Blood Brothers, by Willy Russell

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Blood Brothers Essay

Does Willy Russell want the audience to blame Mrs Johnstone in the

scene where she agrees to give one of her children away? What dramatic

and language techniques does Willy Russell use to influence the

audiences emotions?

Blood brothers is a musical set in the 1970’s. Mrs Johnstone has 7

children and is expecting twins but she can not afford to look after

them both and she is pressured into giving one away to Mrs Lyons. They

swear on the bible but at first Mrs Johnstone is a bit hesitant

because she doesn’t actually want to give one away. We are going to

look at the evidence and see who is to blame for Mrs Johnstone giving

away one of babies.

The first person I am going to blame for this is Mrs Johnstone because

she shouldn’t have risked having more children if she knew that she

would only just “manage with one more mouth to feed.” Also she should

have known that twins was possible and if she didn’t risk it she

wouldn’t of had to give any of her children away.

The second person I am going to blame is the gynaecologist (narrator)

because I think he knew that it was going to be twins because he all

of a sudden he gave up the milk round and became a doctor. Also I

didn’t think he wasn’t a proper doctor because he uses slang like

“lets have a listen to the baby’s ticker” where as a proper doctor

probably would have said “lets listen to the baby’s heart beat shall

we.”

Thirdly I am going to blame Mr Johnstone because if he didn’t leave

Mrs Johnstone she probably would have been able to “scrape by” with

one more mouth to feed. That way she wouldn’t of had to give one of

her baby’s away to Mrs Lyons.

Fourthly I am going to blame the government because they never helped

her by giving her benefits when she needed it. If the government gave

her money she wouldn’t be saying “if I’m careful I can just scrape

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