Inherit the Wind
by Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. LeeEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-11-04
ISBN: 0345466276
Number of pages: 129
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345466273
- Condition: USED - Like New
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Inherit the Wind
Book Review: 'Oo you callin' intolerant?
Summary: 4 Stars
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this play is how VERY few people "get it" even now.
At one point in the confrontation between Drummond and Brady, Drummond - on the subject of Cates' right to think, and to say what he thinks - demands of Brady:
"Suppose Mr. Cates had enough influence and lung power to railroad through the State Legislature a law that only Darwin should be taught in schools!"
"Ridiculous, ridiculous!" answers Brady.
Yet here we are, fifty years later, with evolutionists demanding exactly the same exclusivity for the teaching of their ideas as Brady wants for the teaching of religion - in this play. So do we NOW have freedom to think what we choose to think, and to speak about what we think?
As other reviewers have said, this play isn't, and was never intended as, an accurate representation of what happened at the Scopes trial of 1925.
And neither is it simply a story about narrow-minded, ignorant fundamentalists (which meant something quite different in 1925 compared with now) against open-minded, rational scientists.
It is about narrow-mindedness and intolerance no matter where it comes from.
On this basis it is a pity that the play, and to a greater extent the film give such a one-sided portrayal of Drummond - emotional but deeply caring, rather self-effacing and above all reasonable (nothing at all like the real-life Darrow), whilst Brady is a glutinous, smug, buffoon who was once great but has lost his way (about the only time Brady is shown in a sympathetic light is at the end of Act 1 when he rescues Rachel Brown (Cates' fiancee) from the "righteous" fury of her "hell and damnation" father, the Reverend Brown.
I have to wonder how much it might ease the tension between creationists and evolutionists in America if this play were presented in schools for what it really is - a reaction against the hate mongering and intolerance of the McCarthy "witch hunt" of the late 1940's and early 50's instead of treating it like a documentary and interpreting it in the narrowest sense - as a battle between religion and science.
As Lee and Lawrence wrote in their "Production Notes by the Playwrights":
"The most eloquent line in the play is unspoken: DRUMMOND's weighing of the books [the Bible and The Origin of Species] at the end. He should be holding them in his upturned palms, balancing them like the scales of Lady Justice, then SLAPPING them together SIDE BY SIDE. Don't put either Darwin or the Bible on top."
'Nuff said.
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