Scopes monkey trial essays

Scopes monkey trial essays During the summer of 1925 in a small town in Daytona Tennessee an event occurred that captured the attention of the American people. A man named John Scopes was being prosecuted by the state of Tennessee. He was a schoolteacher who was on trial for teaching evolution to children and therefore violating the anti-evolutionist law of Tennessee. The play Inherit the Wind portrays this event but seems to twist the truth and in some places grossly distorts the events that actually occurred to make the reader more interested. One difference between the play and real life is that in the play Cates was a full time biology teacher who fully believed in the importance and significance for evolution. He was even willing to be placed in Jail and tried for this crime. However, this is not the truth and it was just added to make the reader feel sympathetic for Cates. Whereas in reality Scopes was not a biology teacher, rather he was the football coach. He only substituted for two weeks for the regular biology teacher, who was ill at the time. During this time, the schedule called for a class on evolution but Scopes told officials that on no account did he teach evolution to the children. In fact, in the play they refer to the book that was being used in class as being written by Darwin, while during the scopes trial it wasnt Darwins book that was used in the classroom instead the class textbook that was used was entitled Civic Biology by Hunter. Then there was the change in personality of characters in which the book created The prosecuting lawyer, Matthew Brady (representing William Jennings Bryan) as being an arrogant, ignorant extremist. A characteristic that makes it easy for the reader to loath and dislike as a way to leads up to the scene in which Brady becomes humiliated on the stand and practically loses the case. While in reality, Bryan was the likeable and highly respected leader of the Democra ...