Comparison Of Jerome Lawrence And Robert E. Lee's Inherit The Wind

In today’s society, “City on a Hill,” is a cliche, a quaint romantic notion of an ideal society, but for the Puritans of the 17th century, the “City on a Hill” was much more. It represented a tangible goal of moral ambition, achievable through purity of thought and action. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible , the City on a Hill” that Puritans refer to suggests that their way of living life is perfect, including that all people should be devoted to God. Citizens had many strict restrictions, however it was these restrictions towards certain things that made the Puritans believe that they were living in a perfect society. The Puritans of Salem took the basic Puritan philosophy to the extreme, becoming intolerant, suspicious, and rigid in their way of living life. The Puritans desire to live a life that was perfect, a “ City on a Hill,” actually created an imperfect society.

In Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s tense drama, “Inherit the Wind”, three strong characters express powerful opinions: Bertrum Cates , Henry Drummond, and Mathew Harrison Brady. First, Bert Cates, the defendant, is charged with teaching “Darwinism” to his sophomore class . Second, Henry Drummond, the defense attorney for Cates, displays his beliefs of the right to think. third, Mathew Harrison Brady, the “big-shot” prosecuting attorney, illustrates his bigotry of creationism. To conclude, these three essential characters are fighting for their personal beliefs.

John Edwards and John Winthrop were two Puritan writers who tried to take on the new world, with only the rudimentary tools of the unfinished society from which they came. While both authors are renowned for their sermons during this time, Edwards is known for his drastic and dramatic, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”, and Winthrop for his vision of society in, “A Modell of Christian Charity”. Edwards appeals to all sinners in his sermon, where he warns them that God will be the judge of their actions, and that their consequences may be severe. While Winthrop on the other hand, carefully laid out the religious and social principles that would be the Puritan foundation of their beliefs, stemming from his understanding of the Holy Bible. In Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”and Winthrop’s, “A Modell of Christian Charity”, we see that both writers had similar beliefs that stemmed from their Puritan background, yet their interpretations of the bible differed in the way that they expressed these ideologies to the public.

Part one is everything leading up to the trial and sets the stage for the rejection of Darwinism and evolution theories by Protestants and fundamentalists. Larson characterizes the emerging conflict as “populist majoritarianism and traditional evangelical faith versus scientific secularism and modern concepts of individual liberty” (Larson,83). Larson uses his knowledge of history to touch on the fact that before the 1920s both science and Christianity had a cordial relationship. Fundamentalist Christians would stir up the issue of evolution in the 1920s leading to the antievolution crusade. Larson goes into further detail of the theory of evolution, Darwinism, the fundamentalist and Protestants, and the idea of poisoning children with evolution leaving a lot of social unrest. Larson uses all this history to set up the conflict between the famous politician William Jennings Bryan and the American Civil Liberties Union. Bryan is a leading antievolutionist and is involved in many of the antievolution laws during this time. The American Civil Liberties Union was originally founded to defend protestors during world war one then shifted focus to defending labor union

Through the 1920s, conflicts regarding the teachings of religious values versus Evolution, along with the increasing fight for women’s independence, caused a great deal of tension within America. Prior to the ‘20s schools taught the Bible and Christianity’s principles were stressed. It was in 1925 when Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes, a biology teacher, who was put on trial in the court for teaching the theory of Evolution (Doc C). This document illustrates the dialogue of

The 1920’s were a time of change. New ideas were becoming more readily experimented with and even accepted by large portions of the population. Some of these included jazz music and the fight against the alcoholic prohibition. The radical idea I will focus on in this paper, however, is Evolution. It is a theory that had been around for over half a century before the 20’s but had only more recently caught on in the US. It contradicted the Christian theory of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. This caused many religious fundamentalists to fight against it. They took their battle to the law books, and they were challenged by pro-evolution modernists in the Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.

“All men are created equal” (Lee 274) cited by Thomas Jefferson, in the infamous 1776 Declaration of Independence. Throughout this paper, I will present facts that counter this claim excluding African Americans and Jews during the 1930’s and 40’s. This assignment requires me to compare and contrast, Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Elie Wiesel “Night” by selecting three universal themes. My themes are racism, inequality in the judicial system and educational barriers has interfered with everyone being afforded “due process” in their pursuit to attain life, liberty, and prosperity (the basic liberties) protected by the 14th Amendment.

