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
Mark and Jan are on the street. Jan asks if Leah is really gone. Mark says she is—she left last week, but no one knows where she’s gone. He’s heard rumors that she’s moved schools but can’t confirm anything. Jan asks if Phil knows what’s happened to Leah. Mark doesn’t answer her.
Mark and Jan’s final scene together shows that communication even between the two of them has broken down. They used to be more or less on the same page, but now they each have questions that the other can’t answer.
Themes
Richard and Phil sit in a field. Phil isn’t eating. Richard gets up and starts doing handstands, begging Phil to watch his tricks. Phil, however, doesn’t even look up. Richard sits down next to Phil and begs him to “come back.” He asks if Phil gets bored sitting alone in the field all day, but Phil doesn’t answer. Richard tells Phil that everyone’s been asking for him—they miss when he was “running the show.” He asks if Phil is interested in what’s going on back at school, but Phil doesn’t answer.
This passage suggests that Phil has left school, leaving the rest of the group to fend for themselves and make their own choices and connections. Phil has little interest in what’s going on back at school—but his aloofness is nothing new. Whether his withdrawal from school is tied to the terrible decision he made in the last act, Leah’s departure, or something else is unclear.
Themes
Richard tells Phil that John Tate has found God and become an evangelist. Danny is doing an internship at a nearby dentist’s office but hates it. Brian has been dosed with an even heavier medication which has made him nearly catatonic. Cathy is “running things” at school and apparently rules with an iron fist—there’s a rumor that she “cut a first year’s finger off.” Lou and Cathy are best friends, and Jan and Mark have started shoplifting. Richard asks if Phil is bothered by any of what he’s told him, but Phil won’t answer. Richard shakes Phil by the shoulders and begs to know when he’s coming back. Phil is silent.
Richard’s report of how their friend group has changed and fractured is disturbing. Most everyone is worse off than they were at the start of the play. Even the characters who have gotten what they wanted—Danny and Cathy—face bleak futures and precarious circumstances. Richard is perhaps trying to suggest that Phil is to blame for everything that’s happened—but Phil won’t even comment on what’s happening in his so-called friends’ lives.
Themes
Richard looks around. He admits that Phil has found a nice spot to sit and be. He says that as he was coming up the hill, a “big wind of fluff”—like the kind that comes off of dandelions—surrounded him out of nowhere. For a moment, he says, he thought he was in a cloud. As the fluff surrounded him, Richard had the feeling of being an “alien,” and realized that there had to be life on other planets. He asks Phil how he thinks people on other worlds live. Phil doesn’t answer him. Richard asks Phil to come back, but Phil stays silent. The two of them sit together quietly.
This passage suggests that Richard has taken on Leah’s role. He is being driven mad by his own guilt and self-loathing, and is desperate to unload his confusing existential thoughts on someone else. Richard wants validation and perhaps even absolution from Phil—but Phil reacts even less than ever, indicating that his isolation from other people is now complete.
Themes
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