Cathy

From excited follower to violent leader

Cathy’s development in Dennis Kelly’s DNA reveals a disturbing connection between cruelty and power. At first she follows the group’s leaders, but she increasingly helps make their plans work. By the end, she has become its leader herself. Her rise contrasts with the damage suffered by other characters: where some withdraw, feel remorse or become traumatised, Cathy gains attention and authority.

The group initially believes that its bullying has caused Adam’s death. Rather than tell the truth, the teenagers follow Phil’s plan to divert suspicion. Cathy is important because she does more than agree with him: she takes practical action that makes the cover-up increasingly destructive.

One: a death becomes entertainment

In Section One Scene 3, Kelly’s stage direction presents ‘CATHY grinning, BRIAN crying.’ This visible contrast establishes their different responses before Cathy explains herself. Brian’s tears suggest distress; Cathy’s grin makes the situation appear enjoyable to her. On stage, an audience can see both reactions at once, making her lack of sympathy particularly unsettling.

Cathy finds the crisis more exciting than everyday life. Literally, she enjoys the unusual events. The deeper implication is that another person’s suffering offers relief from boredom. She measures the situation by what it gives her, rather than by what it has cost Adam. Kelly presents a character whose desire for stimulation displaces concern for others.

She initially accepts John Tate’s leadership, then follows Phil when he takes control. Her willingness to serve whoever leads suggests that belonging and status matter more to her than a consistent moral principle.

Two: showing initiative without showing compassion

In Section Two Scene 3, the group discovers that an actual postman has been implicated. Phil had invented a description of a supposed suspect. Cathy finds a man who matches it and arranges for him to pick up Adam’s jumper, leaving his DNA on it. Her intervention links an innocent person to the group’s false story.

Cathy’s explanation ‘There were quite a few’ in Section Two Scene 3 becomes a comic punchline about finding men who fit the description. Its everyday, practical tone sits beside the terrible prospect of wrongful imprisonment. This is black comedy: humour arising from disturbing events. The reply can sound funny, yet the audience must recognise the human cost behind the joke. Humour exposes her distorted priorities rather than making the injustice harmless.

Cathy repeatedly defends her actions through the idea of initiative. She tells Richard ‘we showed initiative’ in Section Two Scene 3. ‘Initiative’ usually suggests a positive quality: acting independently and solving a problem. Here, the problem she has solved is how to make a lie convincing. Kelly gives a normally approving word an alarming context. The pronoun ‘we’ presents the action as a shared achievement rather than something requiring remorse.

Her prose dialogue contains hesitations and self-corrections: her account moves from a collective explanation towards acknowledging her own decision. This resembles everyday conversation, but also shows her trying to justify herself. She appears to expect approval for being resourceful rather than condemnation for harming someone.

Leah acts as Cathy’s foil: a character whose contrasting values reveal another character’s qualities. Leah’s reference to a ‘non-existent crime’ in Section Two Scene 3 stresses that the postman faces punishment for something that never happened. Cathy focuses on the effectiveness of the plan; Leah focuses on justice and the innocent man’s life. Their disagreement exposes the difference between doing something successfully and doing something rightly.

The repeated stage direction ‘They stare at her.’ in Section Two Scene 3 turns this difference into a visible dramatic effect. The group’s astonishment interrupts Cathy’s practical account. An actor could deliver her explanation matter-of-factly while the others remain still, allowing the audience to notice how little she understands their horror. The pauses and reactions matter as much as the words.

Three: attention, violence and obedience

By Section Three, Cathy benefits from the public attention surrounding Adam’s supposed death. Leah reports that she appears on television and that first-year pupils ask for her autograph. Cathy treats the crisis as an opportunity for celebrity rather than an occasion for grief. Her interest in payment for an interview further connects another person’s suffering with personal reward.

Her cruelty also becomes physical: she slaps Brian. This matters to her development because she is no longer merely an excited observer. She uses violence against a vulnerable member of the group, anticipating the fear through which she will later exercise power.

Adam’s return creates the decisive crisis in Section Three Scene 3. His survival threatens to expose the lies and the framing of the postman. Phil tells Cathy ‘He can’t come back’. These are Phil’s words, not Cathy’s. The absolute negative closes down the possibility of rescuing Adam, treating his return as a threat rather than something to celebrate.

Phil turns towards Cathy because she will help him put this conclusion into practice. When he asks whether she understands, she answers ‘Yeah. I do.’ in Section Three Scene 3. The short sentences suggest agreement without the moral questioning heard in Leah’s interrupted appeals. Cathy’s later question ‘How?’ concerns the method, not whether the action is right.

Phil demonstrates his deadly plan using a plastic bag over Brian’s head. Kelly then writes ‘PHIL looks to CATHY. She nods.’ in Section Three Scene 3. This non-verbal exchange makes their shared understanding visible. Cathy does not need a long speech: her nod shows her acceptance of the instruction.

Leah tries to stop her: ‘No, Cathy, don’t, stop, Cathy…?’ in Section Three Scene 3. The repeated name and broken sequence of commands convey urgency, but the following stage direction shows Cathy leaving with Brian anyway. Her obedience involves rejecting an alternative: the audience sees someone arguing against the killing, not a group that has no choice. Cathy carries out Phil’s plan to kill Adam off stage.

