| Title | : | Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Courtroom Drama in which Two Men Wage the Legal War of the Century |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0345501039 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780345501035 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 129 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1955 |
Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Courtroom Drama in which Two Men Wage the Legal War of the Century Reviews
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في حقيقة الأمر أنا شديدة التعلق بهذه المسرحية
فهي أول عمل مسرحي قرأته في حياتي
ومنذ ذلك اليوم الرائع عرفت ان المسرح سيكون إدماني
وأحد مباعث البهجة إلى روحي
هل شكلت هذه المسرحية جزءا من وعيي؟
لا أدري
ولكن أظن الجواب سيكون نعم
فحداثة سني وقتها دليل على جواز حدوث ذلك
كنت في نحو الخامسة عشر
لا أعرف عن التطور أكثر من مجرد أقاويل من حولي
بأن هناك رجل مجنون يقول الإنسان اصله قرد
ولكن حتى وفي هذا السن
كنت أعلم أن الأمر أبعد من ذلك
وأن هناك ما لا أعرفه بعد
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المسرحية لا تشرح نظرية التطور أو تدافع عنها
وهي ليست ضدها كذلك
إنما هي مبنية على حادث وقع في عام 1925في الولايات المتحدة
فيه تمت محاكمة معلم لأنه (تجرأ) وشرح لتلاميذه بعض ما جاء في نظرية داروين
جمال المسرحية يكمن في شيئين
الأول أنها تكرس لحق الفرد في أن يعبر عن رأيه بحرية
وعلى غيره احترام هذا الرأي وإن كان يعارضه-
الثاني -وهو الأهم المرافعات البديعة لمحامي المجني عليه
واستجواباته لماثيو برادلي بالتحديد
والتي ألهبت عقلي وقتها
أولا كان هذا الحوار هو الأول من نوعه في قراءاتي
والتي تمحورت حول الأدب الكلاسيكي المترجم في تلك الفترة
و ثانيا كانت المسرحية –بحسب ذاكرتي تعرضي الأول لموضوع حرية التعبير
كانت المسرحية استعارة من مكتبة مدرستي الثانوية
-قرأتها بترجمة قديمة من سلسلة مكتبة الفنون الدرامية التي أدين لها بالكثير وخصوصا أسعارها العظيمة
ثم قرأت النسخة الأصلية إلكترونيا منذ ثلاث سنوات تقريبا
كما أن هناك ترجمة جديدة من إصدار المؤسسة العربية للدراسات والنشر
أرشحها بقوة -
The "Scopes Monkey Trial"(1925) is perhaps the most famous trial in American history where a young teacher, John Scopes, was accused of teaching evolution in a school in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee in violation of Tennessee's "Butler Act" which prohibited teaching evolution in any state-funded school. According to all reliable sources, the trial was a put-up job by some prominent locals to garner some publicity for the town, knowing fully well that the ACLU had offered to take up the defense of anyone accused under this law. John Scopes was a willing victim who was not sure at all he had taught evolution: the battle was actually between fundamentalists and modernists within Christianity. Even though the result was a foregone conclusion, the trial accomplished its mission to bring science vs religion debate into the mainstream.
In this play, however, John Scopes has been transformed into Giles Bates, an idealistic young teacher who has been victimised for standing on the side of scientific truth. The whole town is out for his blood and he is really facing the ruin of his career. His love interest Rachel is the daughter of Brown, the town's fiery preacher: thus providing the appropriate "star-crossed lover" motif. And battle here is for free speech in America, fought out on the courtroom floor between Brady, the conservative counsel for the prosecution and Drummond, the agnostic barrister for the defence - two legal Goliaths.
The authors seem to have written this play as a reaction to McCarthyism, and they have made it clear that even though it is based on the Scopes trial, it is not historical. However, it does follow the actual course of events to great extent except for stretching the dramatic elements. But it is not as a historical record that one should view this, but rather as an impassioned plea for open thought and free speech - and in that, they have won.
The opening scene between the children sets the tone - when little Howard says that he came from a worm which crawled out of the sea, we can see that the gates to free thought has been opened in at least one tender mind. As the play progresses and the action alternates between the town and the courthouse, the audience can see a people being slowly transformed: they still believe in the Bible, yet they can now accept someone else can have a different line of thought. The cross-examination of Brady as a witness for the defense (this really happened, BTW!) by Drummond is the heart of the play - the literal interpretation of scripture is here laid bare as the foolish exercise it is. The real target of the drama is the audience, and this sequence is bound to set at least some minds in the theatre thinking.
I think this is one play which should be revived - and not only in America. With religious bigots stepping up their attack on secular elements across the world (sometime even resorting to physical violence), we should remind ourselves that the right to free speech has been won only with great effort. It is very easy to lose it: those of us who value it, should fight tooth and nail.
And drama is one of the strongest media. -
Inherit the Wind
Howard: What’re yuh skeered of? You was a worm once.
