Back at the storefront, Hornbeck strolls and the storekeeper closes
up. The organ-grinder comes onstage with the monkey, and Melinda
gives the monkey a penny. Henry Drummond, a thick, slouching man,
enters. Seeing Drummond in front of the bright red of the setting
sun, Melinda exclaims, “It’s the Devil!” Hornbeck greets Drummond,
saying “Hello, Devil. Welcome to Hell.”
Analysis
The introductory note that precedes Act One establishes
that Inherit the Wind does not adhere strictly
to the factual details of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which frees the
playwrights to deliver universally applicable lessons about humankind
in the modern age. In twentieth-century America, the advancement
of technology and ideas often outpaced the general population’s
ability to digest and understand them. The reconciliation of science
and religion remains an issue to this day, and perspectives restricted
by religion, politics, or nationality often impede individual freedom
of thought and expression. This tension manifested itself in the
debate over evolution in the 1920s,
just as the debate over the ethical implications of human cloning
stirs similar controversy today.
The playwrights hint at one of Inherit the Wind’s
major themes—the conflict between urban and rural attitudes—in their
description of the setting of the opening scene. They stress that
Hillsboro should appear a “sleepy, obscure country town about to
be vigorously awakened.” The natural state of Hillsboro is static—a
condition that is disrupted by the arrival of prominent strangers
from cities in the first scene.
The opening lines of the play introduce the central conflict:
that of creationism versus evolutionism. As befits a play about
the meaning of education, the first characters onstage are children.
Howard and Melinda enact the conflict troubling the town in miniature. Howard
accuses Melinda’s father of being a monkey, while she, in turn,
accuses Howard of “sinful talk.” Melinda’s reaction mirrors the
outrage of Hillsboro’s authorities and adults about Cates’s teaching
of evolution theory in public school. Howard, meanwhile, attempts
to convey Cates’s ideas about evolution but betrays a distorted
understanding of these new ideas. Evolution does not equate men
with monkeys, but rather posits that the two species share common
ancestors. When Howard asks a worm what he wants to be when he grows
up, what he really means to ask is what the worm wants its species
to become when it evolves. Howard’s misunderstanding humorously
illustrates the ways in which young minds can internalize and distort
new ideas.
The Hillsboro townspeople, aside from Cates, Rachel, and
Reverend Brown, form a composite character, and function as a barometer
for atmosphere surrounding the trial. Their sense of festivity in welcoming
Brady to Hillsboro demonstrates the town’s unquestioning embrace
of Christian fundamentalism and the significance of this trial in
such a quiet, rural town. The playwrights convey the townspeople’s
lack of sophistication through their dialect and the content of
their words. The mountain man Elijah’s illiteracy emphasizes Hillsboro’s
lack of progress. The fact that an illiterate man sells Bibles adds
a layer of irony, for Elijah believes in and profits from a book
he can’t even read himself. Indeed, a significant portion of Hillsboro’s
townspeople are illiterate, so Reverend Brown’s authority as an
interpreter of Scripture carries extra weight.
Brady, who arrives in a flurry of gluttony and arrogance,
betrays the ignorance and fear at the root of his religious fundamentalism. Although
Brady professes his disgust at the idea of evolution, he knows next
to nothing about Charles Darwin’s work. One of Inherit the
Wind’s recurring arguments, which Drummond later makes
explicit in his defense of Cates, is that it is unjust to reject ideas
without examining them. When Brady hears that Drummond will oppose
him in the trial, he and the mayor discuss banning Drummond from
Hillsboro as a public health hazard. Though absurd, this suggestion
is not all that different from the Hillsboro legislature’s law against
instruction in evolution—both show how figures of authority can
use their power to spread fear of the unknown among those they govern.
E. K. Hornbeck provides crucial commentary throughout Inherit the
Wind. The playwrights use him to transmit their opinions
to the audience—a logical choice, for Hornbeck stands in for the
real-life journalist and critic H. L. Mencken, whose reporting on
the Scopes trial served as a critical source for
the playwrights. Hornbeck’s quips also provide comic relief in an
otherwise weighty work. Although it often appears, especially early
in the play, that Hornbeck’s comments are addressed to no one but
himself, he serves as a chorus character for the playwrights’ attitudes
toward religion and the events of the trial. Echoing the choruses
of ancient Greek drama, Hornbeck’s lines appear in verse form, and
his predictions, which initially seem extreme, eventually prove
true as the play progresses. His presence accentuates the differences
between urban and rural attitudes as he editorializes that the rural
South lags behind the rest of the nation in coming to terms with
the changing times.
