The Role of the Narrator in Blood Brothers

The Role of the Narrator in Blood Brothers

The play, Blood Brothers, written by Willy Russell, is a very

interesting play. It is about a mother with seven children and twins

nearly due. Her employer cannot have kids and the mother is worried

about financial support for her self and children(((((did they have

child support in 1986??)))))))), she has trouble supporting seven as

it is never mind eight, but nine is too much for her. She gives one of

them away to her employer. Before the twins are born they makes a pack

that the two boys will never know the truth and they will be kept

apart. She gives one of her new babies to her employer. The boys do

meet and become ‘Blood Brothers’ at the age of seven. They were

friends until they were adults, until they found out the truth, that

they were real brothers, they were twins, which leads to their tragic

death. The play is mainly about the two boys, but it is also about how

poverty, single painting, education, and discipline can effect an

upbringing of a child and how it effect them when they are older in

what type of lifestyle they live in. Willy Russell wanted this play to

be different to all of the anther basic plays, the wanted his to have a

reality to it, he wanted the audience to be thinking what actually was

meant by a scent while still watching the play, he wanted the audience

to always be thinking about the pla and what is going to happen next.

Russell’s aim was achieved by the character that he put to take part in

certain times of the play, this character wasn’t a normal character,

and this character was the narrator. He is so different to any other

character in the play because he is a non-character, he commentates on

action rather thanpartici...

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...ew pins,

How one was kept how one was giving away

They were born and they died on the self same day.”

When the audience hears the beat to the speech they pay more attention

to it and become more active with the play.

Some times when the narrator speaks to the audience, he is commenting

on a character.

“Then bring her on, come let see

The author of such cruelty

And judge for ourselves this terrible sin

Bring on the mother and let the story begin”

The narrator again is speaking in a poetic form. When he has said this

about a character he automatically sets the next scene and also again

sets the audience in a peculiar mood. The mood the narrator wants the

audience to be in is a judgmental one, when in the quote; he is

inviting the audience to judge the character. When inviting the

audience, he is making the audience active in the play.