AQA GCSE in English Literature · Free · no account needed
Grade 9 Notes: DNA
Dennis Kelly · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Modern texts option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · DNA
DNA is a short play about a group of teenagers who believe they have killed a boy called Adam during a bout of bullying, and who cover it up. No adult ever appears. The group is run first by threats, then by a silent boy's cold plan, and the cover-up leads them to frame an innocent man and, when Adam turns up alive, to something worse. Revise it in four movements: the panic (Adam presumed dead, John Tate's threats), the plan (Phil's invented story and the planted evidence), the discovery (Adam found alive and what Phil decides), and the aftermath (what has become of each of them). Learn the moments well enough to describe them precisely in a closed-book exam. The play is in copyright and these notes quote none of it: every moment is described. This is an essay question with no extract: you choose one of two questions and write from memory.
Build your reading of DNA, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this page carries all three.
What is this exam testing?
DNA is examined on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) in Paper 2, Section A: Modern texts. You are given a choice of two questions on the play and answer one. There is no extract: the question names a character, theme or idea and you write about the whole play from memory. It is closed book. Four objectives are credited on this question: AO1, AO2, AO3 (context) and AO4 (your own accuracy).
AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — Paper 2, Section A: Modern texts
Section A is the first of three tasks on Paper 2, so around three quarters of an hour is a sensible share of the paper for this essay. Because there is no extract, the skill rewarded is range under control: an argument that travels across the play, supported by moments you can describe precisely. On Pearson Edexcel 4ET1 the same AO codes mean different skills — here AO3 is context and AO4 is accuracy. DNA is not a 4ET1 set text.
AO1 · A personal, critical response, supported by references
What the examiner wants: An argument that answers the question about the whole play. On DNA that usually means taking a view on who is responsible, why the group obeys, and what the play suggests about people in groups.
Scoring highly: References are precise descriptions of moments: Phil's warning about bin bags carrying their traces, Phil's claim that his control has made everyone happier, Brian's suggestion that they tell someone, the banned word, the arrest of an innocent man, Adam found alive.
Top band vs the band below: The strongest answers treat the play as something Kelly built: saying that Phil is cold is an observation; arguing that Kelly keeps Phil silent so that his first words carry the force of law is a concept.
The common mistake: Retelling the plot, or treating the characters as real teenagers rather than parts of the play's argument.
In your essay: Four or five paragraphs, each making one step of a single argument, moving across the play and finishing with a judgement.
AO2 · Language, form and structure, with subject terminology
What the examiner wants: Analysis of Kelly's methods: fragmented, overlapping dialogue; silence; monologue; reported, offstage violence; the repeated settings; the double meaning of the title.
Scoring highly: Write about the play as a play: Phil's silence on stage, Leah's monologues delivered to someone who will not answer, the audience hearing violence reported rather than seeing it.
Top band vs the band below: Top answers read structure as argument: the repeating pattern of news, talk and decision makes the group's choices feel like rituals.
The common mistake: Never mentioning the stage, the audience or the dialogue's form.
In your essay: At least two points about method, each tied to what it makes the audience feel or think.
AO3 · Context — how the play relates to the world it was written for
What the examiner wants: How the play's origins and world shape it: written for young performers in the National Theatre's Connections programme; a world with no adults on stage; forensic science and DNA evidence; bullying and peer pressure. On this course AO3 is context.
Scoring highly: One clause at a time, welded to a moment: with no adults present, the group must police itself, so John Tate's banned word becomes their only law.
Top band vs the band below: The best context generates a reading: the title's two meanings — forensic traces and human nature — turn Phil's caution into the play's central question.
The common mistake: A paragraph of general social commentary about teenagers that touches no moment in the play.
In your essay: Two or three precise contextual clauses, each attached to a scene or phrase.
AO4 · Vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation
What the examiner wants: Credit for the accuracy and range of your own writing, earned on this question as well as the argument.
