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To a certain extent, a bleak representation of the stolen generations is offered by the characters of Jane Harrison’s play, Stolen. The bleakest, and indeed, most depressing examples being Ruby and Jimmy; one ‘descends into madness’ and the other takes his own life in a jail cell. However, Jane Harrison also explores and describes the outcomes of some more fortunate, such as Anne; for whom the assimilation policy has ended in relative ‘success’. Therefore several points of view are introduced. However, despite the small amount of success to be found in some characters, their ‘real’ outcomes are portrayed as being bleak, and almost hopeless. It would be fair to say, that Jane Harrison’s bleak portrayal of her characters representing those affected by the stolen generation, is an accurate portrayal in its bleakness. Ruby is a character tormented as a result of being ‘assimilated’. Taken away for a weekend, she loses the innocence of childhood, a bleak picture to paint, but an experience that happened to many. She is constantly under huge mental and emotional strain under institutional life, where she receives no love or support, despite the obvious human needs for such thing of a child. It is her relationship with her doll, which she name’s ‘Ruby’, that makes her lack of love evident. She gives all the love and affection she is missing to her doll: ‘lets go to the lolly shop’, ‘Let’s buy a new dress for Ruby...Ruby, Mummy’s going to get you a big present’.
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