“All I ask of that woman is that she leave me alone. But she can’t admit to herself that she makes me sick,” (II.47). This is a quote spoken by Big Daddy concerning his wife, Big Mama. Throughout the play, women become victim to unfair and misogynistic treatment from their husbands. This is mainly evident in Big Mama, Maggie and Mae’s respective relationships. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof displays this casual misogyny in its accurate depiction of how women were treated in that era, through the roles of the female characters and their relationships, as well as the treatment of the female characters. In the 1950s, the stereotypical female was expected to fill a role that was awfully repressive and constrictive. Many standards were placed on women …show more content…
Big Mama, Maggie and Mae all have very different roles within the family as well as in their respective relationships. Big Mama is, in both literal and metaphorical terms, the mother of the family but her most important role is being Big Daddy’s wife. Through all the years her and Big Daddy have been married, she’s been hopelessly devoted the entire time. Even after all the treatment she’s received from Big Daddy and even the cancer scare, it’s obvious she is very much in love with Big Daddy: “And I did, I did so much. I did love you. I even loved your hate an’ your hardness, Big Daddy!” (II.39). In everything she does, she only looks to please Big Daddy as housewives were supposed to please their husbands even through her outspoken ways. Big Mama’s personal identity is a mixture of society’s norms and her love for Big Daddy. Maggie doesn’t necessarily have a positive role in the Pollitt family. She’s supposed to be pleasing her husband and having children, but she’s doing neither of these things and it’s clear the rest of the family is concerned or looking down upon her for it. Maggie is not fulfilling a woman’s typical role in her relationship with Brick, which to the family means something is wrong with her. Even Big Mama says, “Some single men stop drinkin’ when they get married and others start! Brick never touched liquor…” (I.22), showing how even she …show more content…
All three of the main female characters are treated in a way that many would consider rude towards any human being, despite their various classifications. Big Mama has to constantly endure Big Daddy’s cussing and ungrateful behaviour towards her. She shows him as much love as one person can show, and in return, she is certainly notified of the want for her to be gone from Big Daddy. In Act two, it is also assumed her somewhat “bossy” behaviour is her wanting to take over the plantation when, in reality, it’s how she shows she cares. It is also assumed she doesn’t love Big Daddy even though everything she does is essentially to please him and make him happy. This is explicitly shown in the last act after she finds out Big Daddy definitely has cancer and she is even more willing to stand up for Big Daddy when it becomes obvious Mae and Gooper are just trying to take over control of the plantation when he dies, when he hasn’t died yet. She asserts her position as his wife with pride. The treatment of Maggie doesn’t come from Brick, who treats her in an ignorant fashion through virtually silence, but more so from the rest of his family. She is treated different because she has not yet had children. This causes many unfair and uncalled for statements concerning her ability to be a good wife and her personality. She is seen as a bad woman by the majority of the family when in
With the beginnings of the cold war the media and propaganda machine was instrumental in the idea of the nuclear family and how that made America and democracy superior to the “evils” of the Soviet Union and Communism; with this in mind the main goal of the 50’s women was to get married. The women of the time were becoming wives in their late teens and early twenties. Even if a women went to college it was assumed that she was there to meet her future husband. Generally a woman’s economic survival was dependent on men and employment opportunities were minimal.
Walter is seen as struggling to become the head of the family throughout the book and this comes to a head at the end of the story when he gets to his lowest point. Felder goes over the male characters in each sitcom and analyzes how they all have the same roles acting as head of the family, in charge and in control. The women were expected to be soothing and calming, as Felder writes “It was her husband, Jim, who ultimately solved the many problems concerning the couple’s three children… often appeared overly authoritarian and frequently lost his temper with his sons… these negative “masculine” character traits were countered by the soothing “feminine” presence of his wife” (Felder 156). As Walter loses control of his life after he lost the money, the women of the family ridicule him for not taking control like he is expected to. Beneatha and Mama have a conversation about the way Beneatha was treating her brother and adds this: “That’s what I thought you said. You feeling like you better than he is today?... Yes? What you tell him a minute ago? That he wasn't a man? Yes? You give him up for me? You done wrote his epitaph too- like the rest of the world? Well who give you the privilege?” (Hansberry 108-109). Beneatha ridicules her brother because he wasn’t able to take the role he was expected to. He wasn’t able to control the family or handle the problems like he was expected to even though that is what every man of the family ‘needs’ to do. The influence of these gender roles is so prevalent as Mama stops Beneatha from ridiculing her brother, Walter’s inability to take the role that is expected of him completely breaks him down and pushes him to his
...sents some discrepancies in how people value their family history. To some, family does not mean much at all but others are very much aware of their ancestors and the traits that they share in common. Some people use this self-awareness to better themselves while others find ways of exploiting it to satisfy their superficial needs. Dee is the type of individual that misuses her heritage. She is using it to fit in and attract the new religious group with which she has begun to associate. Maggie just seems oblivious, although the story does not allow the reader to know what she is thinking. The truth is that Maggie and her mother are living their heritage. This is the lesson that Dee's mother is trying to teach her; to accept and embrace who she is rather than continuously search for something she is not. She could search for her entire life and never be fulfilled.
