Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof deals with various motifs and themes such as cats, masculinity, the crutch, alcohol, children, death, etc. It could easily be argued quotations including the phrase “a cat on a hot tin roof” represent the entirety of the play due to Williams’ repetitious use of the line, as well as of its use in the title. However, the plot of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof deals with tragedy being caused from miscommunication and lies, despite the exaggeration of cat-like women and the numerous mentions of cats. The quotation, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was true?” unveils the sad disposition of the characters as they attempt to cover up the painful truth despite knowing “painful things caint always be avoided” (Williams, …show more content…
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
The mouse’s misfortune illustrates Burns’ view of dreams and plans because the mouse’s house was destroyed just as easily as dreams can be
McGlinn addresses the third dialectic taking hold of Blanche: illusion versus reality. McGlinn points out that, like all the women in Williams’s plays between 1940 and 1950, Blanche “refuses to accept the reality of her life and attempts to live under illusion.” [Tharpe, 513]. Although McGlinn is accurate in noting Blanche’s conflict between gentility and promiscuity, the result of which is “self-defeat instead of survival” [Tharpe, 513], she fails to see that Blanche lives in both illusion and reality simultaneously, and it is this dialectic that is the slow poison which destroys her. This death-instinct gives us the fourth and last dialectic in Blanche: her struggle between death and desire.”
The quote is from Toni Morrison’s novel called Song of Solomon. It is about Milkman and his problem of looking behind him that he ends up accidently peeing on his sister Lena. Morrison wrote the quote in the second chapter of the book to foreshadow Milkman’s problem of looking at the past more than the present and future. This is clearly shown at when Milkman thinks back to when his mom, Ruth, nursed him even though he was old enough not to, after Macon Jr., his father, told him about Ruth having sexual relationship with her father Dr. Foster. The following is the excerpt of Milkman’s breakdown which leads him to look at past events:
Juror #1 originally thought that the boy was guilty. He was convinced that the evidence was concrete enough to convict the boy. He continued to think this until the jury voted the first time and saw that one of the jurors thought that the boy was innocent. Then throughout the movie, all of the jurors were slowly convinced that the boy was no guilty.
In others he stated he didn 't like having sex with her and didn 't really love her. I think if Big Daddy would 've been up front and honest when he started feeling that way, then he wouldn 't even had to deal with Big Mama and pretended to be something that he really wasn 't. She was crushed to find out as well that Big Daddy had kept his diagnose from her.
In this play, the women are housewives; responsible for bearing children, and keeping the house. They are often made fun of or made to feel less of themselves when they didn’t perform those duties to the specifications of the men. The city attorney openly criticizes Mrs. Wrights housekeeping skills by stating “here is a mess, dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper would you say, ladies?” (Glaspell 1109-1110). Mrs. Hale describes Minnie Foster as “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery” (Glaspell 1114). But a lot of changes are evident once she marries Mr. Wright. She spends her days in isolation, focusing on her quilts, preserves, and caring for her canary. She didn’t receive any type of appreciation for her hard work. This defeats her mentally and she doesn’t have any joy left in her life. While looking for evidence in the murder, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale find red flags that support her mental decline, such as blocks on the quilt described as “all over the place” (Glaspell 1113), like she didn’t know what she was doing and a “dead bird in a fancy box, wrapped in a piece of silk” (Glaspell 1114). After the death of her beloved canary at the hands of her husband,
Brick told his father that he and his brother married into society. He seems like he never wanted to marry Maggie at all, that it was something that he thought he had to do. However, he says in the play that he is disgusted with homosexuality and disgusted with the way Skipper acted before he died. “Skipper went to bed with Maggie to prove it wasn’t true, and when it didn’t work out, he thought it was true!...he made a drunken confession to me and on which I hung up!” (Williams, p. 125-126). Brick was disgusted with the idea that Skipper had any feelings for him and he’s disgusted that his family feels the same way. He is truly homophobic, but is he like this to hide his true feelings for Skipper? What if Brick is really disgusted with the fact that he regretted the fact that he conformed and will never have a chance to reveal himself to Skipper? He told Big Daddy that he was disgusted with, “lying and liars” (Williams, p. 107). Some readers can assume that he is referring to his family and how they are lying to Big Daddy. But if the reader tries to read it through Brick’s shoes, it could possibly mean that he is disgusted with his lies. That he is disgusted with the fact that he couldn’t be open with Skipper and reveal the truth about his feelings. Brick was always accepted into society, he was the star football player and took pride in his masculinity. Having feelings for men would ruin his image and
Furthermore, is a summarization of the main points in “The Black Cat.” “The Black Cat” is about a man who always loved animals since he was little, but as he aged he started drinking. He then tortured his favorite pet cat, Pluto after he was getting annoyed with his presence. He goes as far as gouging out its eye before he hangs it in an old tree. Later on, his house burnt down and the outline of the cat was left on the only standing wall left by the fire. After he and his wife get a new home, they soon found a new cat that looked just like the old one except it had white around its neck. The narrator starts to believe that the cat is mocking him, so one day he tries to kill the cat but his wife interferes, and he ki...
