Bertram Cates Inherit The Wind

Words: 300

Pages: 2

Why would Bertram Cates, a “Godless” (Lawrence and Lee 46) Tennessee schoolteacher, “pollute [children’s] minds with...heathen dogma” (Lawrence and Lee 21) by teaching them about evolutionism when society still focused on creationism? Cates exercised what every human being was born into this world with: freedom of thought. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee captured Cates’s struggle to express his thoughts in Inherit the Wind by focusing on the fragile social order of the town and the effect that evolutionism and morality had on his students. Moreover, Cates’ defense attorney Henry Drummond exposed the fragile social order when questioning Cates’s student, Howard. Cates threatened the institution of the Bible in the society by teaching out

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Inherit The Wind Analysis

Inherit the Wind is a playwright's play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee that explains in a proverb from the bible- who causes trouble in the house shall inherit nothing. According to the Notes on Inherit the Wind, this play was a response to the threat to intellectual freedom presented by the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era. Also, the notes states that they took the Scopes trial and change the places and names of the participants of the trials and made the play more action based…

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Inherit The Wind Conflict

play Inherit the Wind is adopted from the Scopes Monkey trial of 1925. Bertram Cates is on trial for teaching his high school students the theory of evolution rather than what everyone else wants, which is creationism. Cates has an affair with Reverend Brown's daughter Rachel Brown who is also a teacher. Cates defense attorney is Henry Drummond who is hated by all the townspeople including a Reverend Brown and the prosecuting attorney Matthew Harrison Brady. The one person who supports Cates and…

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Tom Robinson's Trial

The trials of Tom Robinson and Bertram Cates both speak of the fundamental necessity of the balance between reason and passion. The trials are both housed in strictly biased communities that refuse to sacrifice their beliefs for the greater need to uphold justice and abide by constitutional beliefs. Atticus Finch, in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, both struggle to establish the concept of equality in the prejudiced…

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Allusion In Inherit The Wind

attorney Henry Drummond trudges into Hillsboro, he is greeted by E.K. Hornbeck with the following words: “Hello, Devil. Welcome to Hell” (Lawrence and Lee 27). This powerful allusion engages readers of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s play Inherit the Wind. The literary device is effective to the overall work as it announces Drummond as a dangerous individual and serves as notice that he is entering a town that is in juxtaposition to his tenets. The affective use of allusion allows the authors…

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Tragedy In The Crucible

One's characteristics play a major role in the way they think, to the way they act. The play Inherit the WInd, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, is a fictionalized account of the 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial”. In the play, Matthew Harrison Brady is the prosecuting attorney of the trial and demonstrates that someone's nature can cause extreme bias in their conduct during a trial or simply their general behavior. There are three specific aspects of his character that influenced his conduct…

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Essay about Censorship of Ideas

Inherit the Wind Essay Censorship of Ideas in Hillsboro Censorship can be defined as the regulation of information and ideas within a society. It targets information that may be considered offensive or discourteous to the public. In the play, Inherit the Wind, written by Jerome Lawrence, and Robert E. Lee, censorship is evident throughout the entire community of Hillsboro. Hillsboro shows that freedom of thought is strictly limited to the belief of creationism and Christianity, and if one does…

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