Scoring highly: Controlled sentences and accurate names: Kelly, Phil, Leah, John Tate, Cathy, Brian, Richard, Mark and Jan, Adam.
Top band vs the band below: At the top it is invisible: the writing is simply exact and varied.
The common mistake: Writing the title inconsistently, and long comma-spliced sentences when writing quickly.
In your essay: Keep the last two minutes of the essay to proofread it.
The moments to carry into a closed-book answer
- Phil's plan: his warning about bin bags carrying their traces, and the gentle stranger he invents.
- Brian early: his suggestion that they tell someone.
- John Tate: his mild-sounding warning to anyone who stands apart, and the word he bans.
- Leah: her talk of how close apes are to humans, her idea that humans are the anomaly in nature, and her question about whether people must be happy.
- Later: Phil's claim that his control has made everyone happier, Cathy's flat account of threatening to blind a boy, and Phil calling Leah's name with no answer.
Avoid. Citing act or section numbers you are unsure of. Editions and study guides divide the play differently; describing the moment is safer and just as precise.
The characters
Phil
The silent boy who eats, listens — and then takes control
Phil says almost nothing for much of the play. He eats steadily — sweets, waffles, ice cream — while Leah talks at him and the group panics around him. When John Tate's threats fail, Phil speaks, and his plan is detailed, calm and ruthless: invent a man who took Adam, give him a description, plant evidence and have a witness. The group obeys. When an innocent man matching the description is arrested, Phil does not change course. When Adam is found alive, Phil decides that he must not be allowed to be found, and orders it dealt with. At the end Leah has gone, and Phil sits silent in a field while Richard begs him to come back to school.
The plan
In the wood, with the group frightened and John Tate's authority crumbling, Phil finally speaks. He sets out exactly what each person must do: a story of an abduction, a description of a stranger, a witness, and care over every trace of evidence.
Key moment. Phil warning the others not to use bin bags from home, because they would carry the group's own forensic traces (His plan, in the wood). Phil warns the others not to use a bin bag from home because it would carry their traces. The detail shows a mind thinking like an investigator — and gives the play its title's double meaning: forensic evidence and human nature.
Key moment. Phil inventing a gentle, harmless-looking stranger to take the blame (His plan, in the wood). Phil invents a gentle, harmless-looking stranger to take the blame. The softness of the description makes the cruelty of the plan sharper — and a real man fitting it is arrested.
Control and its cost
Key moment. Phil defending his control on the grounds that it has made everyone happier (After Adam is found). Phil justifies his control by its results. The flat claim shows a leader who measures morality by order and calm — and ignores what it costs.
When Adam is found, confused and hurt, Phil gently persuades him and then gives the order that decides his fate. Leah's horror makes no difference. By the end Phil has stopped going to school and will not speak.
How Kelly builds Phil in language and structure
Phil's silence is his main language: for long stretches he only eats while others talk.
When he speaks, it is in long, precise, practical instructions with no emotion.
Structurally he rises from silent observer to leader and ends silent again, alone.
Phil in context
His plan draws on an awareness of forensic science and how evidence is used by police.
With no adults present, his calm authority fills the space where adult control would be.
Relationships
- Leah — She talks to him constantly; he rarely answers, and when she leaves, he calls after her.
- John Tate — The leader whose power Phil takes over without a struggle.
- Cathy and Brian — The two he gives the worst instructions to.
What Phil stands for
- His eating: appetite and indifference.
- His silence: power that does not need to explain itself.
Why Kelly made Phil
- To show how calm, rational leadership can be the most dangerous kind.
- To show a group handing its conscience to one person.
Other readings
- A cold, calculating leader with no empathy.
- A boy who finds safety in control and is destroyed by it.
- The group's own wish for order, given a body.
Essay arguments
- Kelly makes Phil silent for so long that his first speech has the force of law.
- Phil's plan shows reason serving self-preservation rather than right.
- His isolation at the end suggests that control has cost him everything that mattered.
In theme essays
- Power: Phil's claim that his control has made everyone happier.
