DNA - Big Ideas
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In Dennis Kelly’s play ‘DNA’ we are presented with a very brutalised idea of how our society is developing, in particular our possible desensitisation to human suffering and pain. It raises many questions, one of which is the psychological: ‘Are we a product of nature or nurture?’ Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception for example, the product of exposure, environment, experience and learning on an individual. The play makes us question things in a deep-rooted philosophical way.
The settings could be seen to reflect aspects of our human nature; the field our openness; the street our public side and the woods our rather mysterious and secretive selves. It is perhaps no coincidence that the play’s revelations take place in the more secretive setting of the woods, a place on the outskirts of society, dark and shrouded with sinister elements of life and death. One revision guide suggests: ‘We are told of events that happen ‘off stage’ and places the characters have been –school, the police station, for example –but the play is structured around their world of ‘A Street/A field/A wood’. They are outdoors, but do not appear to be at ease with nature, and it is interesting to note in a play written in 2007 the absence of the technology that now dominates most teenagers’ lives. It is certainly a play of its time and represents a particular view of teenagers but, in avoiding the obvious communication methods favoured by most teenagers, Dennis Kelly has, in fact, made DNA more of a timeless piece –and therefore less likely to date.’ (Edexcel)
It is as though we, as the audience, are to question everything, ultimately the bigger questions of what is moral or immoral…as Phil says: ‘I’m in charge. Everyone is happier. What’s more important: one person or everyone?’ In this Phil comes across as quite the politician, stating opinions as facts ‘Everyone is happier’ but the use of a question entices them to feel connected, to a collective guilt, they initially shared a burden of manslaughter but now have to acknowledge, in order to protect themselves, they need to become responsible for murder in cold blood. Perhaps Kelly wants the audience to consider how easily young people can become embroiled in situations that spiral out of control; his own interpretation of Phil in a Guardian article from 2012 states: “I don’t deliberately write things to be brutal or to shock people, I don’t think I write characters that are bad, I think I write characters that are trying to do the right thing but are failing.” In Phil’s case, “I don’t think he’s getting any kind of enjoyment out of it. He’s trying to make the best out of a bad situation – what he does is flawed but it’s also natural. When I was a kid I felt that parents and adults weren’t anything to do with my world. We sorted out our own problems, often in a terrifying way, and I think he’s actually trying to do something good.”
The cast appears to portray a gang who get so involved in covering up an horrific crime that they seem to lose sight of their humanness, they lack empathy and the play focusses on their more sinister character traits. If we consider the seven deadly sins, we encounter avarice or greed, a trait perfectly reflected in the development of the character of Cathy, rather than be concerned that they may have sadistically murdered a member of the gang, or even ruined someone else’s life by falsely accusing them, she is intent on glory and material gain, she says: ‘they might even give me money for it, do you think I should ask for money?’ Kelly’s repetition of the word ‘money’ highlights her greed and is shocking for an audience, considering she is not showing any remorse. Perhaps Kelly is trying to highlight how the more developed our Western culture becomes the further away from being empathic humans we become, we turn off the news, we laugh at people’s pain on social media, hate crimes are on the rise…we even find ourselves laughing during moments of the play, the dramatic devices such as ‘Phil eats his pie.’ This dark humour makes us view his character as quite calm and collected, he is always absorbing what is going on and not panicking the way that other characters appear to be. An insightful yr 9 student suggests that even our language has become too casual, the use of the word ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ have been devalued in the way we often jokingly say things like ‘I’ll kill him when I see him!’
We may also consider history, one has only to look back at Ancient Rome and the practices at the Colloseum to see that humans have considered savagery a form of entertainment. This idea is echoed in a book by Bill Buford: 'Among the Thugs' in it Buford asks, 'what is a crowd?' a crowd killed Jesus, a crowd killed Socrates, the book itself gives the readers the impression that football violence was exciting, a concept we may wish to consider when studying Kelly's 'DNA'
Another thing we could consider is the idea of ‘Man’s inhumanity to man.’ Allegedly first documented in the Robert Burns poem called Man was made to mourn: A Dirge in 1784,
“Man's inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn!”
A sentiment echoed by staunch animal rights advocate George Bernard Shaw, he was a strict vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist and opponent of cruel sports. Shaw became a vegetarian in 1881 and remained so for sixty-six years until his death in 1950 and he proposed that, “Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals.” We could consider the irony of this as the one character who seems to be the voice of reason is also the one who is cruel to her own pet. Another more recent English novelist, William Golding also used similar ideas in his 1954 novel ‘Lord of the Flies.’ In the story a group of young schoolboys are marooned on a tropical island after their plane is shot down during a war. Its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding’s experience with the real-life violence and brutality of World War II, he said of it:
“It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they weren’t Nazi’s. I’d seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazi’s.” This is suggestive that given the right set of circumstances everybody is capable of evil.
Through the ideas of poets, writers’ playwrights and philosophers we can see that the history of civilization abounds with records of the inhumanity of individuals and groups toward each other. Mutual respect, among individuals and groups, must be learned and practised. This is a difficult task, but an inescapable one and by having our views challenged we could learn more about humanity.
