Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in DNA, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Right vs. Wrong
Bullying, Peer Pressure, and Groupthink
Guilt
Reality and Truth
Summary
Analysis
Jan and Mark are on the street. Mark tells Jan that someone’s “not going” somewhere. Jan and Mark are nervous and wonder what they’re going to do—but they don’t mention who they’re talking about or how the person’s decision affects them.
Phil and Leah are alone in a field. Phil eats candy, and Leah holds a Tupperware container. Leah asks Phil if he’s happy. She wonders why everyone is supposed to be happy, and why “any deviation from that state is seen as a failure,” leading to a cycle which perpetuates unhappiness. This vicious cycle, Leah says, is dangerous. Phil doesn’t answer Leah or comment on her thoughts. Leah says that human life is what has upset the natural order of the world and claims to be looking forward to the end of it. She asks Phil if he can remember the happiest moment of his life. He doesn’t answer her. Leah says her happiest moment was just last week, watching a sunset beside Phil.
Leah opens up the Tupperware and shows it to Phil. Inside it is “Jerry”—a hamster or gerbil. She tells Phil that she killed Jerry by hammering a screwdriver into his skull. She asks Phil how she could have done such a thing—he merely shrugs. Leah says she has no idea why she did it, either. She closes the lid of the container.
Leah reveals to Phil—perhaps in a plea for attention, or perhaps in a vulnerable admission of her mental deterioration due to her guilt—that she has done something horrible. Leah has death on the brain and has perhaps killed her pet in an attempt to reckon more directly with grief and guilt, even though she claims not to know why she did it.
Themes
Leah sunnily remarks that everything at school has been much better lately—everyone is working together and their whole friend group has put aside all their petty quarrels. People are getting along and acting happier—all except for John Tate, who, according to rumor, has “lost it” and won’t come out of his room. It’s only been four days, Leah says, but already everything is different; she wonders if all it takes 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” to come forward. Leah asks Phil what they’ve done. Mark and Jan enter, and Jan says they all need to talk.
Even though Leah and the rest of the group are embroiled in a serious crime, Leah is determined to remain positive rather than “lose it” like some of the others. She’s trying to see the positive in the situation—even though the fact that everyone has been getting along in the last week surely stems more from their fear and distrust of one another than from true bonding or social cohesion.
Themes
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Leah, Lou, Danny, and Phil are back in the woods near school. 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, she reminds Danny, doesn’t actually exist. Lou says it doesn’t matter—the police have got him anyway. Apparently, Danny says, the man has truly awful teeth. Leah is visibly upset and agitated. Lou declares that they are all “fucked.”
As the teens realize that their plan now involves someone else—someone who could be very seriously punished for their own crimes—they begin to panic in a new way. Their guilt is compounded by the idea that they could be responsible not just for their schoolmate’s death, but for an innocent man’s fate as well. The fact that the man Phil claimed to have imagined really does exist also brings up new questions about Phil; it seems that he knew someone else might have gotten in trouble but decided to go forward with the plan anyway.
Themes
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 there is no kidnapper—she says the man in custody can’t go to prison just because he has bad teeth. Danny tells her, though, that “this sort of stuff sticks,” and goes on to worry whether he’ll be able to get the references he needs for dental school.
Danny knows just how difficult it can be to escape a criminal charge—and there seems to be a part of him that’s glad it’s a random man and not he himself who will have to find a way to keep such a charge from “sticking.”
Themes
Richard and Cathy enter. They have just come from the police station and state that it’s full of reporters. Cathy, giddy, says “it was great” being down there. Richard asks if everyone else has heard that the authorities “caught him.” Leah retorts that the police can’t have caught someone who doesn’t exist. Richard taunts Leah, suggesting she go down to the station and try to exonerate the man if she’s so concerned about him. Cathy wonders aloud if she could get any of the reporters to pay her for an interview. Lou worries that the man with bad teeth will go to prison. Leah says he can’t go to prison because there’s no DNA evidence.
