It would be difficult to make a case that this work is fundamentally speaking to the issue of the power of the individual versus the larger society. A dramatization of the Scopes Trial of 1925, which concerned a Tennessee high school science teacher who had been indicted for teaching the theory of evolution in violation of the state's Butler Act, the play's focus is less on any individual than on the abstract issues of academic freedom and freedom of speech.

The role of the teacher character, Bertram Cates, is basically symbolic, and the play is dominated by the characters of Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady, just as the actual trial was by their real-life counterparts, famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow and former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. The climax of the play comes with Drummond's cross-examination of Brady in act 2, as the lawyer questions him about the credibility of various events in the Book of Genesis according to scientific standards. Brady's rigid, scriptural responses eventually give way to a painful admission that the first day of Creation might have been longer than twenty-four hours. Pushed to the edge, Brady rants against his opponent:

BRADY: I'll tell you what he's trying to do! He wants to destroy everybody's belief in the Bible, and in God!

DRUMMOND: You know that's not true. I'm trying to stop you bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States! And you know it!

Since the Scopes Trial took place nearly a century ago, when the population of the United States was far less educated than at present, one might have expected that the interference of religion in education and the teaching of evolution would now be non-issues. Yet, as we know, this is far from being the case, and the teaching of evolution remains controversial in many areas of the country.

As the playwrights Lawrence and Lee explained, Inherit the Wind was intended not only as a defense of academic freedom but as an attack on the mind-control implicit in the McCarthyism of that era. A similar mind-control, they suggest, is also implicit in fundamentalist types of religion.

In the movie and play, Inherit the Wind, certainly, one individual is portrayed as taking on society's unsupported beliefs on evolution, and there is a certain "triumph" for the individual. However, it is important to understand that this story, while it is based upon actual events, is a fictionalized account of those events, and there is some important information not really emphasized enough. 

Scopes did stand trial for his teaching of evolution. But he did not stand alone.  There was an interest in attacking the law that prohibited the teaching of evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advertised for someone willing to stand trial in a test case.  The town fathers were also interested in a test case taking place in their town because they believed the trial would bring people and publicity to their town.  This background information about the real case is important to understand because quite often, the individual versus society loses without some help. 

There are probably better examples of the individual prevailing against society, for example, Christ, Ghandi, Semmelweis, or Martin Luther King, Jr. But even in those examples, the "victory" over society was not achieved without the support of others. This does not mean that an individual cannot ever prevail against society on his or her own, but in most cases, an individual begins a movement against society that is then taken up by others.