The settings could be seen to reflect aspects of our human nature; the field our openness; the street our public side and the woods our rather mysterious and secretive selves. It is perhaps no coincidence that the play’s revelations take place in the more secretive setting of the woods, a place on the outskirts of society, dark and shrouded with sinister elements of life and death. One revision guide suggests: ‘We are told of events that happen ‘off stage’ and places the characters have been –school, the police station, for example –but the play is structured around their world of ‘A Street/A field/A wood’. They are outdoors, but do not appear to be at ease with nature, and it is interesting to note in a play written in 2007 the absence of the technology that now dominates most teenagers’ lives. It is certainly a play of its time and represents a particular view of teenagers but, in avoiding the obvious communication methods favoured by most teenagers, Dennis Kelly has, in fact, made DNA more of a timeless piece –and therefore less likely to date.’ (Edexcel)
It is as though we, as the audience, are to question everything, ultimately the bigger questions of what is moral or immoral…as Phil says: ‘I’m in charge. Everyone is happier. What’s more important: one person or everyone?’ In this Phil comes across as quite the politician, stating opinions as facts ‘Everyone is happier’ but the use of a question entices them to feel connected, to a collective guilt, they initially shared a burden of manslaughter but now have to acknowledge, in order to protect themselves, they need to become responsible for murder in cold blood. Perhaps Kelly wants the audience to consider how easily young people can become embroiled in situations that spiral out of control; his own interpretation of Phil in a Guardian article from 2012 states: “I don’t deliberately write things to be brutal or to shock people, I don’t think I write characters that are bad, I think I write characters that are trying to do the right thing but are failing.” In Phil’s case, “I don’t think he’s getting any kind of enjoyment out of it. He’s trying to make the best out of a bad situation – what he does is flawed but it’s also natural. When I was a kid I felt that parents and adults weren’t anything to do with my world. We sorted out our own problems, often in a terrifying way, and I think he’s actually trying to do something good.”
The cast appears to portray a gang who get so involved in covering up an horrific crime that they seem to lose sight of their humanness, they lack empathy and the play focusses on their more sinister character traits. If we consider the seven deadly sins, we encounter avarice or greed, a trait perfectly reflected in the development of the character of Cathy, rather than be concerned that they may have sadistically murdered a member of the gang, or even ruined someone else’s life by falsely accusing them, she is intent on glory and material gain, she says: ‘they might even give me money for it, do you think I should ask for money?’ Kelly’s repetition of the word ‘money’ highlights her greed and is shocking for an audience, considering she is not showing any remorse. Perhaps Kelly is trying to highlight how the more developed our Western culture becomes the further away from being empathic humans we become, we turn off the news, we laugh at people’s pain on social media, hate crimes are on the rise…we even find ourselves laughing during moments of the play, the dramatic devices such as ‘Phil eats his pie.’ This dark humour makes us view his character as quite calm and collected, he is always absorbing what is going on and not panicking the way that other characters appear to be. An insightful yr 9 student suggests that even our language has become too casual, the use of the word ‘kill’ and ‘murder’ have been devalued in the way we often jokingly say things like ‘I’ll kill him when I see him!’
We may also consider history, one has only to look back at Ancient Rome and the practices at the Colloseum to see that humans have considered savagery a form of entertainment. This idea is echoed in a book by Bill Buford: 'Among the Thugs' in it Buford asks, 'what is a crowd?' a crowd killed Jesus, a crowd killed Socrates, the book itself gives the readers the impression that football violence was exciting, a concept we may wish to consider when studying Kelly's 'DNA'
Another thing we could consider is the idea of ‘Man’s inhumanity to man.’ Allegedly first documented in the Robert Burns poem called Man was made to mourn: A Dirge in 1784,
“Man's inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn!”
A sentiment echoed by staunch animal rights advocate George Bernard Shaw, he was a strict vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist and opponent of cruel sports. Shaw became a vegetarian in 1881 and remained so for sixty-six years until his death in 1950 and he proposed that, “Man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his cruelty to animals.” We could consider the irony of this as the one character who seems to be the voice of reason is also the one who is cruel to her own pet. Another more recent English novelist, William Golding also used similar ideas in his 1954 novel ‘Lord of the Flies.’ In the story a group of young schoolboys are marooned on a tropical island after their plane is shot down during a war. Its exploration of the idea of human evil is at least partly based on Golding’s experience with the real-life violence and brutality of World War II, he said of it:
“It was simply what seemed sensible for me to write after the war when everyone was thanking God they weren’t Nazi’s. I’d seen enough to realize that every single one of us could be Nazi’s.” This is suggestive that given the right set of circumstances everybody is capable of evil.
Through the ideas of poets, writers’ playwrights and philosophers we can see that the history of civilization abounds with records of the inhumanity of individuals and groups toward each other. Mutual respect, among individuals and groups, must be learned and practised. This is a difficult task, but an inescapable one and by having our views challenged we could learn more about humanity.
Proofreading
What you say does matter as much as how you say it, especially in a professional environment.
It's tough! Words and phrases that sound fine in your head can suddenly look like gobbledegook or gibberish when written down. That is, if you've even realized you made a mistake in the first place.
But how do you prevent grammatical errors if you're not even aware you're making them?
It's easy for little grammar mistakes to slip by -- especially when you're self-editing and don’t get somebody else to proofread. Important emails, documents, presentations or things going to print need to be proofread!
At the newspaper I worked for: ‘Stop the press’ was yelled because an advertisement for swimming pools on the front page should have said: “Have a splash in your new pool” unfortunately someone had left the ‘p’ out!
Finally, a joke
Q: How do you console someone who has poor grammar?
A: There, their, they’re!
It's tough! Words and phrases that sound fine in your head can suddenly look like gobbledegook or gibberish when written down. That is, if you've even realized you made a mistake in the first place.
But how do you prevent grammatical errors if you're not even aware you're making them?
It's easy for little grammar mistakes to slip by -- especially when you're self-editing and don’t get somebody else to proofread. Important emails, documents, presentations or things going to print need to be proofread!
At the newspaper I worked for: ‘Stop the press’ was yelled because an advertisement for swimming pools on the front page should have said: “Have a splash in your new pool” unfortunately someone had left the ‘p’ out!
Finally, a joke
Q: How do you console someone who has poor grammar?
A: There, their, they’re!