- Responsibility: the invented man.
Questions that get asked
- How does Kelly present Phil as a leader in DNA?
- How does Kelly use Phil to explore ideas about responsibility?
Think you understand Phil? Teach it, then defend it against Dennis Kelly →
Leah
The talker who asks the questions nobody wants to answer
Leah talks almost without stopping, mostly to Phil, who rarely replies. Her speeches range across animals, human nature, happiness and history; underneath them she wants Phil to notice her and to say that he cares. She is part of the group and goes along with the cover-up at first, but she is troubled by it, objects when an innocent man is arrested, and is horrified when Phil decides what to do about Adam. She is the one who gets away: later the others hear that she has moved to another school, and Phil is left calling her name.
Talking to Phil
Key moment. Leah telling Phil how close apes are to humans, and how small a difference in DNA separates them (Leah to Phil, early in the play). Leah talks about apes and how small a change in DNA separates them from humans. Her monologue sets up the play's question: are people only animals, and how different are we really?
Key moment. Leah questioning whether people are really meant to be happy, or only told that they must be (Leah to Phil, mid-play). She questions whether happiness is a natural state or a demand society makes. The irony is that the group's happiness depends on a crime.
Conscience
Key moment. Leah wondering whether being seen as heroes has made the group behave better (Leah to Phil, later). Leah notices that the group are behaving better since they became part of a tragedy, and wonders whether being seen as heroes makes people act like them. Her insight is uncomfortable: goodness can be a performance.
When Adam is found, Leah begs for him to be helped. Phil ignores her. She leaves, and the next we hear is that she has moved schools.
How Kelly builds Leah in language and structure
Leah speaks in long, rambling monologues full of questions and self-corrections.
Her topics — apes, happiness, human nature — turn private anxiety into big questions.
Structurally her scenes with Phil punctuate the group scenes, giving the play a conscience.
Leah in context
Her talk about apes and DNA links the title's scientific meaning to human behaviour.
For a young audience she models the difficulty of speaking against a group.
Relationships
- Phil — She talks, he eats; she needs an answer he will not give.
- The group — She belongs to it and is troubled by it.
- Adam — She is the one who pleads for him.
What Leah stands for
- Her talking: conscience searching for words.
- Her leaving: the only escape the play allows.
Why Kelly made Leah
- To give the audience a moral point of entry into the play.
- To voice the play's questions about human nature.
Other readings
- The play's conscience, who refuses to stay silent.
- A participant who protests but still goes along for too long.
- A lonely girl seeking Phil's attention through talk.
Essay arguments
- Kelly uses Leah's monologues to put the play's big questions directly to the audience.
- Leah's talk contrasts with Phil's silence, setting conscience against control.
- Her escape suggests that leaving the group is the only way out of its morality.
In theme essays
- Responsibility: her protest.
- The group: her leaving.
Questions that get asked
- How does Kelly present Leah in DNA?
- How does Kelly use Leah and Phil's relationship to explore ideas about morality?
Think you understand Leah? Teach it, then defend it against Dennis Kelly →
John Tate
The leader by threat who loses his grip
John Tate is the group's leader at the start. He rules by intimidation and by controlling what people may say: he bans the word dead and threatens anyone who will not stay on his side. But he has no plan, and as panic grows his threats stop working. Phil's calm plan takes his place. John Tate drifts away from the group and, later, the others hear that he has turned to religion and is handing out leaflets in the shopping centre.
Leadership by threat
Key moment. John Tate warning, in oddly mild words, that anyone who stands apart from the group is putting themselves at risk (The first meeting in the wood). His warning to anyone not on his side is menacing but oddly mild in wording. The understatement shows a leader trying to sound in control while his power drains away.
Key moment. John Tate forbidding anyone in the group to use the word dead (The first meeting in the wood). John Tate tries to control reality by forbidding the word. The play shows that language can be policed but facts cannot.
