When considering the themes of Inherit the Wind, the student should keep in mind that the play was first published in 1955, not 1925 when the Scopes trial took place. During the early 1950s, known as the McCarthy era, actors and writers were blacklisted — that is, refused work because they had been accused of having some connection to Communism.
During this period, people stopped expressing their thoughts, beliefs, or ideas, afraid they would lose their livelihood or worse. Being writers, Lawrence and Lee became aware of the dangerous situation created when laws are passed limiting the freedom to think and speak. When writing Inherit the Wind, the playwrights were not concerned with the controversy between evolution and creation, the focus of the Scopes trial. Instead, they were concerned with the censoring or limiting of an individual's freedom to think. The authors used the issue of evolution as a metaphor for control over an individual's thoughts or beliefs. Inherit the Wind, then, is Lawrence and Lee's response to the McCarthy era.