Although this story is told in the third person, the reader’s eyes are strictly controlled by the meddling, ever-involved grandmother. She is never given a name; she is just a generic grandmother; she could belong to anyone. O’Connor portrays her as simply annoying, a thorn in her son’s side. As the little girl June Star rudely puts it, “She has to go everywhere we go. She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day” (117-118). As June Star demonstrates, the family treats the grandmother with great reproach. Even as she is driving them all crazy with her constant comments and old-fashioned attitude, the reader is made to feel sorry for her. It is this constant stream of confliction that keeps the story boiling, and eventually overflows into the shocking conclusion. Of course the grandmother meant no harm, but who can help but to blame her? O’Connor puts her readers into a fit of rage as “the horrible thought” comes to the grandmother, “that the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia but in Tennessee” (125).
Annie’s role is that of the stereotypical Mammy. The Mammy as a controlling image influences Black women deeply, for she is the caregiver to White children while neglecting her own, she cooks and cleans after a White family and is happy while doing so, thus as she works hard as men do, she is not viewed in the same feminine lens. Collins describes how this image was created to justify the exploitation of Black women doing domestic services, “by loving, nurturing, and caring for her White children and “family” better than her own, the mammy symbolizes the dominant group’s perceptions of the ideal Black female relationship to elite White male power” (71). Therefore even as Annie takes care of her daughter and Lora’s, Annie is eager and accepting of her subordination. Collins further states “Black women who internalize the mammy image potentially become effective conduits for perpetuating racial oppression. Ideas about mammy buttress racial hierarchies in other ways. Employing Black women in mammified occupations supports the racial superiority of White employers” (72). This is seen within the film, both by the role Annie symbolizes and the fact that this role was offered to Black women during that
Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w...
The grandmother had the highest status of the family because she ordered and punished the four grandchildren and Mrs. Dollanger. The grandmother at that point was now of authority status to the grandfather because he was sick in his dying bed. This goes against the definition of sexism, stating that men are believed to be superior to women. The oldest sister Cathy begins to encounter a role conflict within herself. She takes on the role of a sister and she also depicts a mother, because she is the one that cares for her young sister and brother. Strangely, she takes on the role as the sexual partner of her brother, Chris, because they do not yet understand that this is wrong because of their entrapment from society. Mrs. Dollanger then receives a sanction when her father dies, which is to inherit her father's estate. This was her reward for her father thinking that she hadn't had children. Her sanction at the beginning of the novel was the punishment of marrying her half uncle by her father disinheriting her.
The patriarchal figures in both plays are portrayed as omnipotent. In other words, both male figures belief that their rules must be obeyed and the expectations they have for their children must be exceeded. Tennessee Williams, depicts Big Daddy as the leader of Brick´s family. Big Daddy is described as an old aristocratic man, living in a mansion. Big Daddy represents the successful American men during the 1950´s a man of power and family priorities. Although this patriarchal figure shows his love for his family through materialism, he also portrays a dominating face through his actions towards his son.
At the beginning of the short story Maggie's family is introduced, from her scrappy little brother Jimmie, to her short lived brother Tommie, her alcoholic mentally-abusive mother Mary, and her brutish father. Jimmie's friend Pete is introduced and becomes a mirror image of Jimmie later on in the book. They both are portrayed as Don Juans, the seducers of young women who treat women as objects rather than people. Maggie's father is as short-lived as her brother Tommie. However, he becomes a negative social factor in Maggie's life. Maggie’s mother was an essential symbol of hypocrisy and pessimism throughout the book, from her drinking to her last comment in the book “I'll Forgive Her” (Crane).
