Lawrence and Lee use a southern dialect to realistically portray the residents of Hillsboro, as well as to illustrate their lack of sophistication. A dialect is a spoken version of a language. Dialects are regional and are often class languages having distinct features of pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Southern dialect is informal, using figurative language and colorful expressions. For example, in Act I, Scene 1, Howard asks Melinda, "What're yuh skeered of?" As the townspeople prepare for Brady's arrival, the audience hears that the paint on the banner, "didn't dry @'til jist now," the picnic the women prepared is "Fitt'n fer a King," and because of Brady's arrival, the "Town's gonna fill up like a rain barrel in a flood."
Lawrence and Lee use the Southern dialect spoken by the people of Hillsboro to stereotype the townspeople as "ignorant Southerners." This implication leads to the theme of the play and the conflict between evolutionism (progressive thinking) and fundamentalism or creationism (reactionary thinking).
Lawrence and Lee use conventions and devices to emphasize the themes of the play: Knowledge must not be censored, people must fight for freedom of thought, and differing beliefs must be valued. Although the playwrights based Inherit the Wind on the 1925 Scopes trial, it was published and produced in 1955, in the midst of the McCarthy era, and as they state, the setting, " . . . might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow."