Collapse
When Phil speaks, the group turns to him. John Tate fades. In the later reports he has found religion — another way of handing his conscience to something larger than himself.
Key moment. Brian suggesting, at the first meeting, that they should tell someone (The first meeting in the wood). Brian's honest suggestion is exactly what John Tate's regime cannot allow. The threat that silences him shows leadership built on fear of the truth.
How Kelly builds John Tate in language and structure
John Tate speaks in threats and commands, and tries to ban words.
His threats are oddly worded and grow less convincing as panic grows.
Structurally he leads at the start and fades once Phil speaks.
John Tate in context
He represents leadership by intimidation familiar from school groups.
His later turn to religion suggests a search for another authority to obey.
Relationships
- Phil — The quiet boy who replaces him.
- The group — Followers held by fear.
What John Tate stands for
- The banned word: power over language.
- His religion: a new authority to obey.
Why Kelly made John Tate
- To show leadership by intimidation and its weakness.
- To contrast two kinds of power.
Other readings
- A bully whose power was always hollow.
- A frightened boy pretending to be in control.
- A figure for leaders who police words instead of facing facts.
Essay arguments
- Kelly shows that John Tate's power depended on threats that collapse under real pressure.
- Banning a word shows the group trying to control reality through language.
- His turn to religion shows a need to obey something, even after the group fails.
In theme essays
- Power: the banned word.
- The group: fear as glue.
Questions that get asked
- How does Kelly present John Tate in DNA?
- How does Kelly present different kinds of leadership in DNA?
Think you understand John Tate? Teach it, then defend it against Dennis Kelly →
Cathy
The girl who finds she enjoys it
Cathy is eager, practical and increasingly excited by the cover-up. She carries out Phil's instructions, gathering evidence from a real man at the post office so that the forensic trail will lead to him, and she seems pleased with her own cleverness. She is willing to do whatever Phil asks when Adam is found. Later reports show her violence growing and her status in the group rising: she boasts of threatening another pupil in brutal terms.
The evidence
Cathy reports how she obtained evidence from a man at the post office. She tells it as an adventure. When the innocent man is arrested, she shows no guilt.
Key moment. Phil warning the others not to use bin bags from home, because they would carry the group's own forensic traces (His plan, in the wood). Cathy turns Phil's forensic caution into action, collecting the traces that frame a stranger.
Violence normalised
Key moment. Cathy describing, in a flat everyday voice, a threat to blind another boy (Late in the play). Cathy describes a threat of extreme violence in a matter-of-fact way. The flat tone shows how normal violence has become to her.
Key moment. Brian answering Cathy's violence with dreamy talk of the warm day on their skin (Late in the play). Brian answers Cathy's violence with strange, sensuous talk of the weather. The contrast makes her brutality, and his escape from it, more disturbing.
How Kelly builds Cathy in language and structure
Cathy speaks with enthusiasm about tasks that should horrify her.
Her matter-of-fact tone about violence shows its normalisation.
Structurally she moves from follower to someone whose violence gives her status.
Cathy in context
Her role in obtaining evidence links her to the forensic meaning of the title.
She shows how a group can reward cruelty with standing.
Relationships
- Phil — She follows him eagerly.
- Brian — Her partner in the worst tasks, who breaks under them.
What Cathy stands for
- Her excitement: crime as status.
- Her violence: the group's morality taken to its end.
Why Kelly made Cathy
- To show how quickly violence becomes normal in a group.
- To contrast desensitisation with Leah's guilt and Brian's breakdown.
Other readings
- A girl who discovers a taste for power and violence.
- An example of how ordinary people become desensitised.
- A follower who wants Phil's approval.
Essay arguments
- Kelly shows Cathy thriving on the cover-up, so violence becomes a route to status.
- Her matter-of-fact tone shows the normalisation of cruelty within the group.
- Cathy and Brian show two opposite responses to guilt: enjoyment and collapse.
In theme essays
- Violence: Cathy's flat account of threatening to blind a boy.
- The group: status through crime.
