Inherit the Wind
Describe bertrum cates
Describe bertrum cates
Describe bertrum cates
Bert Cates, age twenty-four, is a "pale, thin young man" "quiet, shy, well-mannered, not particularly good-looking." Cates is in jail at the beginning of the play, arrested and about to go on trial for teaching evolution to his seventh-graders. Despite Rachel's urgings to him to confess, Cates knows he did not do wrong. Unlike most of Hillsboro, he does not see things in black-and-white but understands that the world is complex. His intellectual musings, including the questions about the world he has whispered to Rachel, are turned against him by Brady who sees blasphemy in his questions and observations. A quiet, unassumng young man, Cates is the center of a trial which labels him the destroyer of faith. He is terrified as the jurors return, fearful he will be imprisoned for years. His victory, in a town that no longer wants him, is only a partial victory, but he is proud when Drummond tells him that he has made the way easier for the next man. He is full of admiration for Rachel when she chooses to think, and the two leave happily together when he is released on bail paid by Hornbeck's paper.