Melinda: I wasn’t neither!
Howard: You was so! When the whole world was covered with water, there was nuthin’ but worms and blobs of jelly. And you and your whole family was worms!
Melinda: We was not!
Howard: Blobs of jelly, then.
Melinda: Howard Blair, that’s sinful talk! I’m gonna tell my pa and he’ll make you wash your mouth out with soap!
Howard: Ah your old man’s a monkey!
This interaction between two small children on a courthouse lawn is the beginning of one of the most famous plays/movies of the 20th century. It was inspired by the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Kentucky thirty years prior.
Inherit the Wind is a play first staged in 1955 and perhaps thousands of times since. Many people are more familiar with the wonderful screen adaptation in 1960 starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March.
The little boy Howard’s science teacher, Bert Cates, is about to face trial for blasphemy, straight up violating the Butler act that bans teaching evolution in the classroom.
This three act play takes place almost entirely in the courtroom. Cates is defended by a famous lawyer, Henry Drummond, and is being prosecuted by an equally famous self-righteous lawyer, Matthew Brady.
***** Spoiler*****
The first act moves slowly as we are introduced to the main characters including Bert’s love interest Rachel who is ironically testifying against him in the upcoming trial. Rachel unsuccessfully pleads with Bert to denounce evolution so that the prosecution will drop the case. There is some anxiety for the prosecution as well. They are led by Brady, a character inspired by Williams Jennings Bryan. They come to learn that Drummond, the character inspired by Clarence Darrow, will be defending Bert.
So in the second act the trial begins and we soon learn that it is going quite badly for the defense, particularly when the bible thumping judge will not allow any of the defense’s expert witnesses on evolutionary science to testify. Then in a move that strains credulity, the pompous Brady agrees to testify as an expert on creationism. The drama soon accelerates to a crescendo as Drummond takes advantage of Brady’s vanity and picks apart his creationist timelines. Some in the crowd start to laugh at Brady and he is caught off guard by the ridicule. The arguments eventually end and the jury is sent odd to deliberate. They return a few hours later with the verdict — guilty. The judge however seems to have been persuaded by Drummond’s arguments and sentences Bert to just a $100 fine.
In the very short third act, a humiliated Brady has died of a heart attack immediately following the ruling. A big city newspaper reporter is congratulates Drummond on the victory and disparages Brady. A saddened Drummond quotes several bible verses and excoriates the reporter for not respecting diverse viewpoints. Drummond then hops on the train to head out of town.
***** End of Spoiler ******
4.5 stars. Highly recommended. I am rating based on the story and the reading of the play not necessarily how it was performed on stage or adapted as a movie. In a nutshell, this is a masterfully wrought drama, particularly the messaging. The introduction where the children discuss evolution is pure genius. And the last quarter of the play is equal genius. It humanely captures the the embarrassment on the stand, the verdict, the judge sentencing and the reaction to the death. -
Inherit the Wind takes its title from a Bible verse – “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart” (Proverbs 11:29) – and the verse makes an apt choice for this 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. For this play denounces those who would “trouble their own house” in order to win political points, particularly when such troublesome people – even if with the best of intentions – threaten the freedom of the human mind.
Inherit the Wind dramatizes the 1925 Scopes trial, in which a teacher was prosecuted for violating a Tennessee law that banned the teaching of evolution in the state’s public schools. At the same time, it spoke to the intellectual-freedom controversies of its own era, denouncing the McCarthyism of the 1950’s; and it continues to be relevant in our era, every time politicians take it upon themselves to “protect public morality” by dictating what can or cannot be taught in a public-school classroom.
Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee were Ohioans who formed a writing partnership early in their careers, and who were instrumental in the formation of Armed Forces Radio during the Second World War. Having done a great deal of writing for AFR during the World War II era, to remind American soldiers of the democratic values for which the United States of America was fighting, Lawrence and Lee were appalled to see those same democratic values under assault at home, years after the war, by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his minions on the House Un-American Activities Committee; and Inherit the Wind struck a chord among playgoers, and later moviegoers, who saw that a rabble-rousing “anti-communist” senator like McCarthy could be, in his own way, just as much a threat to democracy as a Nazi or Soviet dictator.
In real life, the Scopes trial took place at Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes was the defendant - a teacher who had planned deliberately to break the anti-evolution “Butler Law,” as a way of challenging the law in the legal system. Two famed veteran attorneys – William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow – came to Dayton to plead the cases of the prosecution and defense respectively. Journalist H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Evening Sun was the most famous of the reporters who came to Dayton to cover a trial that created national and international interest. And against a carnival-like atmosphere, with parts of the trial actually taking place outdoors, Bryan and Darrow thundered away at each other – the former presenting himself as a champion of traditional Bible godliness, the latter defending the rights to free speech and free thought.
Inherit the Wind takes place in a town called Hillsboro, in an unnamed Southern state. The play’s fictive Scopes is one Bertram T. Cates – a likeable enough young man, and a hitherto well-regarded Hillsboro teacher, who has incurred the wrath of his conservative religious community by teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, in violation of a newly passed state law that specifically forbids the teaching of any theory that contradicts the Biblical account of creation.
Cates’s unhappy fiancée Rachel, who loves Cates and simply wants them to be able to start their life together as husband and wife, asks him, at the Hillsboro jail before the trial, why he has felt compelled to talk about Darwin’s book, and Cates’s reply foreshadows how the play will emphasize issues of intellectual freedom, as he says of Darwin’s theory that “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” (p. 8).
Cates’s powerful statement reminds the reader of the intellectual and theological context within which the Butler Law was passed and the Scopes Trial unfolded. Among Christians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, there was strong disagreement between modernists and traditionalists. Modernists held that the Bible could be read in a metaphorical manner that would not contradict the findings of modern science; traditionalists, by contrast, insisted that every word of the Bible had to be accepted as actual, literal truth – including the belief that the world was created in six 24-hour days.
The insistence of the traditionalists on literal reading of the Bible may seem strange, considering how often Jesus of Nazareth spoke in parables – but the history of this dispute reminds the reader of an important point. The legislators who passed the Butler Law – like the officials who go after Bertram Cates in Inherit the Wind – weren’t just advocating for Christianity, as they would no doubt have claimed; rather, they were seeking to push one particular version of Christianity, one that they believed would push a changing society back onto a more traditional path. Their goals were fundamentally political, not religious.
What is past is prologue.
The play’s William Jennings Bryan is Matthew Harrison Brady, who, because he will be prosecuting Bertram Cates, is greeted by the people of Hillsboro as a conquering hero. A much less friendly reception awaites the play’s H.L. Mencken – one E.K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald. Hornbeck gleefully announces to the distinctly hostile Hillsboro crowd that his newspaper will be paying for Cates to be defended by the play’s Clarence Darrow – Henry Drummond, a Chicago lawyer renowned for both his religious skepticism and his willingness to take on high-profile, controversial cases. When Drummond arrives in the town, Hornbeck greets him with the words, “Hello, Devil. Welcome to Hell.”
Lawrence and Lee’s emphasis on the idea that there are always social forces that threaten intellectual freedom, and that must be resisted, comes through in passages of dialogue like this one, between Drummond and the trial’s judge – who has repeatedly made clear that he sympathizes with Brady and the prosecution:
DRUMMOND: I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard – or Colonel Brady – or Charles Darwin – or anyone in this courtroom – or you, sir – has the right to think!
JUDGE: Colonel Drummond, the right to think is not on trial here.
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!
BRADY: A man is on trial!
DRUMMOND: A thinking man! And he is threatened with fine and imprisonment because he chooses to speak what he thinks. (p. 71)
The climax comes when Drummond – denied the opportunity to call to the witness stand philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers who would have presented the modernist argument that one can reconcile the Christian faith with modern science – calls Brady to the stand, as an expert on the Bible. Invoking the story of Joshua making the sun stand still, Drummond gets Brady to admit that the first day of creation could have been 25 rather than 24 hours – “You interpret that the first day recorded in the Book of Genesis could have been of indeterminate length” (p. 96) – and then moves in for the kill: “It could have been thirty hours! Or a month! Or a year! Or a hundred years!...Or ten million years!” (p. 97)
Brady’s excitable assistant tries to intervene – “I protest! This is not only irrelevant, immaterial – it is illegal!” (p. 97) – but the damage is done. The internal contradictions of Brady’s literalist approach to Scripture have been exposed. One cannot claim that an all-powerful God can transform natural law at will – by, for example, making a single day longer than 24 hours – and then say in the next breath that God is bound by the limits of a 24-hour day.
I have returned to Inherit the Wind at a number of times in my life – either the Lawrence & Lee play, or Stanley Kramer’s excellent 1960 film adaptation, with Spencer Tracy as Drummond and Fredric March as Brady. And always, it seems, I find that I am returning to it when some zealous group of citizens is trying to dictate what can or cannot be taught in schools.
I came back to it in 2005, at the time when the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, tried to dictate that science teachers in the district would have to teach the religion-based doctrine of “intelligent design” in science classes, right alongside Darwinian theories of evolution and natural selection. In Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District (2005), Judge John E. Jones, a conservative Republican appointed to the bench by then-President George W. Bush, ruled against the school board’s “intelligent design” argument – and, for good measure, added that “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID [Intelligent Design] policy.” Henry Drummond would no doubt have approved of the judge's frankness.
And I have returned to Inherit the Wind once again, more recently, as legislators in a number of states have moved to ban the teaching of “critical race theory” in their schools. Once again, the response of some people to a threatening line of reasoning seems to be to ban it from being taught. Do these people have so little faith in the ability of young people to reason for themselves, and to discern between good ideas and bad ones?