Questions that get asked
- How does Kelly present Cathy in DNA?
- How does Kelly present violence in DNA?
Think you understand Cathy? Teach it, then defend it against Dennis Kelly →
Brian
The boy who wanted to tell and was made to lie
Brian is frightened and tearful from the start. He suggests that they tell someone, and is threatened into silence. Phil makes him the witness who will identify the invented stranger, and Brian, terrified, does so; an innocent man is arrested. He is involved in what happens when Adam is found. Later the others report that he is heavily medicated and barely functioning. His breakdown is the most visible cost of the cover-up.
Wanting to tell
Key moment. Brian suggesting, at the first meeting, that they should tell someone (The first meeting in the wood). The simplest moral answer in the play, offered by the weakest boy and shut down at once.
Phil gives Brian the role of witness. Brian dreads identifying the suspect, but does it. The play makes him complicit in the very lie he wanted to avoid.
Breakdown
Key moment. Brian answering Cathy's violence with dreamy talk of the warm day on their skin (Late in the play). Brian's strange, dreamy language suggests a mind retreating from what it has done.
How Kelly builds Brian in language and structure
Brian's speech is frightened and simple at first.
Later his language becomes dreamy and dislocated, a sign of breakdown.
Structurally he moves from wanting to tell the truth to being used to tell a lie.
Brian in context
He shows how the most vulnerable member of a group can be made to carry its worst acts.
His medication suggests guilt managed rather than faced.
Relationships
- Phil — Who uses him as the witness.
- Cathy — His partner in the worst tasks.
- John Tate — Who threatens him into silence.
What Brian stands for
- His tears: the conscience the group suppresses.
- His medication: guilt managed, not resolved.
Why Kelly made Brian
- To show the cost of the cover-up on a vulnerable person.
- To show that the weakest can be made to do the most damage.
Other readings
- A victim of the group as much as Adam.
- A weak boy whose compliance does real harm.
- The play's picture of guilt that cannot be lived with.
Essay arguments
- Kelly uses Brian to show the human cost of silence.
- Brian's identification of an innocent man shows how the powerless are used.
- His later state contrasts with Cathy's thriving, showing different responses to guilt.
In theme essays
- Responsibility: the false identification.
- Violence: the cost to those who carry it out.
Questions that get asked
- How does Kelly present Brian in DNA?
- How does Kelly present guilt in DNA?
Think you understand Brian? Teach it, then defend it against Dennis Kelly →
The themes
Responsibility and guilt
Everyone in the group is involved; almost no one takes responsibility, and the play asks who is to blame.
The bullying of Adam was collective, and so is the cover-up. Responsibility spreads so thin that no one seems to hold it: John Tate bans the word, Phil makes the plan, Cathy gathers evidence, Brian identifies a stranger, and the rest stay quiet. An innocent man pays for it. When Adam is found alive, the group could choose honesty; instead they choose to protect themselves.
Key moment. Brian suggesting, at the first meeting, that they should tell someone (The first meeting in the wood). The responsible answer is spoken early and silenced at once.
The play shows guilt landing unevenly. Leah escapes; Brian breaks; John Tate turns to religion; Cathy thrives; Phil goes silent. No court ever judges them — the audience does.
Context that changes the reading. The play was written for the National Theatre's Connections programme, for young performers and audiences. It puts a moral problem in the hands of teenagers with no adults present, so the audience must judge for themselves.
Use this in an essay. Frame: Kelly spreads the crime across the whole group so that responsibility becomes everyone's and no one's.
Think you understand responsibility and guilt in DNA? Teach it, then defend it →
Power and leadership
Three kinds of leadership pass through the group: threat, cold reason, and violence.
John Tate leads by threats and by banning words; when that fails, Phil leads by silence and a plan; later reports suggest Cathy's violence gives her status. The group always looks for someone to obey. Power passes to whoever offers certainty.
