Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

General:

-​ American Dream (Anyone can get the good life if they work hard enough)
-​ Common misogyny and homophobia
-​ Family falling apart

-​ Title:
-​ “Cat” - Maggie (Margaret) calls herself “a cat on a hot tin roof”, and Big Daddy thinks
Mae is like that as well.
-​ “BRICK: A hot tin roof's 'n uncomfo'table place t' stay on....”
-​ “Cats” are also a symbol of bad luck or being sly (cunning or deceitful)
-​ The hotness can represent the fact that the play takes place in the South during Summer,
OR it can represent the boiling tensions that are heating up throughout the play.
-​ Hot Tin Roof - Maggie’s relationship with Brick (Maggie wishes to leave, but she cannot as
she comes from a financially poor background, and does not want to go back to it - This is
an established fear of hers - Even though the relationship is hurting her, she is not able to
leave as Brick is neither poor nor ugly.
-​ The Metaphor Explained
-​ The phrase "cat on a hot tin roof" evokes the image of a creature in a state of
discomfort and urgency, unable to find rest yet unwilling to leap away.
-​ In the context of the play, this metaphor reflects Maggie's precarious position
within her marriage and the broader family dynamics.
-​ She is caught between her desires and the harsh realities of her relationship with
Brick, who remains emotionally distant and unresponsive.
-​ Maggie's declaration, "I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof,"
underscores her sense of entrapment and her determination to persevere
despite the emotional heat
 -​ Maggie as the "Cat"
-​ Maggie embodies the "cat"—restless, determined, and resilient. Her "catty"
behavior, marked by sharp wit and assertiveness, is a manifestation of her struggle
to secure her place in a family that values heirs and appearances. Her childlessness
and Brick's indifference place her in a vulnerable position, yet she refuses to
relinquish her pursuit of affection and stability. This tenacity mirrors the cat's
instinct to stay on the hot tin roof, enduring discomfort in hopes of a better
outcome.
-​ The "Hot Tin Roof" as a Symbol
-​ The "hot tin roof" symbolizes the oppressive environment of the Pollitt household,
rife with mendacity, unspoken truths, and emotional repression. Each character
grapples with their own form of discomfort: Brick with his suppressed emotions
and alcoholism, Big Daddy with his terminal illness, and Maggie with her
unfulfilled desires. The roof represents the societal and familial pressures that keep
them in a state of unrest, much like a cat unable to find a cool spot to rest .​
-​ Structure:
-​ Evening (Maggie vs Brick - bed troubles, skipper, alcohol
-​ Sunset (Brick vs Big Daddy; Maggie, Skipper, Alcohol
-​ Night (Mae & Gooper vs Brick & Maggie; inheritance, alcohol, bed troubles

Brick and Maggie’s Relationship:

-​ Centerpiece of the play and Natural Bookend
-​ Act 1 and Act 3 - Introduced at the beginning, and at the end, they are still
discussing their relationship (realistic)
-​ Maggie isn't necessarily broken apart by Brick's alcoholism or possible homosexuality, but
rather, his indifference to her
-​ The role of Skipper
-​ “Leave” (Leave him, if she does not wanna be there)
Brick and Gooper:
-​ Brick - Bricks are very strong and are commonly used to build houses. This is how we
observe that Big Daddy and Mama wanted him to be head of the household despite being
born second - "Only son" of Big Daddy and Big Mama .
-​ He had the American dream, lost it after Skipper's death and his crushing alcoholism
-​ Satisfied with where he is

-​ Gooper is a bit of a childish name. The soft "oo" sound represents a child's response to new
things, and the name is similar to the word "goop," which is a playful sludge. This
represents how Gooper wasn't supposed to have much of a backbone.
-​ Commonly ignored by his parents, despite being the one who works harder (and he is
disturbed by this)
-​ Has the American dream with his loving wife, the kids, and how he has a very successful job
(Although not satisfied)

The Animals Metaphor:

