Bertram Cate Characters

The Setting: The story takes place in Hillsboro. Most of the story takes place in the Hillsboro courthouse but sometimes outside.
The Characters: Bertram Cates is a character who goes to jail for teaching the evolution of man. Henry is defending Bertram. Rachel is the wife of Cates. Melinda is a student. Brady is against Cates. All the side characters are Melinda, Bertram Cates, Mr. Goodfellow, Mrs. Krebs, Jeremiah Brown, Corkin, Bollinger, Platt, Mr. Bannister, Mrs. Loomis, Mrs. Mcclain, Mrs. Blair, Elijah, Hornbeck, Timmy, Mayor, Tom, Judge, Dunlap, Sillers, Harry and George. In the beginning, Cates gets arrested for teaching the evolution of man. Rachel comes to visit him in jail. The whole city is against him for doing this because
they believe in god and don’t believe in evolution. They write signs and sing songs about how much they hate Cates. The mayor and the city meet up and have a meeting. Talking about how evolution is fake and not godly. Someone in the crowd names Hornbeck disagrees with the speech and everyone is in shock. He talks about getting someone named Henry and everyone talks bad about him. Back at home, Rachel defends Cates. In a fair, the students meet Henry, who also believe in cates theory, and the students wish him the best of luck. A few minutes after, they head to the courthouse and get ready for the fight! In the middle, Brady calls up a farmer named Jesse.
Brady asks if he believes in the bible. The farmer says, “I believe in the holy word of god, and I also believe in Brady.” Henry refuses to ask any questions. Brady calls up George. He asks if he had a child that would come home to tell him about evolution; he gets interrupted by henry screaming objection. The Judge agrees. The court day ends. Henry says that he’s here to defend cates about being different. A few days later, one of the students are called up to the stand. Brady asks him how evolution works. The student explains to him. When the student says that men are evaluated from the old world monkeys, the court laughs. Brady asks if in any of the parts in the lesson of evolution, if he mentioned god. The student says no and Brady talks about the bible and everyone agrees. Brady talks about it being nonsense. Henry defends the student and makes good point about how Cates didn’t lie. He says that truth has meaning. He makes more good points. But then they call Rachel to the stand. Cates gets worried. Brady talk about church and how and why they don’t go. Rachel talks about a boy who wanted to be a scientist. This boy died in a river. Because of what happened to the boy, Cates stopped going to church. Rachel starts crying because of Brady screaming at her. Cates wants her to get out of the stand. They call more people into the stand defending and going against
Cates. In the end, Henry talks about the court being bigoted.
John gives up his money and defends him. More cases later, people are starting to believe Cates. Both people seem believable and today is the day to see if Cates is innocent or guilty. The jury has reached a verdict and says that Cates is guilty. Cates rises to hear the sentence. But since there has been no previous violation, there’s no resident to guide the bench of the statement. The court deems it proper, and Cates just needs to pay a fine of 100 dollars. Brady tries to talk about a more drastic punishment but everyone defends him. He pays it and he and Rachel are
happy.
My Personal Connection: After the story end, I think that they are going to allow evolution to be a way of coming into this world and Rachel and Cates will live a happy life. I think this book was fantastic and a book that everyone should read. I will tell my friends about it because it’s a book that you will get hooked into.