Deaths of Mickey and Edward in Willy Russells Blood Brothers :: Russell Blood Brothers Death Essays

Deaths of Mickey and Edward in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers "And do we blame superstition for what came to pass? Or could it be what we, the English, have came to know as class?" Blood Brothers is a play set in Liverpool, Willy Russell wrote it in 1983. Willy Russell has wrote plays based in Liverpool because this is where he was brought up as a kid in a working class family, Blood Brothers relates to this and aspects of class that he would have experienced when he lived there. Willy Russell grew up just outside Liverpool, he left school when he was only 15 to become a hairdresser, it was in his early twenties when he decided to go back to school and take his O levels. His plays were about everyday circumstances and his portrayal of life then. In this essay I intend to find out the reason for Mickey and Edward's deaths, whether it was superstition or class, I will evaluate both of the possible causes and how they are used within the play, then I will have to make a conclusion to which side of the argument proves to be the correct one. The main sources of superstition revolve around Mrs Johnstone because she is the character who believes that when certain things happen consequences will unfold due to this. Willy Russell points these superstitious events out to the audience, by using one of the characters to mention this or a song will be used to show something superstitious happening. At these stages in the play he is already asking the audience whether they believe in superstition. The first incidence of superstition comes at the beginning after the opening song; this is when the audience finds out that Mrs Johnstone is superstitious and that superstition may appear later in the play. Mrs Lyons enters Mrs Johnstone's house and then there is a stage direction saying that Mrs Lyons puts her new shoes on the table, Mrs Johnstone replies to this angrily "Jesus Christ, Mrs Lyons, what are y' trying to do?" At the bottom of the page where this happens the narrator says "There's shoes upon the table an' a joker in the pack, the salts been spilled and the looking glass cracked, there's one lone magpie overhead." The narrator is giving us examples of superstitions. Here he is trying to hint that something bad is going follow because of the shoes upon the table. After this it is possibly significant that she claims not to be superstitious three times, three is meant to be a lucky number but in her case it is unlucky because the