Inherit the Wind

Henry Drummond is Bert Cates’s lawyer. He is loosely based on Clarence Darrow, the real defense attorney in the Scopes trial. Like Darrow, Drummond is an agnostic who believes in The Value of Critical Thinking and the importance of intellectual freedom. Though at first it seems that he is defending Bert because of their shared belief in evolution and science, it is later revealed that Drummond would fight for the right of any person to believe what they want, regardless of whether he personally agrees with them. This can be seen following Matthew Brady’s death: Though Drummond believes that Brady “was looking for God too high up and too far away” (162), he insists that Brady had “the right to be wrong” (162), just as any other person has. To him, that right is worth defending.

The end of the play reveals Drummond not to be a champion of evolution, but a champion of the freedom of speech and belief. This revelation underscores the play’s exploration of McCarthyism. Drummond’s characterization as a champion of intellectual freedom does somewhat undermine the points that the Scopes trial makes. Scopes (and the fictionalized Bert) are on trial not for believing in evolution but for teaching it. Drummond’s legal defense, that Bert has the right to believe whatever he wants, does not effectively defend the crime that Bert has been charged with. Rather, the points that Drummond makes in the play say more about McCarthyism and intellectual freedom than they say about religious belief.

Matthew Brady is the primary antagonist in Inherit the Wind. He is the prosecuting lawyer in Bert’s trial and is based on William Jennings Bryan, the prosecuting lawyer in the Scopes trial. Brady is a fundamentalist Christian who believes in creationism, the idea that God created the world in seven days around 6,000 years ago. Brady is a charismatic and confident public speaker who sees himself as leading a righteous crusade. He believes that evolution is a dangerous idea that goes against what the Bible teaches and that the word of God should be a good enough explanation for how and why the world came to exist. Inherit the Wind ultimately portrays Brady as someone unwilling to open his mind to new ideas, instead relying on an incurious view of the Bible. When he takes the witness stand, Brady is unable to answer many of Drummond’s questions about the contradictions and missing details within the Bible and eventually collapses under the pressure of having his authority so thoroughly challenged. 

As a religious fundamentalist who discourages free thought, Brady also symbolizes McCarthyist ideals of 1940s and ’50s America. His belief that different ideas are dangerous and will erode the moral fabric of America is very much in line with McCarthyist thinking, which distrusted everything that was not in line with Republican American values. Brady’s sudden death at the end of Inherit the Wind symbolizes the death of the old world (McCarthyist censorship and intellectual suppression) so that a new world can be born, one that upholds and celebrates freedom of belief and speech. Brady is the only person who is totally unwilling to listen to Drummond’s defense of free thought: Rachel comes around, though she does not agree with Darwin, and even the townspeople seem to support Bert’s right to believe what he wants at the end. In a new age of intellectual freedom, there is no room for the regressive censorship that Brady supports.

E. K. Hornbeck is a journalist from the Baltimore Herald. He is cynical and blasé and often makes fun of the fundamentalist religious beliefs of the people of Hillsboro. He is the only atheist represented in the play. Whereas Drummond is an agnostic, someone who is unsure of the existence of God and holds that it cannot be proven one way or the other, Hornbeck takes every opportunity to mock religion. He does not call himself an atheist, but his position is clear. He ridicules Brady for being a religious fundamentalist with backward beliefs and denounces him even after his sudden death. He makes fun of the townspeople’s misunderstanding of evolution and challenges Rachel’s way of thinking. While Bert has undoubtedly tried to challenge Rachel’s religious beliefs prior to the events of the play, Hornbeck is the first to ask her whether the answers to questions like “Where we came from, where we are, where we’re going” are really in the Bible (54). 

Throughout the play, the people of Hillsboro attempt to pin the label of the “Devil” on someone. They attempt to label both Bert and Drummond as the Devil due to their perceived anti-religious beliefs. When it is revealed that neither Drummond nor Bert is explicitly anti-religion, merely pro-free thought, the question of who the Devil is remains. Even Brady, who does not change his beliefs about censorship before he dies, is afforded the title of a “great man,” and therefore not someone wholly bad. It is Hornbeck, in the end, who is positioned as the Devil. He is first aligned with the Devil when he offers Rachel advice and a bite of an apple, referencing the temptation of Eve. Though he swears to her that he is “not the serpent” (53), by the end of the play he is the only character who is fully condemned for his position in the debate between religion and science. Hornbeck is completely unwilling to consider the beliefs of religious people. When the play advocates for open-mindedness and critical thinking, it positions Hornbeck as antithetical to these ideals. His close-mindedness is portrayed as just as bad as, if not worse than, Brady’s.

Rachel Brown is Bert’s girlfriend and Reverend Brown’s daughter. She is torn between her feelings for Bert and her belief that he has done something wrong by teaching evolution. She urges Bert to admit he was wrong to avoid being prosecuted and potentially sent to prison. Over the course of the trial, however, she reads Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the text that Bert is on trial for teaching. She realizes that while she does not agree with Bert or Darwin about evolution, Bert should have the right to express his beliefs. She recognizes that expressing ideas is not a bad or dangerous thing, even if those ideas might go against the status quo. Rachel represents Americans during the McCarthy period who believed it was best to stay out of trouble by not questioning figures of authority. At first, she sees the law as something that should be obeyed, even if she does not agree with it. By the end, she has learned the value of questioning authority and the world around her.

Many other characters are involved in Bert’s trial. The judge presides over the courtroom. Though he attempts to be balanced and fair, his biases usually end up favoring Brady’s perspective. He frequently puts Drummond’s case at a disadvantage, requiring Drummond to get creative with his defense. 

Davenport is a circuit district attorney and Brady’s partner on the prosecution team against Bert. He is outspoken and a competent prosecutor but often defers to Brady as his superior. Meeker is the bailiff. He runs the jail where Bert spends the days leading up to the trial. He is a kind man who allows Rachel to visit Bert. 

Howard is a 13-year-old boy and one of Bert’s students. He testifies as a witness for the prosecution, and Brady uses him as an example of the children who will be corrupted by the theory of evolution. However, Howard doesn’t really understand what Bert was trying to teach him, and ultimately, Drummond shows that Howard is unharmed by being taught about evolution. He has not, for instance, abandoned his religious beliefs or started to behave immorally. Though he does not understand exactly what he has learned, Drummond is hopeful that Howard represents a generation of youths who will start to question things around them. 

During the jury selection process, three men are named. Mr. Bannister and Sillers both end up serving on the jury, but Dunlap is dismissed by Drummond due to Dunlap’s religious beliefs and personal feelings about the case, which would unfairly bias him against Bert.