Most people care greatly for image. Social groups will usually change their interests, clothing, and sometimes personality to fit the cultural norm or popular standard. Tennessee Williams depicts this in his popular play, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Throughout the show, the audience can notice the characters’ various overdramatic mannerisms and even what comes through their speech. Thus, a viewer can conclude that this production’s main theme is social expectation and its effects on society. A literature theme is an idea that the author attempts to imply through the behavior of the characters and the development of the plot. This is the code through which writers convey and communicate their ideas and explorations. “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” reviews and explores social expectations and their effects on society. Some of these ideas include homosexuality and feminism.
“I’ll tell you something,” Jake said. “As you get older – this is your uncle Jake speaking – as you get older, believe it or not, the idea of settling down starts to have a certain appeal. Like the other evening at supper I was looking at Art, sitting there like a sack of cement like he always does, Laura waiting on him hand and foot, and I thought, you know, if you look at it a certain way you could say that my dear dumb ox of a brother has it all.” (The Other Side of the Bridge, 391)
Anton Chekhov and Joyce Carol Oates created different perspectives on the short story “The Lady with the Pet Dog.” Chekhov’s version offers a less dramatic and more comprehensible approach to the story’s situation.They express their ideas through their own unique structure, concept of fate, and character’s guilt.
The musical called “Fiddler on the Roof” was set in Anatefka, Russia around 1880-1900. During this time, in this small town, held Tevya and his family. Tevya, husband and father of five daughters, is a cynical, obstinate, determined, yet sensitive to feelings, and caring man. He is a clever philosopher and sticks very much to tradition. In the story Tevya says “Anatefka is our home...to keep in balance by tradition...”
With any family comes issues that can present problems and resentments towards one another. Tennessee Williams addresses families that are struggling with problems in most of his plays. However, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Williams concentrates on, alcoholism, financial struggles, and mendacity which destroys a fictional family, just like in the real world.
But, as seen in The Glass Castle, love alone does not make for a good parent. Despite any amount of love they had for their children, Mr. and Mrs. Walls were weak. They were too weak to protect their children, too weak to change their ways for them, too weak to be honest with them, and too weak to shelf their pride for the sake of their children. A good parent also needs to be strong. They need to be resilient and able to provide for themselves and their children
In the stories, “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat,” both narrators have a misguided perception that induces their senses to confuse reality with delusions. This misguided perception is brought on by the abnormal psychology of both men. This is a common theme in Poes’ stories. In “The Black Cat” the narrator feels a sense of fright and disgust when reviewing the attached behavior of the second cat. Poe’s description of the second cat is eerily similar to that of the first cat, Pluto. As author Magdalen Wing-Chi Ki states, “the narrator is convinced that it ‘must be’ Pluto on account of two things: it follows him around in the hope of becoming his absolute partner, and one of its eyes is gone.” A rational person understands that it is impossible for the second cat to be Pluto, but the narrator is so misguided that he believes this inconceivable delusion. This mistaken fantasy fuels the narrator’s madness, giving him more evidence that mu...