“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by Tennessee Williams explores two comparable, but dissimilar characters Maggie and Brick. Maggie’s character comes from a poor family; she is a lonely, sociable, jealous, seductive, devious, cunning, and greedy. While Brick comes from a rich family and is lonely, has a sense of guilt, is an alcoholic, unsociable, and a coward when it comes to problems.
Brick and Maggie grew up with incredibly opposite lifestyles that helped mold them into the people they are today. Brick was born into a family of wealth, who lived on a 28,000 acre plantation. He experienced the life of living in luxury and had butlers and maids to care for him and do all the household chores. Maggie on the other hand was an old fashioned redneck who came from a poor and humble family, who had to do everything by themselves.
Brick and Maggie both have a sense of loneliness; however Brick precisely instigated both characters feelings of loneliness for different reasons. Brick instigates Maggie’s loneliness because of his hatred towards her and the consequence of her husband’s hatred results in neglect, inattentiveness and rejection when she tries to seduce him, which causes her to feel lonely. Whereas Brick generated his loneliness when he lost his friend Skipper; he built up a wall to hide behind and conceal all his emotions.
Brick has an attribute of guilt and can be considered a broken man emotionally. Right before Skipper died, Skipper proclaimed his feelings of sexual attraction to Brick through a phone call. This was Brick’s last conversation with his best friend and his guilt comes from hanging up the phone on him because his manhood was now threatened. Brick represses all of his feelings about the situation and becomes an emotion...
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...r cabinet up and not allow Brick to have a drink until they made love.
If she was pregnant, Maggie felt sure that the plantation would be left to Brick; the favorite son. Brick was not the greedy type, but Maggie showed of bit of greed when she felt that she could secure their place as the family heir to the plantation if she was with a child.
Maggie and Brick show how they are similar in their life by both being lonely individuals, but it is their differences that make them such a fascinating couple. They always say opposites attract and with Maggie and Brick they differ in their social capabilities, sexual nature, how they face their problems, their jealousy, greediness, guilt and use of alcohol.
Works Cited
Williams, Tennessee. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Connections: Literature for Composition. Q. Miller and J. Nash. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2008 843-858. Print.
Henry is written as a dynamic character because he changed drastically throughout the story. Henry went from being an innocent young man; to experiencing the chaos and disaster that war will do to a person. Lyman is written as a static character because he didn’t change at all through the story. Lyman was still the same young innocent boy, much like his brother was before he went to war. Dee from “Everyday Use” is written as a dynamic character; she changed to be more in touch with her African roots and even went as far to change her name to “Wangero”. Dee is still just as snobbish as before, though, when she tells her mother that Maggie doesn’t deserve the family quilt because she’ll wear it down to nothing from putting it to “everyday use” (174) Maggie is written as a static character because she didn’t change during the story, although her feelings toward her sister changed, “Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses Dee was wearing. But a real smile, not
The Brick wall symbolizes Bobby and how he is disconnected from friends and family, "Everything is clean brown brick, and off in the shadows of some brownstone. Where the hell
...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.
Comparing A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof In the game of life, a man is given the option to bluff, raise, or fold. He is dealt a hand created by the consequences of his choices or by outside forces beyond his control. It is a never ending cycle: choices made create more choices. Using diverse, complex characters simmering with passion and often a contradiction within themselves, Tennessee Williams examines the link between past and present created by man's choices in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. "
...is a symbol of the past, but only in a sense that she must move on and never look back. On the other hand, Maggie sees the quilt as something she could use everyday in order to relive the ways of her ancestors in combination with her future life and aspirations. Though Maggie is limited in beauty and education when compared to Dee, Maggie is way ahead of Maggie in a stage of self-understanding. Maggie knows her abilities and respects what she has. However, Dee has no disabilities and could care less about her ancestors. Dee's ultimate goal is to feel distant from her ancestors, while Maggie's ultimate goal is to feel as one with her ancestors and their way of life. The saying that you must know where you come from in order to know where you are headed' is exemplified in this story. Without an understanding of the past, you can have no true self-understanding.
