Character Analysis — Phil & Leah

Phil and Leah are the central pairing in DNA. Their relationship — or rather, the absence of a genuine relationship — is one of the play's most powerful dramatic devices. This lesson examines both characters in detail.

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Phil

Overview

Phil is the play's most enigmatic and disturbing character. He barely speaks, yet he controls everything. He is not the group's official leader (that is initially John Tate), but he becomes its de facto authority through sheer force of intelligence and emotional detachment.

Aspect	Detail
Role	De facto leader of the group
Key trait	Silence, emotional detachment, cold rationality
Dramatic function	Drives the plot through his plans; embodies the play's moral questions
Associated with	Food (ice cream, waffles), silence, the woods

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Phil's Silence

Phil's most striking characteristic is his silence. Throughout the play, he says very little — and when he does speak, it is to give precise, calculated instructions.

What Phil does	What it reveals
Eats while Leah talks	Emotional disengagement; refusal to connect
Ignores Leah's pleas and questions	He does not need or value human connection
Speaks only to plan the cover-up	Language is a tool for control, not communication
Never expresses emotion	Either he feels nothing, or he suppresses everything

Examiner's tip: Phil's silence is one of the most important features to analyse. You could write: "Kelly uses Phil's silence to suggest that true power lies not in speech but in withholding it. Phil's refusal to respond to Leah forces her — and the audience — to project meaning onto his blankness, making him both compelling and terrifying."

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Phil's Intelligence

Phil is clearly the most intelligent member of the group. His cover-up plan is:

• Forensically detailed — he understands how DNA evidence works and how to plant it.
• Psychologically astute — he chooses Brian as the witness because Brian is emotionally fragile and therefore convincing.
• Immediately effective — the police and media believe it entirely.

However, Phil's intelligence is entirely amoral. He uses it not to find the right thing to do, but to find the most effective way to avoid consequences.

"Kelly presents Phil as a figure who is terrifyingly competent but morally vacant — his intelligence serves self-preservation, never conscience." — Study note

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Phil and Food

Phil is repeatedly associated with eating:

Section	Phil eats...	Context
1	An ice cream	While Leah pours out her anxieties
2	A packet of crisps	While the group discusses the arrested man
3	A drink / food	While deciding whether Adam should be killed
4	A waffle	While Richard reports the group's collapse

The food motif has several possible interpretations:

1. Mundane normality — Phil treats catastrophic events as no more significant than snack time.
2. Oral fixation replacing speech — he fills his mouth with food instead of words.
3. Consumption as control — eating is a self-contained, self-serving act that requires no one else.
4. Disturbing calm — the contrast between eating and moral crisis creates a deeply unsettling effect.

Examiner's tip: Always link Phil's eating to the wider themes. For example: "Kelly's repeated association of Phil with food creates a jarring contrast between the mundane act of eating and the moral catastrophe unfolding around him, suggesting that Phil has normalised the abnormal."

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Phil's Power

Phil does not seize power through aggression or charisma. He acquires it through competence in crisis:

John Tate (panics) → loses authority
        ↓
Phil (stays calm, devises plan) → gains authority
        ↓
Group (desperate) → follows Phil unquestioningly

This connects to the Milgram experiment: the group obeys Phil not because he threatens them, but because he projects authority and certainty in a moment of chaos. They want someone to tell them what to do.

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Phil's Moral Arc

Section	Phil's moral position
1	Devises a cover-up — morally wrong but arguably understandable
2	Shows no concern that an innocent man has been arrested
3	Suggests killing Adam — crosses the line into potential murder
4	Walks away from Adam in the woods — complete moral abandonment

Phil's trajectory is one of escalating amorality. He does not descend from goodness to evil — he was never good. He simply reveals, step by step, the full extent of his detachment.

Examiner's tip: A Grade 9 response might argue: "Phil is not a character who 'turns evil' — Kelly suggests that his amorality was always present, hidden behind silence. The crisis merely provides the conditions for it to become visible."

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Leah

Overview

Leah is Phil's counterpart and the play's moral voice. She talks constantly, asks philosophical questions, and is the only character who consistently tries to engage with the ethical dimensions of what has happened.

Aspect	Detail
Role	Phil's companion; the play's moral and philosophical voice
Key trait	Compulsive speech, emotional vulnerability, moral awareness
Dramatic function	Provides thematic commentary; represents conscience
Associated with	Speech, questions, bonobos, self-harm

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Leah's Monologues

Leah's extended speeches to Phil are among the most important passages in the play. They serve several functions:

Function	Example
Thematic commentary	Her discussion of bonobos explores whether humans are naturally violent
Dramatic contrast	Her words fill the silence that Phil refuses to break
Emotional barometer	Her increasing desperation mirrors the group's moral decline
Philosophical exploration	She asks questions the other characters refuse to consider

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Leah and the Bonobos

In Section 1, Leah tells Phil about bonobos — apes that are closely related to humans but resolve conflict through social bonding rather than aggression.

"Bonobos are our nearest relatives and they do not kill each other." — Leah (paraphrased)

This is not random chatter. Kelly uses the bonobo reference to raise the play's central question: is violence an inevitable part of human nature, or do we choose it?

Bonobos (peaceful)	The group (violent)
Resolve conflict through bonding	Resolve crisis through deception and violence
Cooperative social structure	Hierarchical, dominated by the strongest
Share resources	Sacrifice others to protect themselves

Examiner's tip: The bonobo reference is a gift for examiners. Write something like: "Kelly uses Leah's reference to bonobos as a counterpoint to the group's behaviour, implying that violence is not inevitable but chosen — making the characters' actions a moral failure, not a biological inevitability."

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Leah's Need for Connection

Leah desperately wants Phil to respond to her — to acknowledge her existence, to validate her thoughts, to show that he cares. He never does.

Her attempts to get a reaction escalate across the play:

Section	Leah's attempt
1	Asks Phil questions, discusses ideas
2	More insistent, begins to challenge Phil
3	Threatens to harm herself — "I'm going to set fire to myself"
4	She is gone — she has given up entirely

This escalation mirrors the play's overall trajectory: from hope to despair to absence.

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Leah as Moral Compass

Leah is the only character who consistently questions what the group is doing:

• She asks whether what they did was wrong.
• She wonders about the consequences for the innocent man.
• She is disturbed by Phil's increasing ruthlessness.
• She raises philosophical questions about human nature and morality.

However, Leah's moral awareness is not matched by moral action. She questions, but she does not act. She does not go to the police. She does not stop Phil. She does not save Adam.

Examiner's tip: This is a crucial analytical point. Leah represents moral awareness without moral courage. You could write: "Kelly suggests through Leah that knowing something is wrong is not the same as doing something about it — her conscience is active but her will is passive."

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Leah's Departure

In Section 4, Leah is simply not there. Richard tells Phil that she has left. This is significant:

1. She has removed herself from the moral catastrophe — the only character to do so.
2. Her absence proves her irrelevance to Phil — he replaces her with Richard without apparent concern.
3. It suggests moral awareness is unsustainable in this environment — if you cannot change the group, your only option is to leave.
4. The audience loses its moral guide — without Leah, we are left with Phil's blankness and the group's collapse.

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The Phil-Leah Dynamic

The relationship between Phil and Leah is defined by asymmetry: