Rainbow's End Quotes for VCE English & EAL

You can feel the panic with a play like this. There are dozens of lines you could learn, the scenes blur together, and you have no idea which Rainbow's End quotes are actually worth memorising for a VCE English or EAL essay. The honest answer is that you do not need forty quotes, you need around twenty that you can deploy without thinking, and you need to know what each one proves about what Jane Harrison is doing. That second part is the whole game, because a VCAA Text Response does not reward a quote drop, it rewards analysis of the choice behind it.

I scored a raw 50 in VCE English and I teach Rainbow's End every year, so I have pulled together the lines I actually drill with students, grouped by theme, with the technique and the point each one lets you make. The wording here follows the way the play is staged and taught, so confirm the exact phrasing against your Currency Press edition as you learn them.

Racism, exclusion and invisibility

This is the engine of the play, and Harrison shows racism through everyday institutions and assumptions rather than only through open hostility.

"Like a band-aid over a sore" (Gladys, on the hessian fence). When the flats are hidden behind hessian for the Queen's visit, Gladys names the concealment for what it is. The simile proves that the authorities disguise inequality instead of confronting its causes, and the hessian becomes a symbol of erasure and segregation.

"The hessian that I couldn't get through and I couldn't even peek over" (Gladys). The barrier is literal and symbolic at once, a wall between Aboriginal people and white society that they are not allowed to cross or even see beyond.

Aboriginal people must be "absorbed into the community" and "learn to live like us" (the Inspector). His language exposes the logic of assimilation, where white society is treated as the standard everyone must conform to. That small word "us" quietly assumes Aboriginal people are the ones who must change, rather than the prejudice around them.

"You people can make something out of nothing" (Errol, seeing the tin-can lino). Meant as a compliment, it still others the family through "you people", which shows how casual, well-meaning ignorance can carry the same othering as open contempt.

Home, place and belonging

Home in this play is both a refuge and a source of insecurity, and address does a lot of the work that race does.

"Everything below three feet is sodden and mud splattered" (opening stage direction, the flood). Harrison begins in the aftermath of a flood, so we meet the family already restoring their humpy. The recurring flood and the fragile humpy prove how little control the family has over their living conditions, and they establish hardship as ongoing rather than temporary.

"A girl from the flats? I don't even see the town Aboriginals working in stores" (Nan Dear). Nan's realism shows how address and race close doors before Dolly has even been given a chance, and it captures the survival-minded caution that a lifetime of exclusion has taught her.

"Why should her address stop her in life?" (Gladys). Set directly against Nan, Gladys refuses to accept that where you live should decide where you can go. The contrast between the two women is the generational shift of the whole play.

"What matters is you, not your address" (Errol, to Dolly). Errol's optimism is genuine, and it is also blind, because he cannot see the structural barriers the Dear women live inside every day. Use this to complicate any argument that reads him as a simple hero.

Dreams, education and aspiration

The dream sequences are not decoration, they are where Harrison stages hope and then shows the system snatching it back.

"Your entrée to the world of learning, a world of discovery, a world of fascinating facts" (Errol, selling the encyclopaedia). The encyclopaedia becomes a symbol of education as escape, and Errol's sales patter dresses knowledge up as the key to equality, a promise the play treats with real suspicion.

"My girl, a graduate…" (Gladys, in a dream sequence). The lighting shift that marks the dream is the point, because the stagecraft separates fantasy from reality. Gladys imagines a future for Dolly beyond the limits she herself was given, which shows change begins by daring to imagine possibilities.

"She needs to know the world is bigger than just this" (Gladys). As she chops wood beside the radio quiz show, her aspiration for Dolly sits right next to her reality, and the radio becomes a symbol of opportunity that stays just out of reach.

Gladys ends up holding weeds instead of flowers (stage direction). This is the play's central motif in a single image, the dream collapsing into reality. Weeds stand for the rejection and hardship that keep replacing the acceptance the women reach for.

Family, generations and identity

The three Dear women are three generations with different hopes, and Harrison uses their conflict to explore how identity is formed rather than fixed.

Change is "just not going to happen" and "not in my lifetime" (Nan Dear). Nan carries the memory of what has been done to her people, so her cynicism is earned rather than weak. Harrison spends the play gently testing this belief.

"You always say that" (Dolly, after Gladys promises "it'll be alright"). Dolly's flat reply undercuts her mother's optimism and reveals her growing awareness that the family's hardship is repetitive, not a passing phase.

"I'm not a child, I'm a woman" (Dolly). Her declaration is an assertion of an identity independent of both Nan's protection and the narrow expectations placed on her, and it captures the generational tension at the heart of the play.

"You watch who you're mixing with" (Nan, warning Dolly about Errol). Nan's protective vigilance is a defence mechanism built from experience, which is why the play never lets us dismiss her caution as mere stubbornness.

Resistance, voice and hope

Harrison mourns generations of disadvantage, and she still insists on agency, so the ending reframes the title toward possibility.

"We demand the right to control our own destiny" (the family's activism). This is the collective assertion of self-determination that turns the play into a voice for Indigenous Australians, not just a portrait of suffering.

"You get knocked down when you get too clever" . The line captures how the system punishes Aboriginal ambition, the exact wall that aspiration keeps running into, which is why education in the play is such a fraught promise.

"Sometimes you have to move on. Leave things behind… Even things you love" . Change here is real but bittersweet, and the move to Rumbalara brings greater security while still costing the family something. Use this when a prompt asks whether change is possible, because it lets you argue both the gain and the loss.

How to turn a Rainbow's End quote into a top-band VCE essay

Knowing the quote is the floor, not the ceiling. The marks come from what you do with it, so weave the fewest words into your own sentence, name the technique, and link it to what Harrison is arguing. Instead of writing that the hessian fence "shows racism", argue that by staging the flats behind a hessian screen for the Queen's visit, Harrison exposes a society more concerned with appearance than genuine reform, so that the "band-aid over a sore" becomes an image of inequality disguised rather than healed. That move, from the line to the technique to Harrison's purpose, is the difference between a 30 and a 40.

One more tip that matters for both English and EAL: build your quote bank by function, not by scene. Have two or three lines ready for home and belonging, for dreams and education, for racism and exclusion, and for resistance and hope, and you will always have evidence to hand whatever the prompt throws at you.

Frequently asked questions

What are the key quotes in Rainbow's End for VCE?
The most useful ones cluster around a handful of ideas: racism and invisibility (Gladys calling the hessian fence "a band-aid over a sore"), home and belonging (Nan's "a girl from the flats" against Gladys's "why should her address stop her in life"), dreams and education (Gladys's "my girl, a graduate" and the weeds replacing flowers), and resistance (the demand "to control our own destiny"). Learn them by what they prove, not just the words.

Is Rainbow's End a VCE English or EAL text?
Jane Harrison's play is studied in Victoria for both VCE English and EAL, usually for Text Response. Text lists change year to year, so confirm your exact assessment and edition with your teacher and the current VCAA study design.

What are the main themes in Rainbow's End?
Racism and exclusion, home and belonging, dreams and education, family and intergenerational identity, and resistance, voice and hope. The strongest essays connect these rather than listing them, for example showing how the family's aspirations are shaped by the structural racism around them.

If you want someone to work through your Rainbow's End essays with you, the actual marking and the honest feedback on exactly what is costing you marks, that is what we do in small groups at Tutors Melbourne, for both English and EAL, and your first lesson is free. You can also browse the rest of our VCE English guides while you are here.

With love as always
Yahav, Tutors Melbourne