In this story, Maggie is a lot like her mother. They both are uneducated, loving, caring, and allow Dee to run over them. Maggie has been through more things than her mother has though, because of the incident that happened. Maggie has scars like Emily, except Maggie’s scars are from a house fire (319). The house fire has impacted Maggie’s life tremendously, since she is very self-conscious and shy. Walker stated that Maggie is “ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs (318). The mother is protective of Maggie and will be there for her whenever she needs her too. Even though her mother knows all her struggles, she still supports her and pushes her to be better. I think that is one reason she pushes her to marry John Thomas, because she wants her to become her own person and to be strong (319). The mother of “Everyday Use” is opposite from the mother in “I Stand Here Ironing”, because she is there for her children no matter what their financial status
How does the difference between the way Dee (Wangero) and Maggie would use the quilts represent their two different ways of defining and treating their family’s heritage? Does the narrative give approval to Dee’s way or Maggie ’s?
"Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe."(61) She is afraid of being weak and unable to project her happiness with the life she has chosen. Maggie attempts to remain quiet and reserved during the visit of her sister. The difference of their lifestyle interpretations is one of humble to extravagant. Unlike other young women, Maggie continues to live in an un-educated world where happiness is formed in the heart, not with possessions.
She is like something parenthetical and mute, incapable of making herself heard. And she dresses like a child, wearing a "stupid little hat -- a kid's hat with ear flaps." She isn't much taller than Twyla and Roberta. The older girls exploit Maggie's vulnerability, mocking her. Even Twyla and Roberta call her names, knowing she can't protest and half-convinced she can't even hear
He sums this up, stating, “… those high hurdles have gotten too high for me, now." (pg 640) This imagery of the high hurdles is representative of the unattainable past Brick strives for. Brick's past is shattered when his ideal marriage and his ideal friendship are both destroyed through Skipper with his drunken confession, breaking all the rules of the time. This admission is a stark contrast to the purity Brick clings to in their friendship, always claiming “One man has one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is true! – I had it with Skipper. – You are naming it dirty!” (pg 636). First with Maggie, then with Big Daddy, Brick is furious with his family for seemingly ruining the best thing in his life when Skipper already named it dirty with his drunken confession of his true feelings for
Maggie is ignorant. Mama and Dee compare Maggie to animals throughout the story stressing the idea of how uneducated she is mentally and or physically. For an example, “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some .
By rejecting her origins, Wangero become the product of the soil she planted herself in. She thinks traditions are archaic and no longer relevant, and that they are unnecessary during these modern times. “You just don’t understand… Your heritage… It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you’d never know it” (Walker 482). But for Maggie and Mama, exploring their cultural heritage is very beneficial. It gives them a connection to their social values, beliefs, customs and religion. Just as Wangero rejected her family, so have they rejected her. Mama sees heritage in the quilts and believes that Wangero has neglected everything she stood for. Instead, Mama turns to Maggie and handed her the quilts. Maggie had proven that she respects and acknowledges the family’s culture and understands that her heritage holds deep significance.
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
Cat on a hot tin roof, published in 1954 was met with a wealth of criticism. The play is about the sexual ambivalence of males towards females, and a debilitated family that are compelled to deal with hidden deceptions. This play shows the effect of Tennessee William’s life, being homosexual and the impact that it had in his writing. All the characters in the play, in some way are a double of Williams’s life. ‘The characters in Williams’s play are not caricatures or stereotypes; they are based on aspects of Williams’s personality and people that he knew in his past’ (Kerkhoffs, 2000). Not only do William’s characters mirror his life, but they also depict how society acted throughout this time. In the play, Big Daddy the owner of the plantation had a preference for his son Brick. He tends to have an affection towards him that could have easily been mistaken as a relationship of more than a father, son bond. ‘Big Daddy shocks his son by alluding to his knowledge of and tolerance for homosexual experiences. When Brick rejects his father’s touching attempt to reassure him of his understanding, Bid Daddy retaliates by accusing his son of a kind of self- righteous hypocrisy’(J. Huzzard, 1985). This quote ties back to the Homosexuality impact of William’s life, where depicts
While Maggie is brown-skinned and dark-haired, Lucy, her cousin, is her contrary: "It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten" (58). And the appearance influences the character: everybody is satisfied with Lucy and that is why Lucy is satisfied with herself. Maggie on the contrary is viewed as almost an idiot in her effort to be admired and loved.