For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. The stage directions lay it out for us in Inherit the Wind : "Time: Summer. Not too long ago. Place: A small town. The buckle on the Bible belt" I, I, , as Hornbeck calls it. Even though the town is specifically named "Hillsboro," and it is characterized as a small town in the South, the stage directions seem to point to a more universal setting.
That's the idea, right? That this town is both specific and generalizable? The funny thing about trying to understand the happenings of the play as universal is that Inherit the Wind is actually based on a real, live trial that happened in Dayton, Tennessee, back in During the celebration, Brady discovers that Rachel Brown, the daughter of the spiritual leader of Hillsboro, Reverend Jeremiah Brown, is a friend of Cates.
He tricks her into revealing confidential, incriminating conversations she and Cates have had. At the picnic, E. Hornbeck, a cynical columnist from the Baltimore Herald , reveals to Brady and the townspeople that famous defense attorney Henry Drummond will be Cates' attorney.
This news shocks everyone, and Reverend Brown compares Drummond to the devil. Later that evening, Drummond arrives in Hillsboro alone. In this scene, Lawrence and Lee supply the facts needed to understand the play. They use Hillsboro, a town that is ". Laws that encourage censorship are passed specifically the Butler Law , and freedoms slip away. The people of Hillsboro live their lives in a vacuum, not thinking about the consequences of such a law until Cates' arrest.
Cates' trial awakens the people of Hillsboro to the notion that there is no right or wrong way to think, that the important thing is having the freedom to think and being able to exercise that freedom.
In the first scene, Lawrence and Lee establish the central conflict of the play — the controversy between evolutionism and creationism — and introduce the characters involved in the conflict. Thus, the play begins with the interaction between Howard and Melinda, young people who live in Hillsboro.
Melinda tells Howard he talks "sinful," and Howard calls Melinda's father a monkey. Their interaction foreshadows disharmony among community members regarding, specifically, the issues of evolutionism and creationism, but more globally, the issues of freedom of thought and censorship.
The stage directions emphasize the importance of the crowd as "active spectators. In this scene, the townspeople are in high spirits because Matthew Harrison Brady is coming to Hillsboro to prosecute Cates, a minor character in the play who represents John Scopes.
The townspeople have created a circus-like atmosphere. The town is decorated, food and other items are being sold, people sing and carry anti-evolution banners, and a band is ready to play. The southern dialect spoken by the townspeople is realistic. They anticipate that, when Brady arrives, the "town's gonna fill up like a rain barrel in a flood," and they wonder, "where we gonna sleep all them people? Lawrence and Lee's use of dialect and their portrayal of most of the citizens of Hillsboro reveal the townspeople as ignorant and unsophisticated — a typical stereotype of the rural South.
When Brady arrives in Hillsboro with his doting wife, Sarah, he assumes the role of leader of the common people. He is opposed to evolution and, during his arrival speech and later at the picnic, assures the townspeople that he is in Hillsboro to "defend. That's all. To emphasize Brady's determination, Lawrence and Lee use allusions references to historical or famous people, objects, or events to suggest more than what he is saying.
Brady, for example, compares his battle to the battles of Goliath and St. George, which represent the defeat of an imposing, and presumably unconquerable, monster by an average man. In their characterizations of Brady and Reverend Brown, Lawrence and Lee reveal their thoughts about people who promote censorship.
Brady is a narrow-minded bigot who is opposed to evolutionary theory but knows nothing about it. Reverend Jeremiah Brown, the spiritual leader of Hillsboro and, like Brady, a strict fundamentalist, uses his position as a town leader to subjugate, or rule, the townspeople.
Lawrence and Lee portray Brown as a stereotypical fire-and-brimstone preacher. He is cruel and controlling. At the welcome picnic, Brown is adamant that his daughter, Rachel, speak to Brady about Cates, and after she does, he tells Brady that, "Rachel has always been taught to do the righteous thing.
Devil himself. In this dialogue, Lawrence and Lee hint at the fear that exists when people are not willing to acknowledge different beliefs. During the early s, known as the McCarthy era, actors and writers were blacklisted — that is, refused work because they had been accused of having some connection to Communism. During this period, people stopped expressing their thoughts, beliefs, or ideas, afraid they would lose their livelihood or worse. Being writers, Lawrence and Lee became aware of the dangerous situation created when laws are passed limiting the freedom to think and speak.
When writing Inherit the Wind, the playwrights were not concerned with the controversy between evolution and creation, the focus of the Scopes trial.
Instead, they were concerned with the censoring or limiting of an individual's freedom to think. The authors used the issue of evolution as a metaphor for control over an individual's thoughts or beliefs. The predominant theme in Inherit the Wind is freedom of thought. Cates, like Scopes, is arrested for violating the Butler Law, which prohibits teaching evolutionary theory in public schools in Tennessee, effectively censoring what could be taught in public school classrooms.
Drummond, Lawrence and Lee's voice throughout the play, fights passionately against censoring knowledge. When knowledge is censored, the right to think is limited. Drummond is adamant about everyone having the right to think. When Brady accuses Drummond of ". I'm trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States.
Another issue important to Lawrence and Lee is tolerance for different or conflicting beliefs.
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