Need to write an essay on The 7 Stages of Grieving, but don’t know which quotes to analyse?
We’re here to help! We’ve compiled 50 quotes across the play’s 24 stories that you can add to your analysis of the text!
Please note that there are, at times, not many literary techniques to analyse so it is important that you discuss broad ideas and themes, and link them to thematic concerns.
What is The 7 Stages of Grieving about?
Prologue | Sobbing | Purification | Nana’s Story | Photograph Story | Story of a Father | Front and Centre | Black Skin Girl | Invasion Poem | Murri Gets a Dress | Aunty Grace | Mugshot | March | Bargaining | Home Story | Story of a Brother | Suitcase Opening | Everything Has Its Time | Plea
Quotes from ‘Prologue’
#1: A large block of ice is suspended by 7 strong ropes.
- Techniques: Symbolism, mise-en-scène
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss
#2: A freshly turned grave of red earth
- Techniques: Symbolism, mise-en-scène
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, hope
Quotes from ‘Sobbing’
#3: ‘The faint sound of someone crying in the dark’
- Techniques: Stage directions, auditory imagery
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss
#4: ‘Grief, grieving, sorrow, loss….’
- Techniques: Accumulation, listing, negative connotation, dreary tone and mood
- Thematic link: Grief and loss
#5: ‘Nothing, nothing, I feel nothing.’
- Techniques: Repetition, syntax (short, truncated sentences), negative connotation
- Thematic link: Grief and loss
Quotes from ‘Purification’
#6: ‘The woman lights up a wad of eucalypt leaves and watches them burn.’
- Techniques: Symbolism, visual imagery, olfactory imagery
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, hope
#7: Yugilla yugilla muan gi (Translation: Weep my heaving heart)
- Techniques: Symbolism, auditory imagery
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity
Quotes from ‘Nana’s Story’
#8: The performance areas is flooded with colour.
- Techniques: Mise-en-scène, visual imagery
- Thematic link: Community, hope
#9: My family were in mourning for a month.
- Techniques: Syntax, personal pronoun, symbolism, diction
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, community
#10: The whole family came together for meals.
- Techniques: Diction, visual imagery
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, community
Quotes from ‘Photograph Story’
#11: A chair scrapes across a wooden floor, footsteps recede, a clock ticks.
- Techniques: Stage directions, auditory imagery, truncated sentences, listing
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma
#12: ..images of an open suitcase filled with family photographs, old and new.
- Techniques: Symbolism, mise-en-scène
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, community, hope
#13: Everything has its time … everything has its time …
- Techniques: Repetition, ellipses, symbolism
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, hope
Quotes from ‘Story of a Father’
#14: The woman sits on the edge of the grave.
- Techniques: Stage directions, body language, symbolism, solemn tone
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss
#15: Sometimes I find myself crying in the dark alone.
- Techniques: Negative tone, syntax, body language.
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss
#16: Numbed. Nothing….It’s inevitable, death.
- Techniques: Ellipses, pause, slow pace
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, community
Quotes from ‘Front and Centre’
#17: I went to a funeral the other week… a young fella had died
- Techniques: Ellipses, negative connotation, visual imagery, symbolism
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, community
#18: I might be related, she answered, I never knew my family…
- Techniques: Repeated use of commas, repeated personal pronouns, solemn tone
- Thematic link: Community
#19: I get to have a good cry, anyway.
- Techniques: Negative connotation, negative tone, symbolism, irony, dark humour
- Thematic link: Grief and loss
Quotes from ‘Black Skin Girl’
#20: The woman dances around, childlike, singing.
- Techniques: Metaphor, visual imagery, symbolism, listing
- Thematic link: Intergenerational trauma
#21: She attempts to evade the letters by removing her dress.
- Techniques: Stage directions, visual imagery, symbolism
- Thematic link: Intergenerational trauma
#22: Bului yuli mie (Translation: Black skinned girl)
- Techniques: Symbolism, repetition
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity
Quotes from ‘Invasion Poem’
#23: A shaft of light from a half open door frames the woman.
- Techniques: Symbolism, mise-en-scène, visual imagery, foreboding mood
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, colonialism
#24: They come in the front door, smiling.
- Techniques: Irony, dark humour, visual imagery
- Thematic link: Colonialism
#25: The date 1788 appears.