-​ Maggie & Mae
-​ Cats; Vicious and sly; “hiss” at each other (Maggie herself refers to herself as a cat,
while Big Daddy refers to Mae as a cat.
-​ Brick
-​ Monkey; swings his crutch; swings/sways in doorways
-​ Dog (a dog who does not eat after his owner dies); depressed after Skipper’s death,
{called a dog by Big Daddy}
-​ Kids
-​ Animals/Monsters (Called “monsters” by Margaret) - Irony - Monsters are said to
cause all the chaos, whereas it is the opposite as the family dynamics are themselves
problematic
-​ “Why did y'give dawgs' names to all your kiddies?” (Maggie)
-​ Pigs: “Why don’t you put them pigs at a trough in th’ kitchen” (Big Daddy)
-​ Servants
-​ Farmhands; paid to deal with the chaos
1. {Themes} - General
-​ Sexuality for Maragaret - “MARGARET: Way he always drops his eyes down my body when I'm
talkin' to him, drops his eyes to my boobs an' licks his old chops! Ha ha!” (Talking about Big Daddy) -
[Unconventional family dynamics]
-​ Dynamics at the dinner table hint at dysfunctional family dynamics as well
-​ Secrets being kept between Mae and Gooper (“What are you n Mae making all these signs
at each other about”? - Big Mama)
-​ “Living with someone you love can be lonelier--than living entirely alone!--if the one that y'
love doesn't love you” (Maggie) + Brick’s Response (“Would you like to live alone Maggie?”)
-​ Family Dysfunctionality, again
-​ “You keep forgetting the conditions on which I agreed to stay on living with you.” (Brick to
Maggie)
-​ Family Dysfunctionality, again
-​ Family relationships based on conditions (more like a business agreement of mutual
sustained survival rather than a romantic marriage)
-​ “Haven't I done time enough, haven't I served my term, can't I apply for a pardon?” (Maggie
to Brick - More like serving their jail sentence hoping for redemption, rather than existing
actively in a healthy relationship)
-​ There’s generally a lack of privacy in the house as well
-​ “No, ma'am, not in my house (have some moments of privacy)” - Big Mama
to Maggie
-​ “Some single men start (drinking when they get married) … Do you make Brick happy in
bed?” - Blame on the female (traditional and generational patriarchy)
-​ (Big Daddy and Mama) “Sometimes they're (the jokes that Big Daddy hurls on Big Mama)
pretty cruel and Big Mama has to pick up or fuss with something to cover the hurt that the
loud laugh doesn't quite cover.”
-​ Further shows the repression in the house, and how the two wives have to put up an
act of uneasy happiness even when they’re both just surviving (Big Mama and
Maggie)
-​ Eavesdropping the household (further dysfunctionality):
-​ “You listen at night like ... peekhole spies ... and give a report on what you hear to Big
Mama.”
-​ Disbelief of Big Daddy over Big Mama’s confession of love: “Wouldn't it be funny if that
was true” (Big Daddy to Big Mama)
-​ “I slept with Big Mama…and never even liked her…” (Big Daddy to Brick about Big Mama)
+ “she makes me sick”
 -​ The Difficulty of Communication - Big Daddy and Brick (Constantly interrupting each
other)
-​ “When we talk ... nothing is said. ... Communication is awful hard between people.”
-​ The family dysfunctionality is also portrayed in the fact that all the happy moments of the
family members lie in the past
-​ Brick saying that Maggie was “Great” in bed
-​ "You were a wonderful lover”
-​ “Hit heaven together ev'ry time that we loved!”
-​ “DIXIE [with a precocious instinct for the cruellest thing]: You're jealous!--You're just jealous
because you can't have babies!”
-​ Big Daddy speaks about pursuing women and regrets the fact that he didn’t pursue
more women in his youth, instead expending his sexual energy on Big Mama
-​ Maggy: “And so we (Skipper and her) made love to pretend it was you.”
-​ Depicts the extent of longing for love.
-​ “any true thing between two people is too rare.” (Brick)
-​ The quote is dramatically ironic because Brick's wife, Maggie, has struggled to be
painfully honest with him from the play's start, and he has refused to show her the
same courtesy.

1.1 Mendacity:
-​ Mendacity - The idea of lying and being untruthful
-​ Lie of deception: purposefully withholding information (Big Daddy’s Cancer - Act
1 and most of act 2)
-​ There is also the lie of why Gooper and Mae are in the house and why they
skipped their summer migration to the coolness of the Great Smokies (to get
the inheritance because they had noticed Big Daddy’s symptoms of Cancer)
-​ Bold-faced lie: very clear lie, could be easily disproved (Maggie’s pregnancy - Act 3)
-​ Brick is sick of mendacity yet he still engages with it.
-​ He is honest about Big Daddy's cancer, but he lets Maggie lie about being pregnant.
-​ He also lies to himself about Skipper, and how he feels about it.
-​ The system of lies he is referring to pertains to the way society represses and lies about
“inadmissible things.”
-​ In the world of the play, there are two inadmissible things: homosexuality and
death:
 -​ the action of the play revolves around the repression of Brick’s terror about
and repression of his possibly homosexual feelings shared with Skipper,
-​ Big Daddy’s desire to escape death and the family’s lie about his health
report;
-​ Skipper died to disavow between them. The fact that if it existed it had to be disavowed to
'keep face' in the world they lived in, maybe at the heart of the “mendacity” that Brick
drinks to kill his disgust with. It may be the root of his collapse.
-​ “Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost not alive makes me sort of accidentally
truthful”. (brick)
-​ “Brick and I are going to have a child.”​

