NAME : SAMEER RUPLAL

SUBJECT : ENGLISH "b"

TEACHER : SIR Huziafah Baccus
CLASS : 9 B

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 QUESTIONS PAGE NUMBER
Blood brothers plot 1
Identify and discuss 2
two themes of the
story

Identify the setting 3

Identify and describe 4
the characters
Identify and discuss the 5
narrative techniques

Blood Brothers plot :

Blood Brothers, a musical by Liverpudlian playwright Willy
Russell, revolves around twin boys (Mickey and Edward)
who are separated at birth and brought up in completely
different environments in the city. The play, set in the
1960s, is divided into two acts, with songs throughout.
Mickey is brought up with his seven older siblings by his
struggling single mother, Mrs Johnstone. His twin brother,
Edward, however is brought up as the only child of the
wealthy Lyons family, who live nearby, after Mrs Lyons
persuaded Mrs Johnstone to hand over one of her twins at
birth. Mickey and Edward don’t meet each other until
they’re seven years old, but immediately become best
friends and blood brothers. The bond continues when the
boys are teenagers and both live in the countryside,
despite them both being in love with Mickey’s neighbour
Linda. However, as they get older, the huge difference in
their backgrounds pulls them apart and eventually leads to
their tragic deaths.
Written during a period of huge changes in society and
politics, Blood Brothers draws the audience’s attention to
the detrimental effect that social inequality can have on
people’s lives.

Identify and discuss two themes of the story :

Superstition and Fate :
The theme of superstition and fate is one that the playwright—in the
voice of the narrator—brings up over and over again throughout the
musical. Near the beginning of the play, the devious Mrs. lyon sells
Mrs. Johnstone that if two long-lost twins ever learn that they are
related, they will both die instantly—and at the end of the play, despite
the improbability of Mrs. Lyon’s made-up superstition, this is exactly
what comes to pass. The Narrator also spends many of his songs
referencing various other superstitions, such as breaking a mirror or
spilling salt on a table. Although he, an omniscient character, clearly
knows that Mrs. Lyons has invented her superstition about twins, he is
essentially saying that by making it up, she has made it real.

Class and Money :

Throughout the musical Blood Brothers, the theme of class and money
plays a dominant role, controlling characters’ actions and determining
their lives. This pattern begins when Mrs. Johnstone makes the fateful
decision to give away one of her twin boys to her employer Mrs. Lyons.
She does so not because she doesn’t want two babies, but because she
simply can’t afford two extra mouths to feed. Thus the action that sets
the entire narrative in motion in fact stems from the forces of class and
money. The all-powerful nature of these ideas is then evident
throughout the rest of the narrative as well, as Mickey and Edward’s
lives diverge drastically due to their differing financial circumstances.
Although linked by genetics and similar in temperament, the
unknowing twin brothers have vastly contrasting lives. While Mickey
spirals further and further into drugs, depression, and crime because of
his poverty, Edward finds doors opened for him at every turn due to his
wealth.

THE SETTING OF THE STORY :

.The Two Houses
.New Town, New Life

Identify And Discuss The Characters:Mickey

As the twin that the lower-class Mrs. Johnstone keeps,
Mickey has a rough-and-tumble childhood, but at his
core he is an honest, sincere, and goodhearted individual
(much like his twin brother Edward). Unlike Edward

Mrs.Johnson
The biological mother of Mickey and Edward (as well as a
horde of other children, including Sammy and Donna
Marie), Mrs. Johnstone is a deeply superstitious woman
who is forever scrambling to get by