Inherit the Wind

“CATES. All it says is that man wasn’t just stuck here like a geranium in a flower pot; that living comes from a long miracle, it didn’t just happen in seven days.”

Bert tries to explain to Rachel that the ideas contained in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species do not necessarily contradict Christianity’s core tenets. Life did not appear in seven days as creationists believe, but over millions of years, in a process that he still views as “miraculous.”

“MELINDA. Look. He took my penny.

HORNBECK. How could you ask for better proof than that? There’s the father of the human race!”

Hornbeck is being sarcastic when he calls the monkey “the father of the human race.” His sarcasm mocks Christian creationists who think that Darwin is saying that people evolved from monkeys.

“BRADY. I have come because what has happened in a schoolroom of your town has unloosed a wicked attack from the big cities of the North!—an attack upon the law which you have so wisely placed among the statutes of this state. I am here to defend that which is most precious in the hearts of all of us: the Living Truth of the Scriptures!”

Brady presents Bert as a wicked man who is attacking the Bible by teaching his students evolution. He positions himself as fighting not just a legal case, but a holy war for God and Christianity.

“BROWN. You look into his face, and you wonder why God made such a man. And then you know that God didn’t make him, that he is a creature of the Devil, perhaps even the Devil himself!”

Reverend Brown vilifies Drummond before he has even arrived in town by suggesting that he was not made by God. Ironically, this belief directly contradicts the purported Christian belief that all humans were created by God.

“HORNBECK. Don’t worry. I’m not the serpent, Little Eva. This isn’t from the Tree of Knowledge.”

Hornbeck’s apple symbolizes forbidden knowledge (the forbidden fruit that Eve eats in the Garden of Eden is usually thought to be an apple). Despite his protestations to the contrary, the narrative does position him as the Devil in this moment.

“RACHEL (Offended, angry). I think there must be something wrong in what Bert believes, if a great man like Mr. Brady comes here to speak out against him.”

Here, Rachel highlights how authority is given to certain beliefs. To her and many people in her town, a belief must be wrong not when it is proved to be wrong but when “great men” oppose it.

“BRADY. Unless the state of mind of the members of the jury conforms to the laws and patterns of society—

DRUMMOND. Conform! Conform! What do you want to do—run the jury through a meat-grinder, so they all come out the same?”

Drummond questions why Brady wants all the members of the jury to be the same, highlighting his belief in free thought. While Brady wants the jurors to hold the same beliefs as him, and therefore bias the jury against Bert, Drummond wants the jurors to be capable of thinking for themselves so they can deliver a fair verdict.

“DRUMMOND. You murder a wife, it isn’t nearly as bad as murdering an old wives’ tale. Kill one of their fairy-tale notions, and they call down the wrath of God, Brady, and the state legislature.”

Drummond demonstrates to Bert the power of ideas. He argues that killing a person is less impactful than killing an idea, and that Bert will be vilified worse for challenging the idea of creationism than he would be for murdering a person.

“CATES. They were questions, Rache. I was just asking questions. If you repeat those things on the witness stand, Brady’ll make ’em sound like answers. And they’ll crucify me!”

Bert worries that Brady will twist his questions about how the world works and make them sound like he has definitive answers. This tactic, which Brady does indeed use, stifles Bert’s right to intellectual freedom and is one of the play’s many tacit references to McCarthyism, which targeted people not for breaking laws, but for their thoughts and political beliefs.

“RACHEL. No! (She rushes to the platform) No, Father. Don’t pray to destroy Bert!

BROWN. Lord, we call down the same curse on those who ask grace for this sinner—though they be blood of my blood, and flesh of my flesh!”

Reverend Brown demonstrates extreme religious zeal when he calls for Bert’s destruction, even going as far as to curse his own daughter. The Tension Between Science and Religion is so strong that Brown calls for the destruction not just of people who question religion but also of those who ask for kindness and grace for “sinners.”

“DRUMMOND (Slowly). All motion is relative. Perhaps it is you who have moved away—by standing still.”

Brady believes that Drummond has moved away from him, and by implication, away from God. To Drummond, however, it is Brady that has moved away by not keeping up with progress and refusing to question his own beliefs.

