edward he had to grow up faster than Edward and faced more challenges

  • Edward’s sheltered upbringing makes him unable to understand Mickey’s situation

What is Russell’s intention?

• Russell shows the influence of different environments and upbringings on the twins as powerful and all-consuming

  • Although Mickey and Edward are similar in nature, they grow up very differently

  • Mickey’s success is hindered by obstacles out of his control

  • Edward’s success is shown as easy and without challenge

• Russell questions ideologies present in England during the 1970s and 1980s

  • Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, advocated that any individual had the ability to succeed, regardless of background or social class

Social Class 

The musical, Blood Brothers, explores the influence of social class on an individual’s ability to determine their own future. The play presents the twins' tragic lives from birth to death, presenting the influences of both privilege and discrimination on the families’ emotional and physical well-being. 

Knowledge and evidence: 

• The play subverts stereotypes within the class system using foil characters to represent the mothers’ different classes

  • Mrs Johnstone, the working-class mother, is moral but Mrs Lyons, the middle-class mother, is immoral

  • The middle-class mother is corrupt, unkind and unhappy, while the working-class mother is honest, loving and takes pleasure in life and love 

  • At first, Russell shows Mrs Johnstone as impulsive and irresponsible, reflecting the cultural stereotypes of the working-class

  • In the prologue, the narrator asks the audience to judge the mothers

  • Later, the presentation of the working-class mother as a sympathetic character with justification for her circumstances challenges the audience's perceptions

  • Mrs Lyons is depicted as a liar who takes advantage of the vulnerable, subverting stereotypes of the middle class as moral

  • Russell challenges the stereotype that wealthy mothers are naturally better suited to parenting

    • Mrs Lyons, neurotic and bitter, acts as a catalyst for the tragedy

    • She tells Mickey about Edward and Linda’s affair, causing his violent rage which leads him to murder his brother

• Mickey and Edward’s lives diverge due to social class discrimination 

  • Mickey and Edward experience different treatment from the police and school

  • The middle-class family are treated generously by the police, while the working-class family are insulted and threatened

  • Mickey and Edward grow up with different attitudes to authority and personal safety

• By the climax, Mickey’s redundancy due to the economic problems in the country leads to his downward spiral  

  • Mickey’s unemployment is shown as an event outside of his control

  • His circumstances incite him to crime, leading to his arrest and depression

  • Russell depicts links between poverty and crime, implying social class differences are impactful in an individual’s fate

  • The narrator closes the play, by asking audiences if it was fate or social class that led to the tragedy, implying multiple variables led to the outcome

What is Russell’s intention?

• The function of the play is to question hypocrisy in the social class system

  • The middle-class mother is shown as quick to deceive and cheat for her own ends, suggesting the middle class is not necessarily moral

  • The working-class single mother, insulted by townspeople and called a bad mother, is held solely accountable for her situation despite being abandoned

• Russell exposes inequalities in the social class system

  • He shows how Mickey’s fate is caused by social class issues such as low self-esteem, external obstacles and discrimination

  • Edward is presented as innocent and sheltered from life’s injustices due to his class

Superstition and Fate

The narrator reminds audiences of the theme of fate and superstition throughout the play to mirror these ideas with themes focusing on free will and external pressures. Russell depicts his characters making decisions which bring about their own fate, suggesting that the past brings consequences we cannot avoid. As well as this, he asks audiences to consider how far social inequalities have a part to play in an individual’s fate. 

Knowledge and evidence: 

• Functioning much like a chorus, the narrator references superstitions in his songs to remind audiences to question the influence of superstition on the outcome

  • A chorus is a device used in Greek tragedy, whereby one or more narrators narrate key events or act as a voice of conscience

  • Here, the narrator acts as a voice of the public, highlighting perceptions of superstition 

  • The narrator also delivers Russell’s message that actions create fate

  • He refers to the devil “right behind ya” suggesting the mothers cannot outrun their past decisions and implying free will determines fate

  • The narrator challenges audiences at the end of the play, asking whether superstition or social class was responsible for the tragedy

• Mrs Johnstone’s character reflects cultural stereotypes which link the working class with superstitious beliefs

  • Mrs Johnstone is depicted as having a superstitious nature

  • Using this to her advantage, Mrs Lyons makes up a superstition to convince Mrs Johnstone to never see her baby again

  • The superstition comes true at the end of the play when Edward and Mickey find out they are brothers and die immediately afterward

  • This connects the superstition Mrs Lyons tells at the start of the play to the reality of the consequences it brings

What is Russell’s intention?

• Although the superstition comes true in the end, Russell suggests other forces at play:

  • Russell suggests that social class influences an individual’s outcome

  • Russell challenges audiences to consider that the power of superstition comes from the reality it creates

• By telling audiences of the tragic ending in advance, connections between fate and circumstance are presented

  • Russell demonstrates that fate is influenced by free will and our own actions

Violence 

Russell presents the prevalence of violence in young boys’ lives, both from men and women. The violence, at first, is playful and harmless fun. However, as the boys grow up the violence becomes deadly, suggesting its far-reaching power. 

Knowledge and evidence: 

• In the rising action of the play, the children play violent games, “killing” each other with pretend guns in the song “Kids’ Game” 

• In the absence of his father or other adult male, Mickey’s admiration for his violent and troubled older brother, Sammy, shows Mickey’s lack of a good role model

• Edward is slapped by his mother, Mrs Lyons: this subverts the stereotype that violence is limited by social class or gender

• Mickey’s decision to become involved in a violent robbery due to his redundancy, leads to his arrest, thus linking crime with poverty

• The shocking tragedy at the end of the play culminates Russell’s commentary on violence

  • Mickey’s desperate rage leads him to shoot his brother to death

  • The police respond by shooting Mickey dead

What is Russell’s intention?

• The play’s structure develops the theme of violence in a way that challenges audiences of the time

  • In the 1970s and 1980s, it was normal for children to play with pretend weapons; Russell suggests this may influence children into a violent mindset

• Russell makes connections between crime and poverty, suggesting that violence may result from inequalities in society