Inherit The Wind Conflict

Words: 969
Pages: 4

The 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 Drummond is E.K Hornbeck. These different characters are in some type of with each other, themselves or even the townspeople of Hillsboro. These different conflicts in Hillsboro between these characters are what the makes this play astonishingly. …show more content…
This is shown to us by Henry Drummond, Matthew Harrison Brady and E.K Hornbeck. The conflict between Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady is shown throughout the whole story. The first point is that Henry Drummond believes in evolution and Matthew Harrison Brady believes in creationism. At one point they were friends who worked together and Brady asks why Drummond has abandoned him. Drummond replies, “All motion is relative. Perhaps it is you who have moved away—by standing still.” These words surprise Brady, and after that, they both leave the scene. Their conflict builds up more in court when they are both fighting. Drummond asks Brady a couple of questions and they are, "Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the earth? The power of his brain to reason. What other merit have we? The elephant is larger; the horse is swifter and stronger; the butterfly is far more beautiful; the mosquito is more prolific. Even the simple sponge is more durable. But does a sponge think? Do you think a man should have the same privilege as a sponge?" These questions get everyone thinking. The next conflict is the conflict between Henry Drummond and E.K Hornbeck which gets everyone thinking. It starts after Brady is pronounced dead in the third scene and while everyone is feeling for him Drummond states a line from the bible. Hornbeck is shocked and starts calling Drummond a fake and a pretender. Drummond starts defending late