“Critical race theory,” in the context of these political debates - putting aside for the moment the fact that this concept is not taught in K-12 public schools, and is usually reserved for law-school curricula or Ph.D. seminars - is usually defined pretty vaguely; for some of these legislators, it seems to mean “anything that theoretically might make some white Americans feel bad about themselves.” As I understand it, CRT holds that there is something structural or systemic about racism in America – that it is not simply a matter of bad racist choices being made by individual racist people. That kind of claim is a topic worth debating – not a taboo that must be banned from the realm of what is thinkable and discussable.
And I will be the first to say that there are areas of CRT with which I would disagree. In a perceptive essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, literature professor Robert S. Levine of the University of Maryland points out how a couple of prominent CRT theorists have stated that “critical race theory questions the very foundations of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law”. These same scholars have questioned “liberalism as a framework for addressing America’s racial problems”, and have asserted that CRT theorists “are suspicious of another liberal mainstay, namely, rights”. And I could not disagree with such statements more.
To my mind, the liberal order – with its basis in Enlightenment rationalism – is all we’ve got. If we don’t believe in using reason to try to find our way to the truth – in all people being created equal, born with natural rights that cannot be taken away – in a legal system that at least aspires to equal treatment of all people – then what is left to us? Nothing, to my mind, but a social-Darwinian wasteland where rival groups fight tooth-and-nail, with power accruing to the winners and nothing left for the losers – a world, in short, much like what the CRT scholars cited above would presumably claim that they are fighting against.
Do I like those aspects of CRT? No. Does it follow from that that I don’t think CRT should be able to be taught? Of course not. Inherit the Wind reminds us that education should be teaching young people - the leaders of the future - to think and decide for themselves. After all, the person who is going to take away our right to think and speak is always, ostensibly, our friend, laboring in the service of some great cause. They believe they are right, after all. But perhaps Henry Drummond is closer to the mark when he says that terms like “right” and “wrong” have relatively little meaning for him, and then adds, “But Truth has meaning – as a direction!” -
Reading this book is like witnessing a debate with the resolution that reads:
Be it resolved, that men are descendants of monkeys and not created from the image and likeness of God.
I heard about this play when I was 8 or 9 years old. I was then in a Pacific island and it was late morning of a Good Friday and my mother told me to buy something from a store. In the Philippines, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Black Saturdays were the days of a year in the island when there was an eerie silence all around the town. All you could hear were mournful singing of the pasyon, written in a local language, being sung and it recounted the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, on that Good Friday morning, I heard the local translation of this book, Inherit the Wind being dramatized over the local radio of our neighbor.
So, when I saw a copy of this book last year, I said to myself that I would also read it during the Lent. So last Good Friday, I began reading this. It was really an apt Holy Week read.
The story is about a high school teacher who, one day in 1925, lectures on Darwin's Theory of Evolution: that men came from apes or from sea creatures. At that time, the Tennessee State Law prohibits the teaching of evolution as it runs contradictory to the Theory of Creation: that men were created from the image and likeness of God. So, the Monkey Trial happened and it was the basis of this book. I will not tell you which side won the debate, done in a courtroom, so as not to spoil your fun. However, I read that this is a required reading in high school so you might already know the ending.
Out of curiosity, I asked this question to my 16-year old daughter who has not read this book yet. She she said that her theory was: God probably looks like a monkey. I knew she was only kidding but the first time I heard these contradicting theories, that blasphemous and ridiculous idea also came into my young silly mind. And yes, I don't like the images it creates: that God, Adam and Eve are like those characters in the movie "The Planet of the Apes."
Personally, how do I reconcile these two theories? I put evolution in my brain and creation in my heart and never the two shall meet.
About the title, it came from Proverbs 11:29:"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind, and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart." I just not sure how that verse connects to the story.
How about you, which of the two do you believe more? -
I reread the script after seeing the play. I better appreciated that the characters are fully developed, not cardboard cutouts. (It is worth noting that this play is not about science vs. all religion, but a religious subsect that takes the Bible as literal, or completely inerrant.) Though written in the 1950s about the 1920s Scopes trial, stage timing is "not too long ago." Lawrence and Lee say "It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow." Indeed, the play is still fresh. Note especially the stage direction of, "They are colorful small-town citizens, but not caricatured rubes" and Drummond's reaction to the journalist at the end of the play.
Nice shout-out to the University of Chicago as Drummond presents his case.
