Transcript Cat on a hot tin roof final

American Literature: Drama
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams (1911 – 1983)
1.
Introduction
 Watch Tennessee Williams: Wounded Genius on youtube.com (5
parts)
 Play written 1955; Broadway debut 1956
i. Plot
 Centres around Big Daddy’s birthday party
 Big Daddy dying
 Pollitt family vying to inherit large estate
ii.
What the play is about

Ambiguous

Homosexual relationship

Troubled marriage

Communication difficulties

Family squabbles over inheritance
iii. Relevance for today?
iv. Context of the South
Mississippi Delta
Noble past?
Conservative values
v. Patriarchal family
 Family hierarchy
 Father = head of family
 Mother subordinate to father
 Child-rearing conforms to gender roles
vi.Microcosm vs. macrocosm
Microcosm = family
Macrocosm = society
Family reflects US society
Time of big social change
2. Dramatic Form
i. Realistic dramatic form
 Stage – proscenium arch
 Set
 Time
 Furniture
 Lighting
ii. Non-realist dimension
iii. Patterns of movement on the stage
Crossing and counter-crossing
Facilitates theme of entrapment and
imprisonment
3. Writer on Communication
Artist’s need to communicate truth
“People who are shocked by the truth, aren’t deserving of the truth. And
the truth is something one has to deserve.” Tennessee Williams
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7L8EIdFmj4)
Play communicates:
-
Human truths and emotions
-
American society and its values
-
Personal concerns – Williams’ homosexuality
4. Characters and central concerns of the
play
i.
Big Daddy
 Self-made
 Powerful patriarch
 Coarse
 Terminally ill
 Sexual entitlement
 Needs successor
 Tolerant?/ sympathetic
ii. Big Mama (Ida)
 Huge and ugly
 Submissive to Big Daddy
 Interfering
 No sense of self
 Believes marriage based on sex
 Ineffectual?
ii. Big Mama (Ida) (cont)
Delusion – family held together by love
Reality – family held together by greed
iii. Gooper and Mae
 Older brother and wife
 Avaricious
 Gooper – uses legal knowledge to try steal estate
 Mae – ex-Cotton Queen, socially pretentious
 Reflect American values
iii. Gooper and Mae (cont)
 5 children – ‘no-neck monsters’
 Use children as bait for material gain
 Sham show of love for Big Daddy
iv. Brick
Ex-football player/ sports commentator
Beautiful on outside/ empty on inside
Alcoholic
Spiritually and morally paralysed
iv. Brick (cont)
 Friendship with Skipper = centre of play
 Repressed homosexual?
 Homophobic
 Disgusted with ‘mendacity’
 Disgusted with himself?
v.
Conflict between Brick and Big Daddy
 Breakdown in communication
 Brick’s truth cause of his disgust with himself?
 Heart of Brick’s spiritual and moral paralysis?
 Brick reveals Big Daddy’s truth to him
 Truth intolerable to both
vi. Ambiguous treatment of
homosexuality
Patriarchal society – need for successor
 Original owners of plantation homosexual
 No biological heirs so who succeeds?
vi. Ambiguous treatment of
homosexuality (cont)
 Brick denies his homosexuality
 But BIG QUESTION: Is he or isn’t he?
 Brick expresses homophobia
 Brick’s sexuality remains unresolved
 Has treatment of theme dated badly?
vii. Maggie (Margaret)
 The cat on the hot tin roof
 Feline characteristics
 Ambitious
 Realist/ cynic
 Uses sexuality as weapon; sexually aggressive
 Determined to win
5. Theme of truth and mendacity
 No absolute truth
 Truth-telling = communication (artist’s aim)
 Characters reflect mendacious society
 Brick’s, Maggie’s and Big Daddy’s “truths”
6. Staging
Act I:
Brick and Maggie
Act II:
Brick and Big Daddy
Act III:
Alternative resolutions; all characters
denied wishes
7. Ending of play
i. Original
 Dark and negative
 No resolution for Brick
 Big Daddy doesn’t reappear
 2 grim reminders of Big Daddy’s death – anguished cry and Big
Mama rushing in to fetch morphine
ii.
Broadway version
 On advice from director, Elia Kazan
 More positive
 Big Daddy returns to stage
 Development of Brick’s character
 Storm (pathetic fallacy)
 Capitulation of Williams’ artistic integrity?
iii. What about film?
 Sanitised version
In all versions:
 Open-ended
 Unanswered questions tease audience
Lecturer: Jill Nudelman
Contact: [email protected]