Blog #6: "Inherit the Wind"

In the note preceding the play, Inherit the Wind, the authors Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee state that “…The issues of their conflict have acquired new dimension and meaning in the thirty years since they clashed at the Rhea County Courthouse…The stage directions set the time as ‘Not too long ago.’ It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow.” This states that they believe the themes contained in Inherit the Wind are both universal and timeless.

Two themes present in this book are that of society versus the individual and a limited perspective. The first relates to the book because Cates stood up against everyone else in the town, and taught what he believed. Not that he believed, necessarily, in evolution, but that the kids should have a choice in what they believed. Not only did he teach it, but he had to stand up in court and state his views. As an individual, he stood up to society and in the end, won. Second, that of a limited perspective also ties into the trial itself. Everyone in the town was concerned with the Bible’s teachings, that they didn’t have time to listen to any other theories. Towards the end of the trial, Drummond convinced some of them that there is always more than one point of view, but for the majority of the story, they remained limited in their perspective.

I believe that playwrights imply that the themes are universal and timeless at the beginning of their plays because it states that the content of the play can be taken away from its original context, and applied to any other situation throughout history that requires it. No matter what time period, or along with it, what rules of society apply, the theme will still exist. Also, it applies to everyone, everywhere, at every time.

Today, these themes teach us. They show us the same things that are wrong with society today, as what were wrong with society 30 years ago. Hopefully we can learn from these, but as history shows itself, it tends to repeat itself. An example of the theme “Limited Perspective” that has occurred in today’s age is the war in Iraq. Most people, due to a limited perspective, believe that it is a bad idea, and that we never should have gone there in the first place. I’m not saying my opinion is either for this or against this, I’m just saying there is always more than one point of view. Perhaps if we knew what it was, we’d be able to make better decisions later in history.