Bonus: In N. Texas, a sterling production by Tony Award-winning DTC for the next few weeks:
http://www.theaterjones.com/ntx/revie... -
یک نمونهی خیلی خوب دیگر از نمایشنامههای دادگاهی. موضوع جدال دین و علم است به این بهانه که یک معلم سادهی شهرستانی شاگردانش را با نظریهی داروین آشنا کرده است. کتاب در 1346 ترجمه و منتشر شده و تازگیها نشر شمشاد در مشهد آن را تجدید چاپ کرده است. در فیدیبو هم موجود است
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Well if this didn’t piss me off. I’m now searching for information on the Scopes trial. Darrow is absolutely fascinating. Im trying my hardest NOT to stir the pot here. But if it’s any conciliation I was a tattooed, single mom who became a teacher at a Catholic school for ten years who created her own science and social studies books before she knew critical race theory was a thing. I am in SUCH A BAD MOOD NOW
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Goodreads Friend Sologdin offers wonderful reviews and insights into the world of ideas. "His" recent of Inherit the Wind gave me pause; this play was likened to Ayn Rand in that the villains were very underdeveloped and stereotypical. I place the quotations around the pronoun as I don't know with any certainty whether it is indeed a male. That said, I have seen the film adaptation of Inherit the Wind at least a dozen times. I especially like Gene Kelly as Mencken. I tried to approach my reading as objectively as possible but that failed miserably as I recalled nearly line by line in the 1960 film adroitly directed by Stanley Kramer. I can see the reference to wooden antagonists but is any character in the play truly developed? Only Rachel and Ben appear either innocent or noble. The premise of the play is very simple, taking the Scopes Monkey Trial as a point of departure, rural/Southern insular hostility to outside/urban oversight is coupled with the hysteria of the McCarthy hearings and attendant paranoia.
My chief issue with the film was the closing shot of Spencer Tracy hesitating between the Bible and Origin of Species and finally taking both. Alas this scene is in the play. -
3.75. Definitely blew my expectations out of the water. As a school book, I thought I would hate it, but that was not the case. Acts 1 and 2 were mindblowing, and it was only act 3 that pulled my rating down a bit. I really recommend this book.
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۳/۵ از ۵
****
آن کس که خانهی خویش آشفته سازد، میراثش باد خواهد بود.
****
توی دنیا هیچجا از زندان امنتر نیست.
****
از وقتی من اینجا پاسبانم هر کس تو زندان آمده یا به جرم بدمستی بوده یا ولگردی. یکی دوتایی هم آفتابه دزد داشتیم. بهترین مشتری ما اون یارو اهل مینهسوتا بود، که زنش را تکهتکه کرده بود. ناچار شدیم او را بفرستیم به زندان ایالت خودش. حالا وقتی فکر میکنم که یک آقا معلم را ما انداختیم تو زندان به نظرم غیرعادی میاد. احتمال دارد این کار، سطح یادگارنویسی روی دیوار زندان را بالا ببره.
****
– کشتن زن آدم آنقدر بد نیست که کشتن یک حرف کلثوم ننهای. یکی از عقاید افسانهای را بکش، آنوقت خواهی دید چطور همهی خلق، لعنت خدا و نفرین برادی و قانون محل را به سرت فرود خواهند آورد.
– شما همهچیز را شوخی میگیرید. ظاهراً خیال میکنید این کار هم شوخی است.
– خانم اگر آدم نتواند بخندد نمیتواند درست فکر کند.
***
بلی یکی از حماقتهای خاصهی عصر ما طوق اخلاق است که ما به دور رفتار و کردار خودمان بستهایم، و به نام این حماقت هر کاری را با معیار و مقیاس قراردادی میسنجیم و کارهای بشر با این مقیاس یا باید درست و یا باید غلط باشد، در فلان درجه و دقیقه و ثانیه عرض این کار درست، و در فلان درجه و دقیقه و ثانیه طول غلط است.
****
مثل بچهها افکار هم بعضی مثل بوتهی لوبیا سالمند و بعضی ناخوش. به عقیدهی من افکار ناخوش خود به خود میمیرد. -
This play still has the power to move and to make one think. I might not have said that a few years ago, but now that science seemingly gets called into question constantly theses days, this play has found more meaning and relevancy. A must read or must watch, if the play is performing some where near you. The characters are still relevant as is the argument seemingly, even after all these years. It goes to show how well written the play is. The characters still ring with resonance, and the argument, especially if thought of as science as a whole, is extremely topical.
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I rescued a copy of Inherit the Wind from a thrift store today. I already own it, but hey, some books rate duplicates. This is a famous American play from the 1950s. It is a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial in which a teacher was tried in a Tennessee Court for teaching evolution. It's super short and easy to follow.
(Shout out to my husband, who knows me and yet still gives me his debit card in a bookstore.)
Inherit the Wind is one of the only 5 ***** books I'll tell people not to read. It's a play, watch it. (Ok, read it too, but WATCH IT... there's something about gifted actors delivering amazing lines that can't be matched by just reading it.) There's a famous 2 hour version from 1960 with Spencer Tracy, which while excellent, is probably a little overdone and the film is very dark. I like a 90 minute made for TV version from 1988 with Kirk Douglas. As of this moment, it's on YouTube (search "at&t presents inherit the wind"). I have not seen the 1999 version, and yes there are others. And yes, if you've never ever heard of this, you've been under a rock and I'm here to help you.