In his essay “Walking” Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature: “In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilised free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad, in all scriptures and mythologies,not learned in schools, that delights us” Write an essay in which you explain what constitutes The Poisonwood Bible’s “uncivilised, wild and free thinking,” and how that thinking is central to the value and meaning of the work as a whole.

In the early 1600’s, there was a group of Christians seeking religious freedom called the Puritans.They were thought to be spreading God’s love but what were really their intentions? Many accounts show the Puritans as good-natured people but some believe that the Puritans were manipulative and deceiving. Anne Bradstreet’s poem “ Upon the Burning of Our House” and Pastor Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” are both Puritan influenced bodies of works,however contradictory tactics are used to lead non-believers to God.

family. He was a waster, with no thought for their welfare. A man with no

-The teacher, Cates, is on trial because he was curious about the creation of the world. Bertram Cates read the theory of evolution from his Civic Biology book to his sophomore class. Bertram discovered new information and wanted to express his ideas to the students in the class. (Pg. 8, “I opened it up and read my sophomore science class Chapter 17, Darwin’s Origin of Species. All it says is that man wasn’t just stuck here like a geranium in a flower pot; that living comes from a long miracle, it didn’t just happen in 7 days.”)

The Scopes Trial, a Dayton, Tennessee legal case involving the teaching of evolution within the public school system, induced a pivotal point in American history. This world-famous trial represents the ongoing conflict between science and theology, faith and reason, individual freedom of speech, and overruling opinion of the majority. The preeminent purpose of the case was to decide not only the fate of an evolution theory teacher by the name of John Scopes, but also to decide if fundamentalists or modernists would rule American culture and education. An object of profound publicity, the trial was identified as a battle between urban modernism and rural fundamentalism.

Throughout United States history, Americans have always remain separated on certain issues. Edward Larson’s work Summer for the Gods exemplifies just how issues split the population. Larson uses the Scopes Trial of 1925 to demonstrate to the rivalry between modernists and traditionalists in the early 20th century. Charles Dawson discovered fossilized human bones known as the “Piltdown skull” and bridged a gap in history that seemed to confirm Darwin’s theory of evolution. "Darwin 's account of random variations, coupled with his survival-of-the-fittest selection process, posed a critical problem for many Christians who retained a teleological view of nature.” (Larson, 17) This threat to Christian spirituality sparked an anti-evolution movement in an attempt to revoke the teachings of evolution in public school systems. The Tennessee House of Representatives soon passed a statute making it illegal for any public school official to teach any theory that rejected the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible. The Scopes Trial would prove to be more than an argument between science and religion and the removal of textbook content. It was individual rights versus the right of majority rule, freedom of speech versus censorship, and evolution versus creationism.

America was and still remains an ideological experiment. This ongoing experiment-the basic foundation for American society today-began with the settlement of the Puritans (1628-1630) at Massachusetts Bay in 1630. From the very beginning the Puritans had a plan, this plan was to create an exemplary society based on their beliefs of individualism and democracy “for the world to see”. However, in order to understand Puritan society one must note that reality and belief hold two very different meanings. A belief is a state of mind in which trust and confidence is placed in an idea or thing. While reality is a fact about the living moment past, present or future. This idea is important because the Puritans lived a life of constant struggle between reality and belief. They believed in the notions of individualism and democracy. Yet, in reality these notions posed as the largest threats to their society.

An informed written analysis and evaluation of a piece of work is known as literary criticism, and it is often based on literary theory. One literary theory technique is intertextual criticism, which allows the reader to acknowledge similarities between literature. Throughout Harper Lee’s fictitious novel To Kill A Mockingbird, and the historical fiction novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles, the authors take advantage of intertextual criticism to identify universal themes and symbols within their work. Both novels display similarities when they incorporate a tree as a symbol of friendship, the child archetype and the loss of innocence.