Key Quote
“"The devil's got your number, y'know he's gonna find y'"”
The Narrator · Act One (recurring)
Focus: “devil”
The Narrator's sinister refrain functions as a Brechtian chorus — constantly reminding the audience that tragedy is approaching and that the characters are trapped by forces they cannot control.
Technique 1 — COLLOQUIAL THREAT / REFRAIN
The colloquial language — 'y'know,' 'gonna,' 'y'' — makes the supernatural threat feel immediate and familiar rather than distant and literary. The devil is not a grand theological figure but a streetwise menace who speaks the audience's language. This domestication of the supernatural brings terror into the everyday, suggesting that evil operates not through dramatic intervention but through the ordinary workings of an unjust system.
As a refrain (a repeated section in a song or poem), the line returns throughout the play, each repetition gaining weight as the twins' situation worsens. The repetition creates dramatic tension through inevitability: the audience knows tragedy is coming and can do nothing to prevent it. The refrain functions like a clock counting down to destruction.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Each repetition of the refrain marks another step in the twins' regression toward tragedy. The devil 'finding' them is presented as inevitable — not because of supernatural forces but because the social system leaves them no escape. The refrain charts regression disguised as progress: as the twins grow older (progress in time), they grow closer to destruction (regression in fortune).
Key Words
Technique 2 — THE NARRATOR AS GREEK CHORUS
Russell's Narrator functions like a Greek chorus — standing outside the action, commenting on events, and warning of consequences. But unlike a Greek chorus, which expressed communal values, Russell's Narrator is menacing: he does not comfort the audience but threatens the characters. The Narrator embodies the play's fatalistic structure — he knows the ending from the start and watches the characters walk toward it.
The phrase 'got your number' is a colloquial expression meaning 'knows who you are and will catch you.' This combines fate (being known, being tracked) with punishment (being found, being caught). The implication is that the twins are marked from birth — their 'number' was assigned at the moment of their separation. The colloquialism translates an ancient idea (fate as inescapable destiny) into modern, working-class idiom.
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Context (AO3)
SUPERSTITION & THE WORKING CLASS
Russell's play explores how superstition functions as a form of social control: Mrs Johnstone accepts the separation partly because she fears superstitious consequences. Her superstition reflects her lack of education and access to power — the tools that might help her challenge the arrangement.
BRECHTIAN EPIC THEATRE
Bertolt Brecht advocated for Epic Theatre — theatre that reminds the audience they are watching a performance, preventing emotional identification and encouraging critical thinking. The Narrator's direct addresses and the play's song-and-narration structure owe much to Brecht's influence.
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WOW — THE SCAPEGOAT MECHANISM (Girard)
René Girard's concept of the scapegoat mechanism — society's tendency to project its problems onto a victim who is then sacrificed to restore order — illuminates the Narrator's role. The Narrator identifies the twins as marked ('got your number') from birth — they are selected for sacrifice before they have done anything wrong. Girard argues that scapegoating requires the victim to be both inside the community (recognisable) and outside it (different, marked). The twins fulfil this precisely: they are ordinary Liverpool boys (inside) but also separated, supernaturally marked, and socially displaced (outside). Their deaths at the play's end function as a social sacrifice — the community expels its tensions through their destruction. But Russell, unlike the societies Girard describes, makes the scapegoating visible: the audience sees the mechanism operating and is invited to reject it. The Narrator's refrain is the sound of the scapegoating machine warming up.
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