Inherit The Wind Analysis

The decade of the 1920’s was a busy grouping of ten years in America. The power of women’s desire to vote won them suffrage while uncertainty sprouted from government actions such as prohibition and especially the Scopes Trial of 1925. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s play Inherit the Wind is a depiction of this unsettling event that took place in 1925. The four main characters of the play are Bertram Cates, Rachel Brown, Henry Drummond, and Matthew Harrison Brady. The friendships between these four main characters are used to show that friendship is a powerful bond, and how the bonds protected Bertram Cates from a larger punishment in court.

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.

Often times when reading, characters will seem as if they've been plucked straight from the real world and thrust into the plot of a story. Inherit the Wind by Robert Lee is a novel adaptation of a play that was originally written in 1955. Inherit the Wind focuses on the predominantly devout Christian town—Hillsboro. Bertram Cates, a school teacher labeled as an "evolutionist," is being prosecuted by a well-known and beloved politician—Matthew Harrison Brady. Consequently, a quick-witted and intelligent lawyer—Henry Drummond—comes to town to defend Cates and "the right to think." After reading Robert Lee's novel adaptation of Inherit the Wind, it was evident Rachel Brown and I possess some similar qualities and traits. For example, neither of us like to go against the popular belief, we try to be open-minded, and we are put under an abundance of pressure from our parents and society.

	Brady and Drummond, two former partners, beginning their legal lives working together. Now each one strives to be superior, confident in their ways and beliefs, trying to out-do the other. Despite a common goal, the two gradually became very different people, as is evident in the play and movie,Inherit the Wind. Throughout the years, as each one fought cases, established a name for themselves, and gained popularity (or notoriety), they kept a careful watch on the other. Learning of the others triumphs, which pushed them to try even harder, become more set in their ways, believing that their heterogeneous beliefs were right, and that if they kept those beliefs the focus of their existence, they could eventually prove themselves

The personification of the wind in paragraph three relates to how life tries to bring us down sometimes. In the beginning of the passage it says, “[The wind] did everything it could do to discourage the people walking along the street.” Occasionally people will act as the wind did and try to discourage us from pursuing our ideas and passions. However, we have to ignore others opinions sometimes and keep walking the path of life. As we continue our journey, the wind still tries to stop us. In the story, “It found all the dirt and dust and grime on the sidewalk and lifted it up into their noses, making it difficult to breathe; the dust got in their eyes and blinded them; and the grit stung their skins.” When we try to pursue our ideas and passions,

As probably the best courtroom dramas of the twentieth century, Inherit the Wind is based on the famous, Scopes Monkey Trial. The play was printed virtually thirty years afterward and takes original authority in varying the true-life elements of the court case. The central conflict of the play is based on the Scopes Monkey Trial itself. Several themes are presented throughout the play, for example when Brady argues for religious values while Drummond argues for natural values and freedom of thought. The definition of a theme is an implicit or recurrent idea. We also see a theme of man versus society, furthermore, Bertram Cates versus the small town of Hillsboro. A third theme is appearance

Creationism or Evolutionism? God or Darwin? This is a topic that has been debated for many years. Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee dared to search for the long-awaited answer. Lawrence and Lee wrote Inherit the Wind based off of the true events of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The authors used characters, such as Matthew Brady, Henry Drummond, and Reverend Brown, to develop a theme of an individual’s power to change society.

Martha Ward’s Nest in the Wind is the fascinating account of culture on the small island, Pohnpei in Micronesia. Ward is an American anthropologist from New Orleans who two years living on Pohnpei working on a blood-pressure research project and studying the culture of the island in the 70’s. She later returned for a shorter visit to the island to see how the culture had changed in the years she had been gone. Pohnpei is very different from western society in nearly every aspect of life, from how the people define family, value systems and norms, and even how their economic system operates. Ward documented all of these things in her account of the island as she learned, and was embraced into the culture of Pohnpei.

     The essential theme expressed in Inherit the Wind is narrow mindedness vs. intellectual curiosity. As the play opens, the writers described the town of Hillsboro as being “visible always, looming there, as much on trial as the individual defendant ( p.3).” They go onto describing the courtroom with walls, in which the town square, shops, and streets were always visible. In making the town always visible, it is evident to the viewer that the court case is not just a question of disembodied ideas or legal principles. Instead, the play and the court case it dramatizes the mean to challenge an entire way of life and thinking embodied by Hillsboro, a small Southern American town. The writers zoomed in on the people residing in this town and revealed the homogenous nature. The citizens attend the same church, hold the same beliefs, and join together to condemn Cates, a man who dared to express an opinion different from theirs. Cates is a courageous and idealistic young teacher. He carries the natural tendencies of human nature-curiosity; thus he poses questions at which does not make sense.

Most of the time it is easier to accept an idea than to refute it. The fear of challenging an idea enables that idea to be uncontested and widely accepted for centuries. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind depicted the tension that arose from a teacher explaining evolution to students in a town that has solely rejected any idea of evolutionism whatsoever. Because the play begins with the discussion of this controversial theory, the beginning passage foreshadows the central conflict between creationism and evolutionism and the town’s reaction to this disputed idea.

“Heavenly Hillsboro,” a religious and quiet country town, lays on the outskirts of modern society and excitement (Lawrence and Lee 15). It is isolated by the close-minded ideas of Matthew Harrison Brady and the people that idolize him. In Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee’s Inherit the Wind, many characters have the personality of a follower, but Bert Cates and Henry Drummond stand out as people who are not afraid to fight for their beliefs.

     In the play “Inherit the Wind” by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the defense faces numerous societal injustices, which is why they never had a chance to win the case. One example of the town’s bias is presented through the town’s love for Matthew Harrison Brady. A second example is the extreme conformist and pious attitude of the town’s people. The last instance is the narrow-mindedness of the judge and the jury, which resulted in an unfair trial. In conclusion, the defense suffered through many unfair circumstances throughout the drama “Inherit the Wind.”

Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve the problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” This idea is present throughout Inherit the Wind. Inherit the Wind is a play that challenges both science and belief. Its plot surrounds an educator teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in a small town where the Bible is treated as the only book that explains where humanity came from. The play’s playwrights, Robert E. Lee and Jerome Lawrence, is justifying, through Inherit the Wind, the perils of having a limited perspective and reveals that one should expand one’s horizons to continue progressing in life, prevent ignorance, and exclusion from the rest of the world through their character’s actions, dialogues,

Film: Inherit the Wind General observations: The opening scene of the film shows a high school teacher, Cate, teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. The film is set in a small town called Hillsboro. Since evolution in a new theory, people didn’t want to accept this new change especially because it conflicts with what they are taught.

Every once in a while, I try my hand at freelance writing (purely as a hobby), and this piece is my go to in finding inspiration for my work. Jeremy Soule’s “Wind Guide You” was featured in the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and first appeared on the soundtrack album of the same name in 2011.