Mickey blood brothers quotes and analysis

'Do you live up in the park?'

The fact Eddie lives up in the park suggests that the upper class are above the lower class, which is a metaphor for real life where the upper class looks down on the lower class for being less good.

'Gis a sweet.'

Shows him as childish and needy wanting more and more of something that he may not have. Difference of class.

'It's a thingy innit?'

While Mickey uses swearwords which Edward has not heard before, Edward is shown to be better educated. Russell indicates to the audience that social class can have a significant impact on the levels of education of children, giving them different starting points in life. Edward's parents value education whilst mickeys doesn't care about it and isn't well educated like his mother.

'Do you wanna be my blood brother?'

Willy Russell uses a rhetorical question in order to show Mickey as an excitable an open character. Mickey asking Eddie to be his blood brother is another instance of ominous foreshadowing. It both highlights their unbreakable connection to each other, while also suggesting that they will shed each other's blood again years later. It is also surprising in that it shows them finding each other, despite their mothers' attempts to keep them apart.

'He's my best friend.'

Shows friendship as empowering as well as being bigger than class as Mickey wants to be Edwards friend even though as Sammy point out "he's a friggin poshy".

'Boys like that live'

Middle class think of the working class as being below them and finding them dirty.

'Peter pan'

Metaphor for never growing old — Edward didn't have to grow up because he lives a peaceful life with his future planned out whereas Mickey had to grow up and find a job and live through the harsh realities that life gives those who don't have lots of money and aren't born into middle class families. Russell wants us to see the unfairness and inequalities of opportunities suffered by the working class.

'He was about to commit a serious crime love'

Indicates the unfair bias of society towards the upper classes (serious).

Institutionalised discrimination suffered by the working classes.

'It was more of a prank really'

Indicates the unfair bias of society towards the upper classes (prank).

ACT TWO

'Fish fingers'

Shows Mickey doesn't value/care for education and only plays around — relates to when Mrs J says that's what happens when you let the silly gets play with magnesium when sammy burnt the school down; don't care about education; lack of opportunity.

'How the hell do you hope to get a job when you never listen to anythin?' (Teacher)

Foreshadows later when Mickey loses his job and is stuck unemployed and 'walking around in circles all day every day looking for a job'

'Lambs in spring'

Mindlessly walking into adulthood not knowing the dangers that social class will soon bring them.

'Broken bottles in the sand'

'Broken' - adjective. Social class will hurt them — it's hidden because of childish innocence. Metaphor for the hidden dangers.

'Oil in the water'

Metaphor for middle class (oil) and the working class (water). They don't mix — oil (middle class) will always rise to the top whereas water (working class) will always rise to the bottom.

'Only if the three of them could stay like that forever'

Foreshadows how they all separate and have problems between them — they don't stay like that forever.

'Mam. Linda's pregnant'

Shows how Mickey loved and trusts his mum and goes to her for help when he's struggling.

'I've been walking around all day, every day, lookin' for a job.'

Stuck in the cycle of poverty like Mrs Johnstone — it repeats.

'It disappeared'

No control over it. Sudden. Unfair. Injustice.

'Three months of doing nothing'

Stuck in the cycle of poverty like his mother. Repeats.

'I'd crawl back to that job for half the pay and double the hours.'

Shows Mickey's desperation for work as he would be happy for even a terrible job. Here Mickey's use of hyperbole to show his desperation for a job in order to help pay for his on the way kid and new wife Linda.

Russell has therefore produced an idea of dramatic irony as Edward is unaware of his situation and does not understand what to say.

'While no one was looking I grew up. An' you didn't, because you didn't need to.'

Peter Pan

'Fifty quid for an hour's work.'

The promise of money gives sammy power over Mickey, convincing him to help with the robbery. Sammy tempts him with thoughts of where he could 'take Linda' if he had 'cash like that'

'He sits and counts the days to go And treats his ills with daily pills Just like Marilyn Monroe. They stop his mind from dancing Stop it dancing.'

'How come you got everything ... an' I got nothin'?'

Colloquial language reminds the audience of mickeys true belonging to the working class.

'One thing I had left'

Didn't have much being from working class. Only had Linda left and Edward took her away — she wanted financial stability. Mickey had stopped taking the antidepressants for her — sympathy.

'Why didn't you give me away!' ... 'I could have been... I could have been him!'

'Could' - auxiliary verb. Resentful. Unfortunate. Sympathise with Mickey because of differences of opportunities. Importance of the inequality of opportunity and how it's unfair. Repetition of 'could' may make the readers think what could have happened?

The gun explodes and blows Edward apart... They open fire and four guns explode, blowing mickey away.

And do we blame superstition for what came to pass? Or could it be what we, the English, have come to know as class?

The narrator asks this of the audience at the close of the play. By then end of the play, the narrator seems to have absolved Mrs Johnstone of her responsibility, instead blaming external factors for the tragic path the boys were set upon like the inequities of social class. Because of the unfair, unjust class in this country, the twins ultimately died.