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Phil
A teenage boy who dresses like a tramp and lives in a hedge in the woods, this character is listed as “A Boy” in the characters section at the beginning of the play, yet all his dialogue is ascribed to “Adam.” Kelly, perhaps, is trying to replicate the confusion and uncertainty the group of teens at the center of the play feel when they come across their classmate alive after having spent weeks focused on nothing but covering up his supposed death. Adam, after all, is taken for dead at the start of the play after some members of the central group of characters admit to possibly killing him while taunting him and pelting him with stones as he balanced on a grille over an abandoned mineshaft. Adam fell in, his peers assumed he was dead, and so began the cover-up. Adam is disliked and unpopular, frequently the butt of his classmates’ jokes and the victim of their pranks, jeers, and abuse, the effects of which range from the harmless to the humiliating to the downright deadly. When the audience meets Adam, he is disoriented, disheveled, and suffering from a prominent head wound. Dirty and amnesiac, he has no recollection of who he is or how he lived before waking up at the bottom of the mine shaft several weeks ago. Taking advantage of his confused, suggestible state, Phil orders Brian to strangle the boy with a plastic bag, ignoring Leah’s pleas to bring Adam back into society where he might receive the care he needs to live a normal life once again. Phil coldly tells Leah that if everyone in the outside world assumes Adam is already dead, it won’t make a difference to kill him for real this time. Adam thus represents the subjective nature of reality and serves as a painful example of the devastating effects of bullying, peer pressure, and groupthink.
A Boy/Adam Quotes in DNA
The DNA quotes below are all either spoken by A Boy/Adam or refer to A Boy/Adam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Scene 1 Quotes
JOHN TATE: Alright. New rule; that word is banned.
[…]
LOU: You can’t ban a word.
JOHN TATE: and if anyone says it I’m going to have to, you know, bite their face. Or something.
DANNY: How can you ban a word?
JOHN TATE: Well just say it then.
Pause.
Say it and see what happens.
They say nothing.
Look, we have to keep together. We have to trust each other and believe in each other. I’m trying to help. I’m trying to keep things together.
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And you’re thinking ‘Will he do anything? What won’t he do?’
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And someone’s pegged a stone at him. Not to hit him, just for the laugh.
And you shoulda seen his face, I mean the fear, the, it was so, you had to laugh, the expression, the fear...
So we’re all peggin them. Laughing. And his face, it’s just making you laugh harder and harder, and they’re getting nearer and nearer. And one hits his head. And the shock on his face is so...funny. And we’re all just...
just...
really chucking these stones into him, really hard and laughing and he slips.
And he drops.
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Scene 2 Quotes
No, no, yeah, no, actually, because that man, the man who, he doesn’t actually, I mean I’m not being fussy or anything, but the man who kidnapped Adam doesn’t actually exist, does he. Well does he?
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PHIL: You’re going in.
BRIAN: No.
PHIL: Yes.
BRIAN: No, Phil –
PHIL: Yes, yes, shhhh, yes. Sorry. You have to go in. Or we’ll take you up the grille. […] We’ll throw you in.
RICHARD: Er, Phil.
DANNY: Is he serious?
LEAH: He’s always serious.
PHIL: We’ll take you up the grille now. Well get you by the arms. By the legs. And we’ll swing you onto the grille. We’ll throw rocks at you until you drop through. You’ll drop through. You’ll fall into the cold. Into the dark. You’ll land on Adam’s corpse and you’ll rot together.
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Scene 3 Quotes
BRIAN: Don’t they eat earth somewhere? Shall we eat the earth? I wonder what earth tastes like, what do you think it, do you think it tastes earthy, or, or...
He bends down to eat a handful of earth. […]
That’s disgusting!
He suddenly starts giggling as he scrapes the earth from his mouth.
CATHY: I dunno how he’s survived, what he’s eaten.
BRIAN: (Like it’s hilarious) He’s probably been eating earth!
