Themes

1) Humans taking charge of future creation of humanity (morally right or wrong)
2) Parents need to understand that teenagers make their own decsions and that protecting them only causes more harm.

Conflict

person vs. person --- Eli is fighting with his father about working at the lab and fighting with Dr. wyatt when he's trying to find the truth

person vs. self --- Eli is fighting himself when he's emotionally trying to get over his mom's death.

The Swamp Thing (an allusion)

The Swamp Thing- comic book character that was genetically alterted to be half man, half plant

Falling Action

1)Kayla steals key to mystery elevator from Dr. Wyatt's office.
2) Eli and Kayla enter mysterious basement level and find Dr. Wyatt's secret office filled with files of paperwork (of their exact genes) and a fridge of their mother's eggs in petri dishes.
3)WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? Read on...

Climax

1)Eli finds out that his mom gave Dr. wyatt a clutch of her eggs to make one of those eggs have a negative HD gene. (This egg would become her child).
2) In return for this, Dr. Wyatt got to keep the leftovers as potential perfect children.

Rising Action

1) Eli becomes good friends with Dr. Wyatt
2) Eli meets Kayla, who's "perfect".
3) Eli discovers hidden elevator in labratory, but it's locked.
4) Eli's mother dies from HD.
5) Eli finds baby picture with Kayla next to him.

Exposistion

1)Eli graduates from high school, but he will not be going to college.

2)Instead, he plans to save up money by getting a job at Wyatt Transgenics.

3) His boss is Dr. Quincy Wyatt- a famous geneticist.

4)His father begs him to not take the job, but Eli's curiosity gets the best of him.

5)His mother has no input because she was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease (HD) years ago and can't think normally.

Setting of Double Helix

Overall: Cambridge, a medium-sized town
fairly modern story
maybe a bit into the future because of the advanced scientific labratories

Individual: Wyatt Transgenics (lab where Eli is hired)
nursing home where mother lives

An Inside Look on Eli Samuels

Appearance- 7 ft. tall, extremely good-looking
Speech- smart, has a broad vocabulary, can discuss diffucult topics
Thoughts- constantly questioning things
Actions- does what is right
Reactions of Others- outsiders see a teenager that's too perfect

Nancy Werlin

-an award winning young-adult fiction writer
-is best known for her suspense thrillers
-can tackle diffucult subjects in a sensitive and engaging way