This passage shows the group’s conflicting reactions to Phil’s plan’s success. While Cathy and Richard are relieved—or downright giddy—at the prospect of getting off scot-free, Leah and Lou are conflicted about sending an innocent man to prison. Their guilt is intensifying as they face down the widening reverberations of their actions.
Themes
Richard says, however, that 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. Leah asks how this could have happened. Cathy says that she went to a local post office and found a man who fit the description Phil came up with—it wasn’t hard, she says, as several of them matched the description. Cathy says the others should thank her for showing “initiative.” Leah and Richard, though, are distressed—they wanted to cover up their own involvement, not frame someone else. Lou, again, states that everyone is “fucked.” Leah agrees that they are. Danny says they can’t let the police think the man they have in custody is responsible.
Cathy’s desire to steal the spotlight—and to avoid trouble—have spurred her to do something which directly alters the way the outside world perceives the reality of the situation they’ve created. The group thought they were framing an imaginary person, but thanks to Cathy’s actions, the made-up situation now has very real effects for an innocent stranger. While Lou, Leah, and Danny still think there’s time to do the right thing, Cathy and Richard are hastening things in another direction, desperate to do anything they can to protect themselves from facing the consequences of their actions.
Themes
Jan, Mark, and Brian enter. Brian is crying and complaining that he doesn’t want to go to the police station—he’s already talked to them once and doesn’t want to do it again. He says he can’t face the police or stand the way they look at him. Lou says they’re going to have to come clean.
This passage shows that Brian is being pressured to talk to the police once again and confirm the man’s identity. He doesn’t want to, but the others in the group are pressuring him to help keep up their lie, demonstrating how powerful groupthink can be.
Themes
Leah wonders what would happen if they all did nothing. She asks Phil what to do. Phil doesn’t answer her, and instead goes over to Brian and puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Phil tells Brian that he has to go to the station. Brian protests, but Phil quietly threatens Brian, warning him that they’ll all take 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. Brian nods in agreement. Phil orders Brian and Richard to go to the station together and positively identify the postman, then tells everyone else to stay calm and keep quiet. Phil pulls out a muffin and begins eating it as everyone stares at him in disbelief.
Phil uses a threat of physical violence—even death—against Brian in this passage in an attempt to remain in control of the situation. Phil’s aloof, disaffected cruelty contrasts against John Tate’s angst and desperation in the last act. To Phil, this is all like a game—a game to see how much he and his friends can get away with. Here and in similar scenes, the fact that he starts eating instead of reacting to his friends’ disbelief symbolically shows that he’s isolated from them and disconnected from the emotional reality of their dire situation.
Themes
Later, Leah and Phil are in a field. They sit quietly until Leah jumps up in shock. She tells Phil that she has just had déjà vu—she feels she’s lived this moment before. She tries to predict what is coming next, but fails to do so and sits back down. She looks up at the sky and remarks upon how beautiful and strange it looks—she’s never seen a sky quite like it. She says that the times they’ve been born into, too, are strange ones. Leah asks if it’s possible to change things, or if people are just “doomed to behave like people before [them.]” Phil doesn’t answer Leah.
Leah’s guilt is perhaps causing her to question the nature of her own reality. She’s becoming more and more existential as the play goes on. Her focus is shifting from her own likability and her specific place in the world to larger, more complicated questions about the very nature of humanity, reality, and fate.
Themes
Leah repeatedly says Phil’s name until he at last turns to look at her. Leah asks if Phil believes that “if you change one thing you can change the world.” Phil says he doesn’t and looks away again. Leah says she does. She calls Phil’s name, but he does not turn to look at her again.
Phil is such an inscrutable character that it’s impossible to tell whether his silence reflects guilt or total detachment from what’s happening. Meanwhile, Leah is clearly wondering if her own actions can have any broader meaning—a question that intensifies but remains open as the play continues.
Themes
