Mickey as a Damaged Adult
English Lit: AQA GCSE Blood Brothers, topic 3.1.2
Mickey: Emotionally Damaged
By the second act, Mickey is presented as an emotionally damaged man. He turns to drugs to cope and is ridden with self-loathing.
Prison
- When Mickey is sent to prison for his role in the failed robbery, he fails to cope.
- He pushes away the people who love him, like Linda and Mrs. Johnstone, and instead relies on pills:
- “I can’t cope with this. I’m not well… I can’t do things… Leave me alone.” (Act Two).
Addiction
- Mickey explains his dependency on the pills when he tells Linda that they make him feel “invisible” (Act Two).
- This suggests that Mickey is so full of self-hatred that he would rather be ignored and abandoned than have to face up to grim reality.
A desire to change?
- For a brief moment towards the end of Act Two, Mickey shows a desire to turn his life around, showing the necessary strength to stop taking the pills.
- However, in another cruel twist of fate, Mrs. Lyons appears and reveals that Linda has betrayed him with Edward.
- When he finds out about this betrayal, Mickey feels as if he has lost the “one thing left in my life.” (Act Two).
Child vs. Adult
- There is a stark contrast between Mickey as the loveable child in Act One, and Mickey as the broken adult he becomes.
- Russell could be using Mickey’s character to comment on how an unfair society can treat working-class people in a cruel and callous way.
Mickey: Betrayed by Society
Due to Mickey's social class, his prospects are limited. Russell suggests that Mickey has been betrayed by society.
Authority figures
- Mickey seems to have been badly let down by society.
- Authority figures have always treated him unfairly, and his experience of school was not positive: unsympathetic teachers punished him for relatively minor acts of rebellion.
- “Teacher: Just how the hell do you hope to get a job when you never listen to anythin’?” (Act Two).
Employment
- Upon finishing school, Mickey is forced to work at a factory, doing a low paid job that he does not enjoy:
- “I hate that soddin’ place.” (Act Two).
- But however much he hates the job, when he is made redundant he wishes he could still work there because it was his only source of income and stability:
- “You know somethin’, I bleedin’ hated that job… But after bein’ fucked off from everywhere, it seems like it was paradise.” (Act Two).
Crime
- This lack of opportunity leads Mickey to commit criminal acts which are not really part of Mickey’s nature.
- With his job taken away from him, the prospect of earning “fifty quid” by acting as a lookout for his brother seems very tempting.
Test yourself on Mickey as a Damaged Adult
How do the pills make Mickey feel?
Does Mickey want to change?