Inherit The Wind Analysis

An Ignorant Incrimination Most disputes, especially political ones, center around one idea: whether following the precepts of the past or looking to the future is best for a society. In the mid-1900s, Charles Darwin looked toward the future with his own ideas about the world and brought the longstanding argument to the forefront. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind portray how a small town’s myopic view and ignorant attitude displaced it from the world and resulted in a freethinking man’s incrimination. The provincial town’s unawareness of the world around it and condescending nature kept the town at a standstill that imprisoned a man “because he speaks what he thinks” (Lawrence 47). When Mr. Drummond arrived, the townspeople shouted, “It’s the Devil!” (Lawrence 27). Judging Drummond strictly based off of his appearance proves just how closed-minded these seemingly “accepting” Christians were. The sinful mannerisms blinded the people of Hillsboro so much that they refused to believe any modern propositions. For example, Brady refused to listen to any scientist that Drummond wanted to utilize as a witness (Lawrence 53). Furthermore, it was the town’s unheeding of the rest of the

Every day the townspeople participated in some type of religious activity, and Mr. Brady stated, “The Bible satisfies me. It is enough” (Lawrence 58). Again and again, the play used the word “enough”, and no one, excluding Cates and Drummond, ever reached for more. Even the sermons were the same and the worshippers “[had] familiar responses” to Reverend Brown’s words like the sermon was some type of well-choreographed dance number (Lawrence 41). By acting out the same homilies never yearning for change, Hillsboro’s people denied the town of change and Bert Cates of his