- Techniques: Symbolism, salience
- Thematic link: Colonialism
Quotes from ‘Murri Gets a Dress’
#26: Have you ever been black?
- Techniques: Rhetorical question, humour, symbolism
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, colonialism
#27: You get a lot of attention, special treatment when you’re black.
- Techniques: Dark humour, irony
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, colonialism
#28: IM STILL BLACK! AND DEADLY!
- Techniques: Semiographic meaning, repeated exclamation, symbolism, humorous tone, dark humour
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity, colonialism
Quotes from ‘Aunty Grace’
#29: Aunty Grace came back especially for Nana’s funeral.
- Techniques: Short truncated sentence
- Thematic link: Grief and loss, community
#30: I never saw her cry the whole time she was with us.
- Techniques: High modality, negative connotation and tone
- Thematic link: Grief and loss, cultural and national identity, community
#31: Crying, at last, crying.
- Techniques: Repetition, pause, negative connotation and tone
- Thematic link: Grief and loss
Quotes from ‘Mugshot’
#32: Delivered in the style of a court report with no hint of emotion.
- Techniques: Stage directions, monotone
- Thematic link: Colonialism
#33: At the hostel there was a struggle between police and a group of youth.
- Techniques: Visual imagery
- Thematic link: Colonialism, community
#34: The resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful and at 7.13pm he was pronounced dead.
- Techniques: Solemn tone, short truncated sentence
- Thematic link: Grief and loss
Quotes from ‘March’
#35: The woman stands strong. Her body rocks with the rising pace of the march.
- Techniques: Short truncated sentence
- Thematic link: Community, hope
#36: thousands …stretched out.
- Techniques: Ellipses, visual imagery
- Thematic link: Community, hope
#37: We’re not fighting, we’re grieving.
- Techniques: Repetition, negative connotation
- Thematic link: Community, hope, grief and loss
Quotes from ‘Bargaining’
#38: The sound of hammering. The woman slams a nail through two pieces of wood.
- Techniques: Short truncated sentences, auditory imagery
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity
#39: What is it worth?
- Techniques: Rhetorical question
- Thematic link: Cultural and national identity
#40: As she drives it into the red earth, the words ‘for sale’ are revealed.
- Techniques: Stage directions, mise-en-scène
- Thematic Cultural and national identity, colonialism
Quotes from ‘Home Story’
#41: Now I want to tell you a story. I’ll tell you how it was told to me. Now it’s very complex.
- Techniques: Syntax
- Thematic link: Community
#42: Are you with me?
- Techniques: Question
- Thematic link: Memory, community
#43: I’ll explain that again.
- Techniques: Short truncated sentence
- Thematic link: Memory, community
Quotes from ‘Story of a Brother’
#44: This is how it starts, the cycle. This cycle.
- Techniques: Repetition
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, community
#45: My brother fronts court in 2 weeks. And the family’s still wondering what’s gonna happen.
- Techniques: Syntax
- Thematic link: Community
Quotes from ‘Suitcase Opening’
#46: The woman paints herself as if preparing for war.
- Techniques: Stage directions, symbolism
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, hope
#47: The woman grieves over the photographs.
- Techniques: Stage directions, symbolism
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, hope
Quotes from ‘Everything Has Its Time’
#48: Wreck, Con, Silly, Nation.
- Techniques: Listing, irony, dark humour
- Thematic link: Colonialism
#49: Everything has its time…. Everything has its time…
- Techniques: Repetition
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, community, hope
Quotes from ‘Plea’
#50: These are my stories. These are my people’s stories. They need to be told.
- Techniques: Syntax
- Thematic link: Memory and intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, cultural and national identity, colonialism, community, hope
On the hunt for quotes from other texts aside from The 7 Stages of Grieving?
Check out our list of quotes for the following texts:
- Jane Eyre
- 1984
- Away
- Fahrenheit 451
- The Truman Show
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Hag-Seed
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- Ariel by Sylvia Plath
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- Ransom
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- The Memory Police
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Yasmin Hasan is a current first year psychology student at UNSW. She loves making art, playing piano or reading in her spare time. She graduated from high school in 2021 so her memories of her own high school experience are still quite fresh. She would love to use her own experiences to help other students build their confidence and improve in their academics!