The contrast between John Tate and Phil is the heart of the theme. John Tate shouts, threatens and forbids, but has no answer to the question of what to do; Phil says nothing until he has an answer, and then gives it in detail. The group obey Phil not because he frightens them but because he relieves them of the need to decide. That is the play's most uncomfortable insight about power: people may follow the leader who takes their responsibility away.
Key moment. Phil defending his control on the grounds that it has made everyone happier (After Adam is found). Phil's justification of control by its calming effect.
Context that changes the reading. A group of teenagers with no adults in sight becomes a small society, and the play's leadership struggle mirrors larger questions about why people obey leaders who promise safety.
Use this in an essay. Frame: The group never governs itself; it only changes masters.
Think you understand Power and leadership in DNA? Teach it, then defend it →
The group and belonging (minor)
The need to belong drives both the bullying and the cover-up.
Adam was bullied because he wanted to belong; the group covers up his death to keep belonging to one another. Characters go along with things they know are wrong because leaving is unthinkable. Only Leah leaves, and the play treats her leaving as the only escape.
The group also shapes how its members see themselves. Leah notices that since Adam's disappearance some of them have been behaving better, as if being seen as part of a tragedy has made them act like decent people. Belonging gives them an identity; protecting that identity justifies almost anything. Mark and Jan, who pass news along between scenes, show how the group's story spreads and hardens.
Key moment. John Tate warning, in oddly mild words, that anyone who stands apart from the group is putting themselves at risk (The first meeting in the wood). The threat to anyone who stands outside the group.
Context that changes the reading. Peer pressure and bullying in schools are familiar subjects for the young audiences the play was written for, which makes the group's choices uncomfortably recognisable.
Use this in an essay. Frame: Belonging is the group's motive for every crime in the play.
Think you understand the group and belonging in DNA? Teach it, then defend it →
Violence and its normalisation (minor)
Violence starts as a game and becomes ordinary.
The bullying of Adam is described as fun; the framing of a stranger is treated as a clever task; the decision about Adam is made calmly; and later Cathy boasts of extreme threats. The play shows violence becoming normal through repetition and group approval, while very little of it is shown on stage.
The play also shows violence spreading outward. It begins with Adam, extends to a stranger who is arrested for something he did not do, returns to Adam when he is found alive, and, in the later reports, reaches other pupils through Cathy. Each step is easier than the last. Brian's breakdown shows that violence does damage to those who carry it out, even as Cathy seems to thrive.
Key moment. Mark recounting the bullying of Adam as if it had been funny (The first meeting in the wood). Cruelty retold as comedy.
Context that changes the reading. Keeping violence offstage and reported makes the audience listen to how the characters talk about it — and the casual way they do is the point.
Use this in an essay. Frame: Kelly keeps the violence offstage so that the audience hears how easily it is talked about.
Think you understand violence and its normalisation in DNA? Teach it, then defend it →
Context
Context: the world behind the play
DNA was written for the National Theatre's Connections programme, which commissions plays for young people to perform. Its cast are teenagers, and no adult ever appears; the world of school, police and parents is only reported. That choice puts the moral questions entirely in young people's hands.
The title points to two things at once. DNA is forensic evidence: the play's cover-up depends on planting and avoiding traces, and Phil plans like an investigator. DNA is also what makes us human, and Leah's talk about apes and humans asks whether people are only animals, shaped by instincts to belong and obey.
The play draws on familiar concerns about bullying, peer pressure and group violence among young people. It does not name a real case or a real place, which makes it a fable about any group rather than a report about one.
The innocent man who is arrested never appears either. He exists only in the group's plan and in reports, which lets the characters treat him as an abstraction — and lets the audience notice how easily a real person can be turned into a problem to be managed. Its form is part of its context. The repeating settings, the overlapping speech and the long monologues make the play feel like a series of rituals. The offstage violence makes the audience listen to how violence is talked about — which is where the play locates the danger.
Using context well in an essay on DNA means attaching it to a moment rather than writing a paragraph of background. The absence of adults explains why the group must police itself; forensic science explains Phil's plan; the play's origin as a piece for young performers explains why its moral questions are put so directly to young audiences. Each of these is a clause, not a paragraph.
