Photograph 51—an image that, for the first time in history, showed the molecular structure of DNA—represents the wide gulf between personal values and professional aspirations that developed over the course of Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins’s partnership. The central and titular symbol within the play, Photograph 51 is a real-life X-ray diffraction image of crystallized DNA taken by Ray Gosling, Rosalind Franklin’s assistant. The image, blurry and often described as hauntingly beautiful, was the 51st photo Gosling and Franklin had developed together—and the first to hold the key to the shape and structure of DNA’s signature double helix. Though Gosling and Franklin pored over the image, Franklin, according to Ziegler’s play, found herself at the “end of thought,” burnt out from months of research and unable to make anything of the bombshell right in front of her. Gosling, frustrated by Franklin’s refusal to show the image to her research partner Maurice Wilkins, slipped Wilkins the image—Wilkins in turn showed it to James Watson, who immediately realized what it showed and began working on a new model of DNA with his research partner Francis Crick.
Rosalind Franklin’s notorious unwillingness to collaborate—a defense mechanism she developed after facing years of sexism and antisemitism from her overwhelmingly white male colleagues—was responsible, in Ziegler’s estimation, for hindering her from deciphering Photograph 51 in the mad “race” to determine the structure of DNA. Photograph 51, and Rosalind’s protectiveness over it, comes to represent her personal values of patience, care, and absolute certitude in her work. Whereas Wilkins, like Watson and Crick, prioritized professional success over personal values, Rosalind needed to make sure that her work was unimpeachable before sharing it with the world.
Photograph 51 Quotes in Photograph 51
ROSALIND. As a girl, I prided myself on always being right. Because I was always right. I drove my family near mad by relentlessly proposing games to play that I’d win every time. […] And when I was at university, and it was becoming as clear to my parents as it always had been for me that I would pursue science, I left Cambridge to meet my father for a hiking weekend. (Staring again at the image.) And atop a mountain in the Lake District, when I was eighteen years old, he said to me, “Rosalind, if you go forward with this life… you must never be wrong…”
WILKINS. But what are we celebrating??
GOSLING. It’s amazing, really—
ROSALIND. Have some faith in me. There is something to celebrate. Take a leap of faith.
WILKINS. (Bitterly.) As though you would ever do that. […] I mean, my God, can you even hear yourself? The irony?
ROSALIND. (Slowly.) I take a leap of faith every day, Maurice, just by walking through that door in the morning ... I take a leap of faith that it’ll all be worth it, that it will all ultimately mean something.
WILKINS. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
ROSALIND. No, you wouldn’t.
WATSON. Do tell us what our little ray of sunshine is keeping busy with these days.
CRICK. (Actually worried.) Wilkins, old boy. Are you sure you’re quite all right?
WATSON. Anything new on her docket? If you don’t mind sharing, that is.
WILKINS. I honestly couldn’t give two damns. I’m happy to tell you all I can remember.
ROSALIND. I think I’m thinking about how I’ve come to the end of thinking. […]
WILKINS. We could talk it through. It might help. […]
GOSLING. For a moment, everything stopped. Different ways our lives could go hovered in the air around us. […]
ROSALIND. You know, I think I am going to call it a night. I haven’t been home before midnight for a fortnight and really what’s the point of being here and not getting anywhere? […]
GOSLING. And then there was only one way everything would go.
Photograph 51 Symbol Timeline in Photograph 51
