Hillsboro Monkey Trial

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.

When a man stands up for his beliefs despite their unpopularity, he exemplifies great bravery. While Bertram Cates may not have been the most brave man when the trial began, he later addresses the courtroom by saying, “I feel I am… I have been convicted of violating an unjust law. I will continue in the future, as I have in the past, to oppose this law in any way I can,” (115). Bert bravely states his point of view in his speech and makes it clear that he stands behind Darwinism. While picking the jury members, Drummond “[objects] to all [the] ‘Colonel’ talk,” (42) because he believes it interferes with a fair trial. In addition to annoying Brady, Drummond objects to the title because he is brave enough to stand up to what he thinks is unjust. On a more general note, Drummond had the bravery to go to Hillsboro as the defense attorney for Bert even though winning the case was nearly impossible and there was no pay. Although their opinions were not popular in the play, Bert and Drummond show great bravery by standing up for

Inherit the Wind is a powerful play written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee that tells of the significant battle of conventional, religious powers versus freedom and the growing reality of Charles Darwin’s theories. This play is not the exact encounter of the courtroom battle but rather a dramatic retelling of one of the greatest courthouse showdowns in human history. Although many think the religious “Bible-thumpers” defending the Bible to be bias and inconsiderate in this play and in the actual account, those accusers may now look back and see that those “Bible-beaters” really did know what they were talking about they just didn’t quite know how to defeat the false belief of evolution but still keep the freedom of speech and press.

The tendency for the Salem community to believe “that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between” (87) clearly mirrors the persecution of “communist sympathisers” in the McCarthy era, and Miller draws this parallel to emphasise the importance of acknowledging moral ambiguity. In addition, Miller also raises the issue of “social compliance”, a phenomenon that often occurs when there is fear brewing within a community. As demonstrated with the Puritans’ willingness to persecute villagers even without any evidence, “is the accuser always holy now?” (73), as well as the lack of characters who dared to question the legitimacy of the witch trials, Miller successfully highlights the catastrophic effects of conforming to a society driven by fear. Hence, the play is able to raise ideas that are relevant not only to the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era, but also to many historical events that involved the persecution of a group of people without adequate

In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, faith was central to the government, just as freedom was the basic foundation of the American government in 1947. Faith and Freedom are both taken personally to a sizable sum of people, but the true meaning of those words varies from each individual to the next. Despite the thought that each person owns their own definition of the words “Faith” and “Freedom”, people who resided in Salem in 1692 were judged so harshly due to the fact that they did not have the same beliefs or morals as politicians or others who were put in charge above them. Salem is a direct parallel to the McCarthy era when people were accused of being communist due to a different thought system that they possessed that others in the government

Freedom of speech is on the same level of importance as freedom of thought. Speech is taking one’s thoughts and transmitting them into words. Both are exiled in the world of Harrison Bergeron and are said to be unwanted. The opportunity to speak one’s free will is not a luxury it is a necessity for all humans. For a group of people to take this away from others and compress them is against

Rules exist to keep order. Rules exist to prevent chaos and evil from running rampant in society. Rules, however, can exist to limit the freedoms of the people that are meant to be protected instead. In these cases, do the people have the right to break these restrictions? Author Ray Bradbury, in his post-modern novel Fahrenheit 451, illustrates this idea in the form of a story of a fireman, Guy Montag, who takes a stand against the censorship and oppression of free thought present in the novel’s setting. Using dystopian elements, Bradbury brings to attention the mindless use of technology as well as the decline of meaningful thoughts. In comparison to Bradbury’s literary work, Patrick Henry’s historical speech titled “Speech to the Second

Have you ever heard of the “Attorney for the Damned?” Both Clarence Darrow and Henry Drummond were set to win impossible cases. In the play Inherit the wind and the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial, Darrow and Drummond were on the impossible side. The trials were evolution against religion. Darrow and Drummond both had to represent the side of evolution in a religious-biased town. In the play Inherit the Wind, the character, Henry Drummond, parallels his real-life counterpart, Clarence Darrow, through his beliefs, his contribution to the Scopes Monkey Trial, and his career.

Ever since science began to explain the previously unexplainable, it has caused conflicts with religion. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial of Dayton, Tennessee was one of the most talked about trials in history because it was one of the first and most publicized times that this conflict occurred. The trial showed the schism between the faithful fundamentalists and the newly formed group of evolutionists. Although the jury was reminded that they only had to decide if Scopes had broken the law, the verdict was seen as much more than that. For one of the first times in history, it seemed as if the jury had to choose either religion or evolution. For the time being, there could not be both. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial revealed the ongoing conflict with

Darwin received less audience in the population that felt that their beliefs were challenged. Although Darwin was not the

The Big Boys Newspaper was historically accurate in that the newspapers date was 1929 and all the facts were correct. The newspaper felt more professional than most of the other newspapers I reviewed and it felt like it was something that the New York Times might release. It was easy to follow their train of thought and understand. The only issue I have with their newspaper is their font seemed to change a couple of times. They educated me on the topics of the Teapot Dome Scandal and the Scopes Monkey trial. The Teapot Dome Scandal was caused because of a lack of regulation in the United States Government. Albert Bacon Fall had secretly granted the rights of the federal oil reserve to Harry Sinclair who was in charge of the Mammoth Oil

The play Inherit the Wind, was written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee to inform its readers about the injustice of a law that limited the freedom of an ordinary citizen. This play is based upon actual events that happened to an individual, John Scopes, in Dayton, Tennessee during the 1920’s. This famous “Monkey Trial” not only allowed people to begin to accept new theories about the origin of man, but also showed that they did not have to limit themselves in other areas of life.

The Scopes Trial, formally known as The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes but given the nickname “The Monkey Trial”, has been credited as starting the popular legal dispute between evolution and creationism in the court, and its impact in the 20’s was immeasurable.

In 1895 Charles Darwin published a book describing his theory of evolution, and his theory of the natural selection process. This theory caused much uproar in the religious community because Darwin’s theory went against the story of creation portrayed in the Holy Bible. His theory claimed that all life currently in place had evolved and adapted from a single organism in the beginning. Over time and by process of natural selection only the dominant species were left over while the other, less dominant species, went extinct. His theory, backed by scientific analysis, had dismissed the idea of a single deity creating all life on Earth. It is not like Darwin had a personal agenda against religion or anything,

     Darwin’s Theories upset the church, one of the things that he proposed was that all living things may have descended from the same species. Today it is believed that life may have started as replicating molecules. Darwin introduced the idea that life is not just evolving but the earth is also changing. This went against creationism, the Bible says that god created the world and all the animals. It also separated man from the animals because god created man in