Symbols In Inherit The Wind

Symbols often play large roles in connecting stories with readers. Writers use symbols to refer to larger ideas, meanings and feeling, allowing readers to think and further connect to the characters in the story. In Lawrence and Lee’s Inherit the Wind it is shown that a symbol is a concrete thing that represents something abstract, something completely different from itself to show an idea. In the book there are three big symbols, Drummond’s “Golden Dancer”, Darwin’s Origin of Species, and monkeys. Firstly, Drummond’s “Golden Dancer” is an apparent symbol in Inherit the Wind. For instance, Drummond’s “Golden Dancer” represents how things and people are often internally different from their external appearances, appearance vs reality. Golden

For example, Cates says to Rachel “It isn’t as simple as that. Good or Bad, black or white, night or day. Do you know, at the top of the world the twilight is six months long?” (Lawrence and Lee 9). Cates says that in the world there is not always clear rights and wrongs, sometimes there are middle, or grey areas, and using the evolution theory, he was able to voice his opinions and objections to the belief that he didn’t believe in. He uses it as a weapon in the war for free speech. Another example is of when Drummond is seen weighing the bible and Darwin’s Origin of Species at the end of the play. The narrator states “He looks from one volume to the other, balancing them thoughtfully, as if his hands were scales. He half-smiles, half-shrugs. Then Drummond slaps the two books together and jams them in his briefcase, side by side” (Lawrence and Lee 129). The narrator clearly states that Drummond weighed the two books together and then placed them side by side, showing that he thinks both are equally correct. This action also shows that people can believe in whatever they want, be it one religion, multiple religions or even in nothing at all, in the end they are all equal, and no one belief is better than another. Therefore, Darwin’s Origin of species is a big symbol in the play and represents the idea of free