Dec 20, 2009

Inherit the Wind | Act I Summary

Act One, Scene I
Inherit The Wind opens just after dawn on a July day that "promises to be a scorcher." The story centers around a schoolteacher who is on trial for leaching evolution—the theory that man evolved from lower primates such as monkeys—in his classroom, a violation of Tennessee's Butler Law. The lines are already drawn in this sleepy Southern town of Hillsboro, Tennessee. Creationism or evolution? Religion or science? The local minister's daughter, a young teacher named Rachel, visits her imprisoned colleague, Bert Cates, at the local jail. The...