Mrs Lyons:  They say that if either twin learns that he was once a pair, they will both immediately die.

What is the significance of superstition in Blood Brothers?

You must refer to the context of the play in your answer.

Superstitious ideas weave themselves throughout the play, whether Mrs Johnstone’s irrational fears of a pair of shoes on a table or the children’s belief that it doesn’t count if your fingers are crossed. On the face of it, they may seem charming and harmless. However, these ideas could be seen as a way for the characters to deflect the blame for events away from themselves and instead for them to see their mistakes as ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’. Superstitious ideas are also associated with the uneducated and working-class Mrs Johnstone, who may have more reason than most for not wanting to take responsibility for her actions. It may also have suited those in power at the time for people like Mrs Johnstone to blame ‘a pair of shoes on a table’ or a ‘cracked mirror’ for their misfortunes, rather than, more rationally perhaps, to blame the government in charge.

At several points in the play, the narrator sings about everyday superstitions, or what we might call old wives’ tales. For example, we see Mrs Johnstone’s horror at a pair of shoes put on a table, but the Narrator goes on to list many common superstitious beliefs, like ‘someone broke the lookin’ glass… salt’s been spilled [and] you’re walkin’ on the pavement cracks’. These are ideas that many people are familiar with which seem harmless, but which show, on Mrs Johnstone’s part, an absence of rationality and an acceptance of fate. She isn’t a character who believes that she is in control of her destiny, but rather feels that life happens to her. It isn’t surprising that she feels this way as Russell has constructed a world where his characters are all products of the social class that they were born into. We can assume that Mrs Johnstone has had a minimal level of education (which seems to have been heavily influenced by the Catholic Church – she plays with her Rosary beads at one point) and doesn’t make decisions based on reasoning, but rather on impulse and emotion. As a result of circumstances that she doesn’t question – for example her unquestioning acceptance of her role as a wife and mother – she soon finds herself the lone parent of seven children (a lucky number?). In this use of superstition as part of Mrs Johnstone’s character, Russell shows these beliefs as blinding his character to the real causes of her life’s problems.

As well as these everyday superstitions, Russell often has the Narrator refer to a ‘pact with the Devil’ and to a ‘price that must be paid,’ perhaps on the ‘never-never’ as though what Mrs Johnstone did when she gave her baby away was always going to have to be ‘paid’ for; there were always going to be consequences to this action. The play refers repeatedly to debts that must be paid, and Mrs Johnstone’s assumption that, in the future, things will be better. In reality, there is no reason why the boys and their mothers couldn’t have lead happy lives in this situation. It is almost as though, in the world of the play, Russell is replicating the story of Adam and Eve, where Eve commits the first sin and must therefore be punished. It seems as though, right from the start, Russell is determined that there must be moral consequences for Mrs Johnstone’s decision to give her baby away. This may be because motherhood is held up as such a crucial female virtue and that to trespass upon ‘natural’ motherhood transgresses that idea to such an extent, that Russell feels that it must be punished. We could also see this idea as stemming from Mrs Johnstone’s religion. The fact that she has so many children and her use of Rosary beads strongly suggest that she is a Roman Catholic. Whilst a religion is not a mere superstition, it does have some close associations with acceptance of fate and the acceptance of what happens to you in life as being controlled by a higher power. All of these ideas contribute to our impression of Mrs Johnstone as a character to whom things happen and as someone who does not take control of her own destiny, neither does she take responsibility for her life choices.

We see that in Blood Brothers, superstition and religious belief are a tool for characters to accept the events life throws at them and to quietly put up with the social inequality which is the true root of their suffering. Russell doesn’t seem to criticise his characters for these beliefs or their inability to see the unequal social structures that trap them. Yet we have to question whether these characters would ever be able to move beyond their circumstances if they can never see for themselves the revolving wheel of class that they are trapped in.