Inherit the Wind is a courtroom drama. Mr. Cates, a local teacher, is in jail at the beginning. He is visited by Rachel, the daughter of a local preacher. Rachel wants him to avoid more trouble by admitting he was wrong. Cates won't. The case draws celebrity attorneys from out of town. The prosecutor, "Colonel" Brady, is a failed presidential candidate/self-proclaimed holy man. He's on the side of the town (extreme fundamental evangelical Christian). The defense attorney, Drummond, is the real star of the book. In real life, the trial was a circus. Scopes was trying to get charged so that the ACLU could challenge an extremely bad state law.
There are tons of hilarious lines if you're in the right mood (seriously, host black and white movie night and watch this movie with a glass of wine. It will not disappoint). My favorite moment is when Drummond objects to Brady being called "Colonel" in the courtroom because it prejudices the jury (Brady is an honorary state militiaman, not a real colonel). Drummond suggests busting Brady to private, and the judge decides instead to make Drummond a "temporary honorary colonel in the state militia." Drummond has a wise crack about the title. Throughout the rest of the book, there are tense moments turned ridiculous by the attorneys yelling "Colonel" at each other.
Cates is an underdog the whole time. The proceedings are biased against him. For instance, Brady tries stacking the jury with devout Christians and objects to Drummond's objections. Meanwhile Drummond points out that he wouldn't object to Brady not wanting an evolutionist on the jury. At one point when court is adjourning, there's an announcement IN COURT that Brady will be leading a religious service.
Drummond is not permitted to call any scientific witnesses because, according to the judge, the trial isn't about zoology. Backed into a corner, Drummond calls Brady as a expert witness on the Bible. The judge says he doesn't have to testify against his own case, to which Brady practically shouts he won't be testifying 'against' anything; he'll be testifying FOR the Bible (another wonderful dialogue nugget). Drummond humiliates Brady on the stand.
Cates is found guilty (duh). Brady intends to make a presidential campaign type speech at the end of the trial. He ends up suffering a medical emergency and being carried out. He dies. In the book, it's from a ruptured stomach, but the 1988 movie made it heart attack. It's the biggest difference and has no impact on the content. (Another difference is that the movie has a scene of Cates teaching and being confronted in the classroom while the book has a child who later testifies telling another kid how they came from worms, but again, it's a faithful adaptation.) After Brady is dead, there's a scene with Drummond and a reporter. The reporter makes some vile comments about Brady, and Drummond interrupts him. Then the reporter begins making fun of Drummond for defending Brady (come on! Brady was a jerk). Drummond's response hinges on the idea that he would defend anyone and that Brady and Cates both have the same right: the right to be wrong. If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird because of Atticus Finch, you'll probably like Inherit the Wind for Drummond. He's that same kind of do-the-right-thing, take-the-losing-case attorney who cares about justice... he's just more polished than small town Finch.
Although rationality and science beating religious fundamentalism is funny, that's actually not the point of the book. It's about freedom of thought. Apparently the writers were making a statement about the way the McCarthy hearings were going (political witchhunt over supposed communism). The big take away is don't be that guy...if your ideas can't win in open debate on an even playing field, then you probably don't deserve to win. Stacking the deck is a lame move. It is kind of striking that in the introduction, the authors make a point of saying it could be set in any year, or even in the future... and on that note, I'll drop a political landmine:
I definitely don't agree with everything in the book. For instance, Cates talks about academic freedom and says that basically no one should interfere in a classroom. Um...no. Parents should still be aware of what's being taught and have options (like opting out) if they disagree... even if the parents are crappy people with bad ideas. That said, parents (with good or bad ideas) might want to be careful about what they ban from classrooms because it could backfire...
The first time I heard of the Scopes Trial and Inherit the Wind, it was a very negative reference in a sermon. It was something about how the writers were "slandering the church" and "calling judgement on themselves." ICYMI, when I was growing up in the 90s and 2000s, my parents attended a string of radical churches (wacko cults) where Brady could have preached. These were people who wholeheartedly supported some politician who displayed the 10 Commandments one day and then lost their minds when the Air Force built a ritual circle for pagan servicemembers... and were completely blind to the irony. These churches maintained lists of banned books (the usuals like Harry Potter and anything that disagreed with them). Inherit the Wind was on that list of books we were never, ever supposed to read. (The idea was you can't read bad books because bad books will brainwash you and you'll "fall away," and once saved always saved except if you fall away, then you were never saved to begin with... because all of that totally makes sense.... anyways.) And of course, since I was told I couldn't read it, I went and read it (after I escaped the weird churches) and laughed my butt off. Occasionally I get to share it with other people. I hope you enjoy this book. -
Whilst I quite enjoyed reading the play, I was disappointed with the content of it.
