“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by Thomas Lanier Williams
Blurb
The play written by Thomas Lanier Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, talks of a wealthy family whose members are divided by a lack of communication among family members. The main figure of this family, Big daddy, is suffering from cancer disease, and his sons are showing signs of being interested in who will inherit the family’s wealth. Brick, son to Big Daddy, is gay and faces lots of challenges and rejection from the society to his family. He relies on alcohol to finding peace from the constant quarrels and misunderstanding with his wife. The general play reflects much on what was happening in Williams’s life.
Bibliography of the author
Thomas Lanier Williams is the author of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He graduated from university and hustled various jobs before settling as a writer in New Orleans. During his career, he preferred the name Tennessee Williams where he wrote several plays. His passion for writing leads to the creation of The Glass Menagerie, American Blues, which were quite a success before he ventured into witting more plays. He witnessed fighting and misunderstanding from his parents during his young age, which motivated the writing of the play.
Williams’ father disliked him because of his sexuality status and was often sensitive. He was involved with Frank Merlo and preferred keeping his sexual life private. Williams’ work has often won theatre awards, during his time of successful writing. The successful writing, however, did not last much since Williams was addicted to alcohol, which negatively impacted his writing ability. Later in the years before his death, Williams wrote a memoir of his homosexuality.
Context of the book
The final creation of the play saw its production in 1974 and directed by Kazan. Williams desired for success after the downfall and the unsuccessful performance of his previous play. The play was revisited several before its final publishing sine the author targeted more and the success of his work. The purpose of writing was to express various aspects that can take place in a family. Morals and immorality, sexual desires, and greed are some of the aspects expressed from the play. William, through Brick, expresses sexuality and the challenges homosexual culture faces. Brick faces much opposition and problems from his sexual status and is stressed by the fact that people consider his friendship and Skipper immoral.
Brick is despised even by his wife, who is bothered by the fact that they do not have kids. The play captures how people were affected after the end of world war two and how America’s culture got eroded. The target audience is family members and society at large and their interactions. The play expresses how differences in family interests affect others and neighboring families. Maggie compares her family with Mae’s family and keeps complaining to her husband for them not having Kids.
The play targets society and the challenges homosexuals face as they practice an immoral culture. From the play, Brick addresses homosexuality as “dirty” which shows how much the society disapproves of the culture. He shows how homosexuals are challenged with expressing their feelings freely without fear of being judged or looked down upon.
Act 1
Summary
The scene begins when Maggie and Brick are in the bedroom, Brick is taking a shower, and Maggie is complaining. He comes out from showering and does not pay much attention to what his wife is saying. Maggie blames Brick for their situation and the fact that they have no kids compared to Gooper’s family. Brick and Grooper’s family are in some sort of competition for the family’s wealth inheritance. Maggie airs out her concerns that they are going to lose the chance of inheriting the wealth. Brick’s behavior of drinking alcohol and the fact that his ankle broke generated more credit for Grooper to be fit for the wealth makes Maggie more furious.
Maggie blames Brick for her change in behavior and implies that she has grown cruel since Brick does not provide the love she desires. The couple, Brick and Maggie, no longer exercise conjugal rights, which catalyze Maggie’s taught of Brick and Skipper. Mentioning Skipper and making accusations that there exists more than friendship between Skipper and Brick makes Brick angry. Maggie assumes that by making such assumptions, she would be able to break Brick. She continues to try and capture Brick’s attention and reminds him that Big Daddy was to celebrate his birthday on that day.
Mae comes and interrupts the couple, and as she praises her kids with the aim of offending Maggie. She gets upset and decides to walk away after Maggie cracks an insulting joke on her kids. Maggie then opens up to Brick, telling him of how the jealous feeling she has for the children of Mae and Gooper makes her long for intimacy. Maggie seems to forget the agreements they made before getting married, and Brick takes the chance and reminds her. Maggie, sensitive on the issue, airs out that she declines the conditions she agreed to the marriage.
When Big Mama gets to the scene and announces that Big Daddy is cancer-free, as Brick excuses himself to the washroom. Maggie gets bored by Big Mama’s question of bed game satisfaction, which she views as not fair. Brick appears on the departure of Big Mama, and his conversation with Maggie does not go well. He encourages Maggie to seek attention from other males, and this is different from Maggie’s desires. Maggie focuses on acquiring Big Daddy’s wealth and clings to Brick despite their situation. She mentions that Big Daddy will die of the disease, and it was right for Brick to gain interest in the wealth.
As the act comes to an end, Maggie confesses some past scenes that offend and provoke Brick. She claims that Skipper passed on because of the results of trying to get intimate with her. The attempt of trying to make love with Skipper resulted in his excessive drinking habits, thereby his death. Brick is more offended and tries to hit Maggie but misses the target twice on the attempt. As a result, he falls and gets up, adding more alcohol to his drinking cup. Maggie surprises Brick by the Taught of conceiving children, yet the two cannot tolerate each other.
Analysis
The author shows how a lack of communication is slowly eroding the relationship between the characters. As the scene starts, Maggie and Brick are in a tense mood as she shouts and yaps out her endless speeches to Brick, who is taking a shower. The situation is quite ironic since the two are under one roof, and yelling should never be the case or even take place. However, Brick seems to careless and does not pay much attention to what Maggie is saying.
Communication is the main barrier, and Maggie is the only one who displays attempts to enhance effective communication. She airs her opinions and desires clearly and freely to Brick. However, the relationship between Maggie and Brick is weak, and her attempts to communicate often fail since Brick has never been interested. Brick is a difficult character since he has detached himself from all other characters. He rushes and hides in the bathroom when Big Mama came in.
The lack of interest to display any attempt of communication by Brick is because he is scared of addressing and dealing with his feelings. He doubts his friendship with Skipper and is scared that it might be regarded as “dirty.” Brick is concerned with the results of expressing his feelings and ends up suppressing the taught by taking excessive alcohol. The author never states that Brick’s sexuality and gives instances that suggest both hetero and homosexual circumstances. Due to fear, Brick fails to address his feelings and that of Skipper, which he ends up blaming Maggie indirectly for his death. Brick’s fear contributed to his blindness on not seeing both sides of the matter.
During their union, Maggie and Brick got into agreements on certain conditions for their marriage, which included not having sex. Maggie pretends to be happy with the kind of life she is leading just to acquire Big Daddy’s wealth after his death. Big Mama keeps questioning about satisfaction during sex since she suspects that things were not right between the couple. On the other hand, Mae and Grooper have the task of pretending to care about Big Daddy just to acquire wealth. The couple keeps parading their children as a strategy to seek favor and gain credit to being the right persons to inherit the wealth.
Maggie grows to cruelty from her determination to acquire Big Daddy’s wealth and gain Brick’s love and attention. She prefers staying in a frustrating marriage just to satisfy her demands and desires. The author uses the title of the play to represent Maggie’s life, where Maggie has the freedom to let go but prefers staying back with Brick. Brick, on the other hand, has low self-esteem and is focused on defense and lacks positive vibes. He is cruel to his wife and torments her by denying her the love she deserves. He tries to suppress his wife to the point of hitting her with the clutches.