“BRADY. I say that these Bible-haters, these ‘Evil-utionists,’ are brewers of poison. And the legislature of this sovereign state has had the wisdom to demand that the peddlers of poison—in bottles or in books—clearly label the products they attempt to sell!”

Brady uses a common tactic among creationists: He positions those who believe in evolution as evil people who want to destroy religion and the Bible. He wants people like Bert who teach evolution to be censored by the state so that they cannot spread their “poisonous” ideas.

“DRUMMOND (Energetically). With all respect to the bench, I hold that the right to think is very much on trial! It is fearfully in danger in the proceedings of this court!”

This quote is another example of the play’s references to McCarthyism. While Bert is technically on trial for teaching evolution in a school, Drummond instead acts as though Bert’s intellectual freedom and right to think critically is on trial, as was the case in many trials during the McCarthy era.

“DRUMMOND. For it is my intent to show this court that what Bertram Cates spoke quietly one spring afternoon in the Hillsboro High School is no crime! It is incontrovertible as geometry in every enlightened community of minds!”

Drummond argues that teaching the science of evolution is no different from teaching subjects like geometry. Though he is not allowed to bring subject matter experts to the stand to corroborate his argument, it is a clever tactic for the defense. By equating evolution with other accepted and undeniable sciences, Drummond undermines the creationist point of view that dismisses evolution.

“BRADY. The Bible satisfies me, it is enough.

DRUMMOND. It frightens me to imagine the state of learning in this world if everyone had your driving curiosity.”

Drummond is disappointed by Brady’s insistence that the Bible is enough explanation for him about how the world works. He laments Brady’s lack of curiosity and warns that the world will not move forward in the pursuit of learning and knowledge if everyone thinks like Brady. 

“BRADY (Floundering). I do not think about things that…I do not think about!

DRUMMOND. Do you ever think about things that you do think about?”

Here, the play demonstrates The Value of Critical Thinking. Brady admits that he does not engage in critical thought when he tells the court that he simply believes whatever the Bible says, even when it says things that do not make sense. Drummond implies that Brady and other creationists have not thought enough about evolution to condemn it.

“BRADY (Confused). No, no! Each man is a free agent—

DRUMMOND. Then what is Bertram Cates doing in the Hillsboro jail?”

Brady tries to insist that every person is free to believe whatever he wants, which gives Drummond ammunition in his argument that Bert has done nothing wrong. If everyone is free to believe what they want, he says, then Bert should not be on trial for teaching evolution.

“DRUMMOND. What if a lesser human being—a Cates, or a Darwin—has the audacity to think that God might whisper to him? That an un-Brady thought might still be holy? Must men go to prison because they are at odds with the self-appointed prophet?”

Drummond drives home his point that everyone is free to believe what they want by questioning why Brady seems to think he is the authority on what God says. Though this line of reasoning serves to highlight the play’s references to McCarthyism, it does not hold up to deeper scrutiny; Bert is not on trial for believing in evolution, he is on trial for teaching it in school, which is against the law.

“DRUMMOND. Sometimes I think the law is like a horse race. Sometimes it seems to me I ride like fury, just to end up back where I started.”

Drummond is frustrated with the way the law works. He reflects that sometimes it feels like he is back where he started at the end of a case and nothing he has done has made a difference.

“Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie—show it up for what it really is!”

Drummond urges Bert to seek out and expose lies wherever he finds them. He cautions against believing something just because it is beautifully dressed up.

“MELINDA (Calling to Howard, across the courtroom). Which side won?

HOWARD (Calling back). I ain’t sure. But the whole thing’s over!”

Howard and Melinda are not sure which side won the case; the answer to this question is so complicated that the children cannot decipher it. Later, even Bert is not sure if he has won or lost his case.

“DRUMMOND. You don’t suppose this kind of thing is ever finished, do you? Tomorrow it’ll be something else—and another fella will have to stand up. And you’ve helped give him the guts to do it!”

Though Bert has not won his case, Drummond argues that he has paved the way for the next person to challenge the law without fear of dire consequences. He has made it easier for others to think critically and fight injustice.

“You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think—so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know.”

Rachel’s admission that she was always afraid to think for herself is one of the play’s last references to the way that McCarthy positioned freedom of thought as a threat to America’s safety. Rachel represents, in a somewhat sexist manner, the Americans in the McCarthy era who stopped thinking for themselves in order to remain “safe.”