Stolen

Harrison's play 'Stolen' illustrates the disastrous consequences of severing the spiritual and biological links between a mother and child. The play explores the tragedies of the stolen children and the effects of what may happen to the child's psychological mind and physical appearance when being separated between mother and child. The suffering and loss of identity also has a huge impact on a child. The inability to distinguish who you are and to be unable to feel a sense of place and belonging can be as heartbreaking as being told of your mother's death. All of the characters suffer in different ways and from different experiences, and although those experiences differ they all share the painful loss of their mother.

Many of the characters have had traumatic experiences of being separated from their biological family and their community. The separation between mother and child led to tragedies, which could have easily been avoided.

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A mother holds up her child.

Mother holds Child

Identity and to understand where you fit in the family and community can only be found through the care of a mother to her child. The children from the play had lost all knowledge of their family's history and culture because of institutes and the rules forbidding the children to have any connection to their biological mothers. The play also conveys the understanding that what they lost included emotional and physical attachment, their identity, sense of place as well as their sanity.

Sandy is one of the characters that can still remember the importance of motherly love, the good times and the laugh's he enjoyed with his mother "My mother loved me...she was always laughing, my old mum...had a sense of humour". Harrison explores the consequences of separating a mother and child through the recollections of Sandy. Sandy is very badly affected by the fact that all...