We see the insight she gains when she realizes that Dee has been controlling her and Maggie’s lives for quite awhile. Likewise, we see how this insight brings her to finally stand up to her self-centered daughter, Dee. She also gains insight about her other daughter Maggie, when she realizes Maggie is constantly in Dee’s shadow and deserves her full attention. Mama’s action to say no to Dee affects Maggie as well because she finally gets something she deserves and Mama knows she deserves it for her troubled past. After this realization, the reader can conclude that Mama is a dynamic character who changes from giving Dee everything she wants to sticking up for Maggie by finally saying no to
The grandmother is very judgmental and her actions lead up to her family’s death. She calls a little boy a cute “little pick ninny” and we see her true colors. Pick ninny is a derogatory word towards black people and no good Christian woman would ever say those words (O’Connor 412). The grandmother tries very hard to be a good woman but her actions oppose everything she wants society to believe about her. The grandmother sees that her grandchildren are not the most behaved kids so she tells them they should be good people by listening and showing respect. She wants her grandchildren to have respect for their “native states and their parents and for everything else” (O’Connor 412). She tries to tell her grandchildren to be good
Initially, the conviction of The Grandmother never was about anyone’s needs but her own. She wants people to think she is Christ-like because she wears a nice Sunday dress. The real character is revealed under crisis. The Grandmother is arrogant, materialistic, and always cares about what other people think about her. As they were on the way to Florida The Grandmother makes an insensitive comment about a black boy with no on pants on the street. She seemed to have a lack of sympathy or curiosity about the situation of this boy. This remark is insensitive and shows the reader the viewpoint of The Grandmother. She is in essence an old lady that is set in her ways. She fails to notice anyone’s view point but her own. It isn’t until the very end of the story where even The Misfit notices the change in The Grandmother, which is why he states that she would have been a better woman if someone was there to pull the trigger, her whole life. The Grandmother has never shown compassion about anyone, other than herself. There is also a deeper meaning to what he means; he tries to illustrate that people are not tested until they meet that ...
“I guess you must have needed a lot of it, [understanding], in your family, Maggie, with your father’s liquor problem and now you’ve got Brick with his!” (Williams 152). Mae’s major goal in using Maggie as her verbal punching bag is to get the rights to Big Daddy’s property. With Brick practically incapacitated, Maggie is the only threat to attaining that goal. Thus, resulting in Mae laying on harsh words to make herself more stable or, in her mind, favored. “She’s childless because that big beautiful athlete husband of her’s won’t go to bed with her!” Mae exclaims, quite proud of herself (156). But Maggie does not stoop to Mae’s level, and, using Brick as her crutch, manages to obtain the rights to the property. Maggie claims to be pregnant, which is, ultimately, what ends up winning her the plantation, but Mae refuses to lose with dignity. “Of course we know what this is-- a lie!” (169). Maggie managed to overcome being Mae’s crutch by learning to do something for herself, though in this case, it was quite
From the beginning we can see the grandmother as a manipulative character. This manipulative nature in the end leads the family to its demise. It is obvious throughout the story that she has been this way all her life. She describes the Negro child as a “pickaninny” and relates the story of the watermelon that “a nigger boy ate […] when he saw the initials, E. A. T.!” The reader
It is first said by Big Daddy after his confrontation with Big Mama. She states she loves him, in return he whispers to himself, “wouldn’t it be funny if that was true…” (Williams, 80). Brick makes the exact same comment at the very end of the play after Maggie confesses she has always loved him. The repeated use of this line is similar to the multiple use of “a cat on a hot tin roof” by suggesting there is more than meets the eye, especially with the physical and innate relationship that Brick and Big Daddy have. For example, like father like son. Both the father and the son are locked in rocky marriages with spouses they do not trust despite all the affirmations of “I love you”. Both the father and the son are suffering slow deaths. Big Daddy is dying from cancer, while Brick is on the path to die from alcoholism. Big Daddy and Brick are surrounded by family members whom would take advantage of their situation. For instance, Gooper and Mae would like to insist they are entitled to the plantation due to Big Daddy’s illness and Brick’s unstable disposition. Lastly, the father and son are surrounded by walls with ears as well as “a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity” (Williams, 166). Big Daddy’s and Brick’s parallel situations lead them to form a simple trust in each other in order to combat the lies they face from their