For a defence of the right to think for one's self, there appeared to be very little independent thinking going on. It was more a presentation of people taking up ready made positions on one side or other of the controversy for ill-explained reasons & then playing attack & defence with statements worthy only of the worst of the tabloids, or these days, of Prime Ministers question time.
I also found the production notes at the end concerning the natures of the various characters very irritating. If the authors of plays feel the need to explain what their characters are really like, then for me it points to very unsuccessful writing of the actual script. -
في أول تجاربي مع الكتب المسموعة أحسنت في إختيار هذه الرائعة الأمريكية فقد إنغمست في الحدث بشكل مبالغ فيه واستمتعت بالمسرحية سماعياً أكثر من ما كنت لاستمتع بها مقرؤة
محاكمة رغم قدمها إلا انها حاضرة دائماً بقوة لا لموضوعها بحد ذاته بل لما تمثله فهي تحمل شعلة حرية الأفكار وتبارز لتثبت عدم وجود فكرة محرمة وتنادي بإحترام حقوق الأفراد ليطرقوا في داخل أذهانهم أي بابٍ جديد غريب بدون أن يترتب على فعلتهم هذه رقيب يحاسب ويحكم بالجحيم وينبذ وجودهم ويحرمهم كل ما هو جيد مسرحية وجدت فيها قضية إنسانية تركز على كون الخطأ وارد وممكن لدى كل الأطراف ولا يوجد من يحتكر الحقيقة ولا يتوجب الحكم على البشر وتصنيفهم وفق أفكار امنوا بها وتجاهل الجزء الأخر من حياتهم الطويلة المتمثلة بطريقة عيشهم والعقبات التي صادفتهم
فليرحم الإنسان أخوه الإنسان وليترك بعضنا البعض في سلام ليسلك كل منا السبيل الذي تجد فيه نفسه الراحة والسكينة فهي كما اعتقد غاية الافراد الحقيقة في هذه الدنيا
فلنختلف في الأفكار بدون أن نظلم ونسلب حرية الفكر التي وهبها الله لنا لنأتي نحن ونسلبها من بني جنسنا
مسرحية جميلة أحببتها كثيراً وترجمة نعيم جاب الله متميزة كاملة -
I just finished teaching this play for the second time: I read it with students in a composition course focused on topics at the intersection of freedom and literacy. In spite of its overly familiar subject matter, the play is actually quite enjoyable in the way it uses the historical Scopes Monkey Trials as a test case for thinking through the problems of the McCarthy era, and in fact, our own. The character development is quite interesting: Hornbeck is a fabulous villain - perhaps the most complex character in the play, and a good topic for book club discussion. The plot only intentionally develops Rachel's character, but the audience develops in its response to Drummond, in what the play slowly and subtly reveals about him; the play seems to make this move in order to illustrate the need to keep an open mind about people you might otherwise reject out of hand.
While the play has a tendency toward the didactic, its desire to be open, the moves it makes toward a fair presentation of its most disagreeable characters, creates space for fascinating discussion of authorial intent and the composition process. Because you can see the thought processes of the authors so transparently, it doesn't make my list of great American literary works (despite what the back of the book says), but I do think it's fun intellectual candy. It's got enough substance that you feel like you've done something productive, but not so much that you're stumped. -
I have a lot of trouble grasping the metaphor of the title - Biblical language just confuses me. I think this play raises interesting ideas, was probably very revolutionary at the time it was published.... but I'm just too old and liberal and jaded to be reading it in 2009. Two things that really bothered me:
1) What's up with Rachel? She's such a boring little ingenue, hammering us over the head with how torn she is between doctrine and instinct, and you just want to slap her in the face and tell her to grow a pair. The preacher's daughter is torn between what's she been taught all her life, and her new experiences that contradict those teachings.... have we not seen this a million times? Was that not already a kind of stock character at that point in history? The two lawyers are actually really well-developed characters, as is most of the supporting cast, but Rachel, and Bert too, are just like these boring placeholders. If Bert's such a brave and smart guy, then why does he come off like such a milquetoast?
2) Did the William Jennings Bryan character really have to keel over and die right after the trial? Wikipedia says he died in his sleep a few days later. I'm impressed at how they were able to make him so sympathetic, but the death was melodramatic.
There's a lot of great stuff in this play, but it could use an update - maybe it could be more subtle on those points. I'm sure I would have loved it in high school, though. -
اسم الكتاب : وارث الريح ( مسرحية )
المؤلف : JEROME LAWRENCE . ROBERT E.LEE
عدد الصفحات : 164
موضوع الكتاب : مسرحية تحكي قصة واقعية عن شخص آمن بنظرية دارون و لكن المجتمع الديني المسيحي حاكمه لايمانه بهذه النظرية ,, و كانت المحاكمة و الجدالات بين المحامي المؤيد بالدفاع عنه و بين كل المجتمع الذي يريد عقابه ,, القصة ليس في اساسها تتكلم عن نظرية داروين هل هي صادقة ام لا ,, و انما الهدف منها هو الحديث عن الحرية المتاحة للمؤمنين عكس المجتمع بقضايا تخالف الدين و المجتمع ,, و المسرحية جداً رائعة في طرحها و طريقتها و اشخاصها ,, اعجبتني جداً في قراءتها -
A very interesting read. Unfortunately, I don't know a lot of court-talk, but this play certainly taught me some!
