Blood Brothers: Context (AQA GCSE English Literature)

Context should inform but never dominate your reading of the play. Any comments on contextual factors must always be linked to the ideas in the play. When exploring the context in which Blood Brothers was written, you should consider: 

• The contexts in which the text is set
• The contexts in which the text is received
• Its literary context (genre)

Each of the below topics links directly to Russell’s ideas in Blood Brothers:

• Conservative ideology
• Social class
• Gender

Conservative ideology

• Within the play, Russell criticises Conservative ideology regarding families:
• In 1981 when Russell wrote the play, England was governed by a staunch Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher
• Conservative ideology endorses the nuclear, traditional family
• Single-parent families, like the Johnstones were frowned upon in this system
• Russell highlights Conservative attitudes towards divorce:
• Britain’s social laws changed in 1967 under the Labour Party, relaxing laws on divorce
• Many Conservatives, like Mr and Mrs Lyons in the play, disagreed with this and judged any deviation from the nuclear family negatively
• Mrs Johnstone’s characterisation highlights stereotypes related to single mothers:
• The narrator, acting as the Conservative public, asks the audience to judge Mrs Johnstone as a “heartless mother” for giving away her child
• The narrator acts in the roles of minor characters within society and delivers negative judgements of Mrs Johnstone’s family: “Goodbye to the riff-raff/The trash and the trouble”
• However, Russell presents her as a sympathetic character to challenge Conservative stereotypes about single mothers: Mrs Johnstone is an aspirational, loving and honest mother
• Russell’s play depicts Conservative parenting through Mr and Mrs Lyons:
• Mrs Lyons represents a Conservative mother who is unable to deal with the few challenges she faces:
• She is dissatisfied with what she has, complaining about the loneliness of her large house and resorting to deceit to achieve her desires
• She displays threatening behaviour towards Mrs Johnstone, threatening her with a knife
• Mrs Lyons has strong views on parenting but uses violence to enforce rules 
• She insists on sheltering Eddie from the “rough boys”, isolating him from the working-class families to protect him from their negative influence 
• Russell, therefore, challenges Conservative attitudes to parenting
• Mr Lyons represents a Conservative father who is mostly absent from the home and leaves the parenting to the mother: 
• He tells Edward and Mrs Lyons he will have time once the “merger is done”
• He is unaware Edward is not his real son and that his wife has lied to him
• He is absent from important decisions in his family life and relationships
• Russell challenges Conservative parenting values, depicting them as dysfunctional

Social class

• When Russell wrote the play in 1981, England had just experienced political instability which widened the social class divide:
  • The Conservative party reduced the power of trade unions (organisations that argued for better working conditions); this affected the manufacturing industry and, in turn, the working-class:
    • Industrial cities, like Liverpool, where Russell grew up and where the play is set, were affected especially badly
    • This resulted in widespread strikes and protests from the working-class
    • Russell wrote his play just after an economic crisis in 1978 known as the Winter of Discontent, a period of time which led to increased crime and drug use
    • Russell illustrates the results of this: Mickey, a working-class man, is made redundant from his factory job: “A sign of the times”
    • Russell shows Mickey’s unemployment leading to crime, arrest and drugs, suggesting the impact of social class divisions on young men
• Russell’s play criticises Conservative ideology as discriminatory towards the working-class:
  • Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, famously said that hard work was the answer to success
  • Mr. Lyons, a middle-class businessman, is able to manage the economic problems due to his secure job while Mickey is made redundant from his factory work
  • Edward’s opportunities in a middle-class family lead to a secure job in the business sector, buffering him from political pressures
  • Russell uses his male characters to suggest contrasting examples to Thatcher’s ideas about social class

Gender

• Russell’s play criticises an England between 1960 and 1980 where women were still largely reliant on men for security and status
• Russell depicts the impact of single motherhood through Mrs Johnstone
• She tells audiences she was abandoned by her husband and left with seven children to feed and raise
• Mrs Johnstone is presented as desperate to work: she tells Mrs Lyons she will be back at work the day after the twins are born
• Here, Russell highlights a lack of support for single mothers after childbirth
• Despite hard work and sympathetic circumstances, she is judged by her peers as a neglectful mother
• Mrs Johnstone, as a single mother, is presented as unsupported by authorities:
• She is threatened by the police for not disciplining her children
• Mrs Lyons threatens that the Child Welfare Agency may take her children
• In the absence of support, Mrs Johnstone is forced into difficult situations 
• Her desperation has huge consequences for the children: two of her sons are arrested for violent crime, suggesting Russell’s criticism of the system
• Mrs Lyons does not work and is supported by her husband: she is presented as isolated within her marriage:
• Mr Lyons belittles her when she asks for money: “What on earth for!”
• She is lonely and often alone, which causes her to be an over-protective and anxious mother
• Russell criticises patriarchal attitudes to mental health through Mrs Lyons’s mental deterioration:
• Mr Lyons blames her worries on nerves
• Many married women during the 1960s and 1970s were prescribed medication to treat anxiety and nerves
• Up until 1969, it was common practise to institutionalise women who did not reflect an attitude in keeping with social norms
• Mrs Lyons’s mental deterioration highlights gender issues of the time
• The children of the town sing songs about Mrs Lyons, calling her “the mad woman”, reflecting gender stigma associated with mental health 
• Russell highlights the gender ideal related to the perception of beauty and youth:
• He uses a sinister motif, Marilyn Monroe, to symbolise gender ideals of the time
• The dark symbolism suggests a criticism of social ideals regarding gender: 
• Marilyn Monroe, a famous Hollywood actress, was idolised for her beauty, but died young under tragic circumstances linked to drugs
• Russell criticises the female ideal of youthful women, depicting Mrs Johnstone mourning her youth aged only twenty-five
• Mrs Johnstone refers to the glamour and beauty of her younger years, when she was like Marilyn Monroe and her husband would dance with her
• Mrs Johnstone refers constantly to Marilyn Monroe in reflective songs about a lost youth, suggesting her low self-esteem