Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Amanda Ladanyi

Professor Wexler

English 313 Honors

14 October 2009

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams, is a story about two brothers and their families competing for the inheritance of their dying father, Big Daddy. In the middle of this is the whirlwind of sexuality un-tethered in Maggie, the cat, and the burden of love repressed in Brick, Maggie’s husband. One of the main themes in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the father and the son.

The father and son, Brick and Bid Daddy, have a narcissistic relationship. Narcissistic relationships are often defined by an “excessive self-love and grandiosity.” (xi Lerner) Big Daddy’s narcissistic love for Brick is made clear because Brick bears the charmingly masculine indifference Bid Daddy must have in his youth. At the end of the play Big Daddy’s narcissistic personality is shown through Maggie and Big Momma when “Maggie: Announcement of life beginning! A child is coming, sired by Brick, and out of Maggie the Cat! I have Brick’s child in my body, an’ that’s my birthday present to Big Daddy on this birthday!” (167 Williams) “Big Momma: BIG DADDY’S DREAM COME TRUE!” (168 Williams) This shows that Bid Daddy wants above anything else for Brick to provide him with a grandson who is as much like his son, Brick, who is much, like him. This further shows that Brick is Bid Daddy’s rightful heir and his means of immortality. In act 2 of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Big Daddy shares with us his observation about life, which is, “The human animal is a beast that dies but the fact that he’s dying don’t give him pity for others, no sir.” (90 Williams) This shows Big Daddy’s narcissistic personality because even though he is dying he still will show no pity or love to anyone else. If Big Daddy shows pity and love to anyone else then to him, it is seen as him loving them more than he loves himself, which doesn’t stand by the definition of a narcissist stated earlier by Lerner.

Chris Barker writes that, “Identity is best understood not as a fixed entity but as an emotionally charged discursive description of ourselves that is subject to change.” (216 Barker) We see this in the relationship between Big Daddy and Brick when they have a show down over their respective secrets, which leads to both of them changing their identity to tell the truth; Big Daddy’s “death country” and Brick’s “almost not alive” in his drunkenness. In this fashion, unlike the other characters, they both present themselves as the only ones who have never lied to each other. Big Daddy’s final struggle marks the reverse side of the narcissistic love between him and Brick, which is the aggressive logic of either you go or I go between both of them who mirror each other so closely.

Another theme that is seen through the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is that of manliness and homosexuality. Barker states that, “Sexual Identity is held to be not a universal biological essence but a matter of how femininity and masculinity are spoken about.” (314 Barker) The category of sex is from the start of life normative or what Foucault has called a “regulatory ideal.” (Foucault) Judith Butler argues that, “In other words, ‘sex’ is an ideal construct which is forcibly materialized through time.” (298 Barker)

In many of William’s works cat concerns itself with the elaboration of a certain fantasy of broken manliness. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Brick is a manliness that is left crippled by the homosexual desire he must keep in abeyance. Brick, a “brick” of a man, embodies an almost archetypal masculinity. Brick’s enviable coolness is the coolness of repression, a repression that keeps his desires at bay. Brick is an alcoholic who cannot acknowledge the desire in his relationship with his dead friend Skipper. Turning from his desire for Skipper, he has depressively distanced himself from the world with a screen of liquor, which creates a click of peace for him. Brick mourns his love for Skipper and for Brick it is the only true and good thing in his life. His mourning is made more difficult by the desire that he cannot confess or admit. As Maggie notes, “theirs is a love that dare not speak its name, a love that could not be satisfied or discussed.” (Act 3 Williams) Thus Daddy, assuming the position of judge, will force Brick to confront this love. Brick's attempts at dodging him are crucial to the way the play imagines manliness. As Daddy approaches what has been tenuously repressed, Brick empties his words of all significance. As he tells Daddy, their talks never "materialize" and nothing is really said. When Daddy presses him, Brick reveals why he yearns for "solid quiet." Ultimately the revelation of the desire in his friendship with Skipper cracks Brick's cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies ed.3. SAGE Publications. 2008.

Foucault, Michel. “The History of Sexuality.”      https://webteach.csun.edu:31987/SCRIPT/ENGL313HON_18895-Wexler-Fa09/scripts/serve_home

Lerner, Rokelle. The Object of My Affection is in My Reflection, Coping with Narcissists. Health Communications, Inc. 2009.

Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New Directions Publishing Corporation. 2004.