The verdict was a bit of a shock, and I love how Drummond's character was created.
A good read for everyone: the religious, and the atheists! -
من اطلاع نداشتم اما از ریویوی مردم آمریکا به نظر میرسه این محاکمه یه محاکمه مشهور در سال ۱۹۲۵ تو آمریکاست که نظریهی داروین رو در برابر مذهب قرار میده. چیزی که هنوز تو کشور ما برای طیف مذهبی حل نشده است. از این نظر نمایشنامهی جالبیه.
اما از بعد فنی بخوایم نگاه کنیم یکی از عواملی که نمایشنامه رو از متون روایی جدا میکنه نبود راویه... در صورتی که نویسندهها تو دستور صحنهها به حدی در روایت دخالت میکنند که حتی حس شخصیتها رو نمایش میدن... به همین خاطر دستور صحنههای طولانی و بیمصرف باعث خستگی میشه. -
I don't have a super in depth-review for this book, other that I was surprised how much I liked it, since it is a play (which I find hard to read) and about something I don't know much about. But it was entertaining while still feeling educational. (This was required reading for a class.)
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I'm of two minds about Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's popular (most would say classic) play dramatizing the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. At its best, the play contains many powerful speeches in defense of free speech and thought, and its central conceit - that ideas, religious, scientific, or otherwise, are not to be censored or suppressed, either by government or public pressure - remains evergreen. That said, I've always found Wind didactic and self-important to the point of tedium. Characters utter long-winded position speeches, seeming less like characters than mouthpieces for different positions: Henry Drummond, the atheist lawyer-Clarence Darrow surrogate crusading for free thought; Matthew Harrison Brady, the William Jennings Bryan-inspired evangelical who denounces Darwin without ever having read a word (something not true of the real Bryan); the cynical H.L. Mencken stand-in Hornbeck, who snarks in blank verse; the fanatical Reverend Brown who denounces his own daughter for standing by her beau, the meek but willful teacher Bert Cates. Perhaps that's inherent in a play based on what was essentially a show trial for the ACLU and the evangelical movement of the '20s to argue about teaching evolution in schools - sadly, an issue that hasn't faded from American life. But this is the sort of play that wants you to know it's Important, with every line dripping with stentorian self-righteousness, requiring the histrionics of a gifted cast to elevate it above a lecture. Indeed, the famous Stanley Kramer film version does a fair job expanding the material, adding more interstitial scenes and extended dialogues to flesh out the characters beyond the bare portraits here; Fredric March's Brady is much more tragic than the bloviating doofus caricatured on the page, and Spencer Tracy adds a welcome note of humility to Drummond's righteousness. At any event, I suspect Inherit the Wind is immune to such criticism as mine, by viewers and readers who can see past the lumpen dramaturgy for the powerful messages conveyed therein.
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La commedia prende spunto dal Monkey Trial avvenuto nel 1925 contro un insegnante liceale che aveva avuto l'ardire di insegnare l'evoluzionismo di Darwin ai suoi studenti e condannato poi a pagare 100 dollari come condanna (esisteva una legge contro il creazionismo, senza parole..).
Il libro è un condensato di witticism, arguzia, risposte graffianti e ironia.. E' GENIALE, io ogni volta che lo leggo ne rimango estasiata!!
E' una storia che però fa anche un po' rabbia, perché la ragione e la scienza vengono offuscate dal fanatismo religioso.. La difesa di Drummond è incredibile e pur risultando estremamente convincente, nulla può contro la sorda fede..
Consiglio, consiglio!
"Are you an infidel? A sinner?"
"The worst kind, I write for a newspaper".
The accused was a slight, frightened man who had deliberately broken the law. His trial was a Roman circus. The chief gladiators were two great legal giants of the century. Like two bull elephants locked in mortal combat, they bellowed and roared imprecations and abuse. The spectators sat uneasily in the sweltering heat with murder in their hearts, barely able to restrain themselves
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I saw the film and the phrase 'he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind' when spoken by the aetheist lawyer stuck with me. This is a great introduction to the impact and leverage of primitive forces of emotion that can drive us all to do strange, foolish things.
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Still packs a punch
Excellent play revealing our society and how
We face and don't face, champion and ridicule bigotry. It's less a question of science and more a question of the right to think for yourself, to make up your own mind. -
mostly a blur, except for this wonderful quote:
"He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart."