Use this in an essay. Weld context to a line: Phil's warning about bin bags carrying their traces makes the title literal — the group fear forensic traces, while the play exposes what is in their nature.
The writer's craft
Structure: four movements and three places
The play moves through a repeating pattern of places: a street where Mark and Jan exchange news, a field where Leah talks to Phil (and later picnics with him), and a wood where the group gathers. The pattern makes the action feel like a ritual: news arrives, Leah talks, the group decides. Each round raises the stakes.
The shape of the play
| Movement | What happens | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Panic | Adam presumed dead; John Tate's threats | Fear and confusion |
| Plan | Phil's invented story; evidence; an innocent man arrested | Control through lies |
| Discovery | Adam found alive; Phil's decision | The moral test failed |
| Aftermath | Leah gone; John Tate religious; Brian medicated; Phil silent | The cost |
Methods: dialogue, silence and monologue
- Fragmented, overlapping dialogue that sounds like real speech.
- Silence: Phil's long silences as power.
- Monologue: Leah's speeches to Phil.
- Reported action: the worst events happen offstage.
- Repeated settings: street, field, wood.
Symbols and motifs
- DNA: forensic evidence and human nature.
- The banned word dead: control of language.
- Phil's food: appetite and indifference.
- The wood: the group's secret space.
- Leah's talk: conscience searching for words.
Key relationships
- Phil and Leah: silence and talk.
- Phil and John Tate: two kinds of power.
- Cathy and Brian: thriving and breaking.
- Mark and Jan: messengers who report the news.
- The group and Adam: belonging and cruelty.
Exam technique: the modern-text essay
There is no extract. You choose one of two questions and write from memory about the whole play. Plan for about forty-five minutes: decide your argument, choose four or five moments across the play, and describe each one precisely. Because the play is in copyright and you are writing from memory, accurate descriptions are exactly what you need.
Reliable pairings
- John Tate's threats and Phil's plan.
- Brian's suggestion and his false identification.
- Leah's talk and Phil's silence.
- Adam presumed dead and Adam found alive.
Beyond the syllabus — ideas to make an essay memorable
No adult ever appears. Police, parents and teachers exist only in reports; the teenagers are the only law on stage.
The worst acts happen offstage. The audience hears violence described, often casually — and the casualness is the shock.
The silent boy wins. Phil barely speaks, yet his first real speech takes over the group.
The title has two meanings. DNA is the evidence they fear and the nature they cannot escape.
An innocent man never appears. The stranger who is arrested exists only as a description.
Only one person escapes. Leah leaves; everyone else is changed by staying.
Thesis statements
- Kelly spreads the crime across the whole group so that responsibility becomes everyone's and no one's.
- The group never governs itself; it only changes masters, from threat to cold reason to violence.
- Phil's silence is the play's most dangerous power, because it makes his first words sound like law.
- Leah's talk sets conscience against control, and her leaving is the only escape the play allows.
- Kelly keeps violence offstage so the audience hears how casually it is talked about.
Essay plans
How does Kelly present leadership in DNA?
Thesis: Kelly shows power passing from threat to cold reason to violence, and a group that always looks for someone to obey.
- John Tate: the banned word and his mild-sounding warning to anyone who stands apart.
- Phil's silence and his plan, down to the warning about bin bags.
- The arrest of an innocent man: power without conscience.
- Adam found: Phil's claim that his control has made everyone happier.
- The aftermath: Phil alone, calling Leah's name with no answer.
How does Kelly explore responsibility in DNA?
Thesis: Responsibility is spread across the group until no one holds it, and the play leaves the audience to judge.
- The bullying retold as a joke by Mark.
- Brian's suggestion that they tell someone.
- The invented man: the gentle stranger Phil describes.
- Leah's protest when Adam is found.
- The uneven costs at the end.
Think you understand it?
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