Structurally, this is an escalation from concealing an apparently accidental death to deliberately killing someone who is alive. The wood’s separation from public life reinforces the secrecy of their actions. Cathy becomes Phil’s effective deputy: he devises the plan, while she carries it out. Kelly shows how a follower can become powerful by making a leader’s cruelty possible.

Four: leadership through fear

Cathy does not appear in the final scene. Instead, Richard reports her position to Phil in Section Four Scene 2. She now runs the group, while Phil has withdrawn. Her apparent success is not moral improvement: it is increased control.

Richard describes her indifference and expresses alarm at her violence. His judgement of her behaviour communicates his horror; it should not be treated as a medical diagnosis.

He also reports an allegation that Cathy cut off a first-year pupil’s finger, qualifying it as something people say. The rumour still matters: even an unconfirmed story can establish a frightening reputation. Cathy’s power reaches beyond the original group to younger pupils, suggesting that bullying continues rather than ending with Adam’s death.

Richard questions whether this troubles Phil, but receives no answer. Phil’s absence from leadership has not removed the destructive behaviour he helped establish. Structurally, the final report completes Cathy’s movement from follower to deputy to leader. The audience is left considering a hierarchy in which ruthlessness brings advancement.

Cruel by nature, or corrupted by the group?

One reading presents Cathy as sadistic from the beginning. Sadism means enjoyment of another person’s pain or humiliation. Her grin and enjoyment of the crisis precede her rise to leadership. Her later violence develops an early willingness to treat suffering as entertainment.

Another reading emphasises corruption through the group. Cathy starts as a follower, gains attention through the cover-up and learns that obeying violent leaders can bring status. Her progression suggests that the group encourages and rewards cruelty.

These readings can work together. Kelly presents early callousness, then shows circumstances that allow it to grow into organised power. Explaining that influence does not remove Cathy’s responsibility: she actively frames the postman and carries out Phil’s plan despite Leah’s opposition.

Cathy’s position as the final female leader can also challenge expectations about gender. She adopts the aggression associated with John Tate and Phil, whereas Leah’s moral objections fail to give her authority. However, Kelly allows characters’ names and genders to change for performance. Violence is therefore not presented as naturally male: the more important distinction is between accepting the group’s brutal values and resisting them.

The play also connects with early twenty-first-century media fears about supposedly lawless young people. Cathy’s extreme behaviour can be read as a blackly comic exaggeration of those fears. Her enjoyment of television attention makes the relationship between violence, publicity and reward especially uncomfortable.

Part (b): turning short quotations into analysis

A useful paragraph moves from an interpretation to evidence, then explains Kelly’s choices and their effects:

Kelly presents Cathy’s obedience as an active contribution to the group’s cruelty. In Section Three Scene 3, she answers Phil’s question with ‘Yeah. I do.’ The short, decisive sentences contrast with Leah’s fragmented protests, suggesting that Cathy accepts what Leah finds morally intolerable. Kelly also makes her agreement visible through the stage direction ‘PHIL looks to CATHY. She nods.’ Their silent exchange shows that Phil can rely on Cathy to act without needing to defend his plan aloud. Her departure with Brian despite Leah’s appeals therefore marks a disturbing development: the excited follower has become the person who turns the leader’s intentions into violence.

This paragraph links short quotations to dialogue, stage directions and Cathy’s development. It builds an argument rather than simply recounting her actions.

Using Cathy in OCR’s two-part question

Part (a), worth 20 marks, compares the printed DNA extract with an unseen modern drama extract. AO1, your interpretation supported by evidence, and AO3, relevant context, are equally dominant; each has twice the weighting of AO2. Context includes the social situations, motivations and consequences revealed by the extracts and their introductions. In Cathy’s exchange with Leah, the threat to the innocent postman’s life helps explain why their disagreement is morally serious. Compare how the unseen characters respond to their own situation rather than forcing them into Cathy’s circumstances.

Part (b), also worth 20 marks, explores another moment in DNA from memory. AO1 and AO2 are equally weighted, with no marks allocated to AO3. Select a moment relevant to the question and explain how Kelly’s language, dramatic form and structure create meaning. Cathy’s response to Adam’s supposed death, her role in his killing, or Richard’s final account offer different evidence for different arguments.

Cathy’s development

• One: grinning follower; finds the crisis exciting. Suffering becomes entertainment.
• Two: frames a real postman. ‘we showed initiative’ presents wrongdoing as achievement.
• Three: enjoys television attention and autographs; uses violence against Brian; carries out Phil’s plan to kill Adam despite Leah’s opposition.
• Four: Richard reports her leadership. Cruelty and a frightening reputation sustain her power.

Methods and meanings

• Contrast: Cathy’s grin against Brian’s tears; her practical account against Leah’s moral outrage.
• Black comedy: ‘There were quite a few’ turns an ordinary-sounding punchline into a disastrous injustice.
• Stage directions: repeated ‘They stare at her.’ expose the others’ astonishment; Cathy’s nod shows agreement with Phil.
• Structure: follower → deputy → leader; violence continues after Phil withdraws.
• Reported reputation: the finger allegation is a rumour, but helps establish fear.