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Scene 22: Plea
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The 7 Stages of Grieving, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Colonialism and Oppression
Memory and Family Trauma
Feeling vs. Numbness
Aboriginal Identity, Pride, and Resilience
Summary
Analysis
The Woman walks into a pool of light, leaving her suitcase behind. She stands with her face turned toward the light. She repeats the word “nothing” three times before declaring that she feels nothing and exiting the stage at last.
In the final moments of the play, as the woman abandons her “baggage” and declares that she feels nothing, she symbolically divorces herself from her grief and suffering. The Woman’s choice is a painful one in and of itself—and yet, after showing the audience all she’s been forced to bear, she can hardly be blamed for what can be seen as either willful self-preservation or involuntary desensitization. Although this scene is titled “relief,” as the Woman symbolically abandons the burden of her grief, she doesn’t state that she feels better. What she actually feels is nothing at all—she experiences the absence of emotion rather than the presence of healing.
Themes