He bursts into laughter.
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LEAH: How’ve you been living?
ADAM: In the hedge.
LEAH: No, how?
What have you been eating?
ADAM: You can eat anything. I eat things.
Nothing dead, I don’t
insects, grass, leaves, all good, but nothing, I caught a rabbit once and ate that, its fur was soft, warm, but nothing, I found a dead bird and ate some of that but it made me sick so nothing, nothing dead, that’s the rule, nothing
Beat.
What?
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BRIAN: That was great!
PHIL: You just do what Cathy says.
BRIAN: I am brilliant at doing what people say.
LEAH: No! Stop, don’t, don’t, Phil, don’t, what are you doing, what are you...
PHIL: He’s dead, everyone thinks he’s dead. What difference will it make?
She stares at him.
LEAH: But he’s not dead. He’s alive.
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A Boy/Adam Character Timeline in DNA
The timeline below shows where the character A Boy/Adam appears in DNA. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Scene 1
...Jan speaks up and tells Leah and Phil that something has happened to their classmate Adam.
(full context)
As Jan continues telling the two of them what transpired, it becomes clear that Adam is a boy who is always “trying to be part of” the group—a boy who...
(full context)
...he’s been drinking and speaks up. He orders Cathy, Danny, and Mark to go to Adam’s house, wait until it’s empty, then go through a window and take a sweater and...
(full context)
...the specificity of Phil’s plan. Phil continues. He tells Lou, Danny, and Jan to take Adam’s shoes and go to the woods. Lou should put the shoes on and go in...
(full context)
Phil continues. In a day or two, once Adam is declared missing, John Tate will come forward and say he may have seen Adam...
(full context)
Scene 2
...for everyone to be happy is having something to work toward together. She says that Adam’s parents were on the television last night, pleading for “the fat postman with bad teeth”...
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...Danny reports that the authorities have found the man described as being last seen with Adam—they have him in custody and are questioning him. Leah is shocked—the man who kidnapped Adam,...
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Danny says the authorities are looking for Brian, the one who reported having seen Adam with a postman in the first place. Leah is upset and reminds them all that...
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...there is DNA evidence—the man in custody was found when police ran the DNA on Adam’s sweater through a database and pulled up a man matching Brian’s description of the postman....
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...him up to the mine shaft and throw him in if he doesn’t comply—Brian and Adam will “rot together.” Phil asks Brian once again if Brian is going to help them....
(full context)
Scene 3
Leah asks Phil if he saw Jan crying “floods of tears” at Adam’s memorial service. Though she admits that she, too, felt awful during the service, she knows...
(full context)
...dried blood, and he moves and acts “twitchily.” Phil greets the boy by saying “Hello, Adam.” The boy replies “Alright,” but says nothing else. Brian says he and Cathy found the...
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...to know his own name. The boy speaks up and says that his name is Adam. Brian bends down and begins eating dirt, then spits it out once he realizes how...
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Leah addresses the boy, calling him Adam. The boy seems confused. Leah asks the boy how he is, but he doesn’t answer....
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...certain relief at the idea of being “new.” He claims, though, that his name is Adam, and that he is “not coming back.” The others ask what the boy has been...
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Jan and Mark declare that the boy has “lost it.” Leah, addressing Adam, tells him that he’s supposed to be dead. She explains that there’s already been a...
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...he wants to “come back” to society, or whether he’s happy living in the hedge. Adam thinks for a moment but doesn’t respond. Phil tells Brian to take Adam back to...
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Leah asks Phil what he’s thinking. She points out that Adam is injured and needs help. Phil says that Adam is “happy” living wild and doesn’t...
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Leah begs Phil to remember all the memories they have with Adam, but Phil coldly states that if Adam comes back into society, all of their lives...
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...begs Phil to stop. Phil looks at Leah and says that if everyone already thinks Adam is dead, it won’t make any “difference.” Leah points out that Adam isn’t really dead—he’s...
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