1.2 Masculinity and Sexuality:

-​ Tennessee Williams upholds and disrespects societal norms in a quite nuanced way
-​ Maggie often takes a 'masculine' role by telling Brick what to do, and forcing all sexual parts
of their relationship.
-​ In the end, this is represented by how she takes Brick's pillow off of the couch and
puts it in the bed, demonstrating her authoritative stance in their marriage.
-​ Brick and Big Daddy are parallels for their charming masculinity
-​ They get all the attention and love, even though they might not deserve it
-​ Big Daddy does not think that Big Mama loves him, and Brick does not think that
Maggie loves him
-​ There's also the recurring theme of toxic masculinity.
-​ Homosexual man in fraternity -> destroyed reputation
-​ “Why can't exceptional friendship ... between two men be respected as ... clean
and decent.”
-​ Skipper - destroyed himself (After Brick did not return his confession, or he may
have quietly rejected it)
-​ Brick -> most likely will destroy himself (If he does not accept the feelings that lie
within him)
-​ “This disgust with Mendacity is disgust with yourself”
-​ Hanging up on skipper’s call
-​ “A family crisis brings out the best and the worst in every member of it.”
1.3 Greed and Jealousy:
-​ Greed ties into mendacity because people lie to get what they want. For example, Mae and
Gooper act extra friendly to Big Daddy to get the inheritance.
 -​ What's this door doin', locked, faw? You all think there's robbers in the house? (Big
Mama outside Maggie’s bedroom door - IRONY - There aren’t robbers in the
house, but by extension there are?)
-​ But also, Gooper is quite jealous of Brick. He is always trying to get his parents to love him
in the same way, but in the end, Big Mama calls Brick her "only son" in act 3.
-​ Gooper was also established to be the one to help Big Daddy around the plantation
when he couldn't work, so this adds into an extra layer of unfairness and into the
message that the American dream is unattainable and unrealistic.
-​ Makes sense for when Big Daddy calls Brick his “only son” (“Big Daddy dotes on
you, honey” - Maggie)
-​ There's also anti-jealousy, or some characters that feel superior for certain things. Mae is a
prime example with how she constantly belittles Maggie in act 3 for not having any
children. Maggie has the possibility of feeling jealous over the marriage Mae and Gooper
have
-​ And once, there is a flash of ominous green light. This green light represents jealousy or
envy

1.4 Proxies:
-​ In literature, an emotional proxy is "a correlative object that allows an emotion or struggle
to be represented visually and theatrically."
-​ Maggie and Skipper are a proxy for Brick in order to bring out some of Brick's
repressed feelings and also point out how Brick and Maggie aren't in a successful
relationship.
-​ “But laws of silence don’t work (Maggie)
-​ “What were you thinking of when I caught you looking at me like that? Were you
thinking of Skipper?” (Maggie)
-​ “not facing a fire doesn't put it out.”
-​ This also fueled the flame of drama and tension for the audience when it is later connected
that alcohol is Brick's recent proxy so he can cope and finally have peace over what
happened with Skipper.
-​ His “crutch” could also be considered a proxy in a way

1.5 Difficult Communication:

-​ Beginning of the play opens with difficulty communicating.
-​ Maggie is trying to have a conversation as Brick mostly nods and vaguely agrees to
whatever she says.
 -​ Later, Brick is in a constant search for alcohol and doesn't care much for having
conversations.
-​ He even tells his own father that he likes the sound of silence more than
talking.
-​ Brick also searching for the click in his head adds into how he isn't listening to what
others are saying, and thus he ends up not communicating well.
-​ Big Daddy frequently says that you can't talk about anything in the household
-​ Frequent eavesdroppers
-​ Big Mama couldn't hear Big Daddy's sister over the phone
-​ Could this be because she didn't want to hear what was being said? This could be
possible foreshadowing to how she was in a state of denial and asking if it was all a
dream when told about Big Daddy's cancer
-​ [Brick takes up his crutch, rises]
-​ “Oh, excuse me, forgive me, but laws of silence don’t work! No, laws of silence don’t
work….”
-​ “I don’t wanna lean on your shoulder, I want my crutch”
-​ Doesn’t need Margaret’s help to alleviate himself off of what traumatises
him, rather opts for the crutch that happens to be a physical manifestation
of his psychological crutches.
-​ “Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?”
-​ Difficulty of communication is INEVITABLE
-​ Brick may not love Maggie, but why does he not believe she loved him? Ultimately,
there is a lot of hurt & trauma which can feel impossible to articulate especially
when you’re trying to avoid the pain that comes with it. So avoiding
communication becomes a way to avoid pain.
-​ Also, in some cases, honest communication would serve to go against the characters’ desires.
That begs the question - does Big Daddy really want the honesty he’s asking about? Does he
have the capacity to face the truth?

1.6 Death and Regret:

-​ Three (and a half) ways death appears:
-​ Skipper's death ruined Brick as he regrets not saying anything in return
-​ Big Daddy tells Brick a story of how when a dog's owner dies, the dog stops
eating. Very possibly, this has an implied detail of how Big Daddy thinks
Brick is not eating due to depression over Skipper. A supporting factor of this
is that when someone is on an empty stomach, alcohol will hit them harder.
 -​ Big Daddy's future death gives suspense to the play as it is heavily wondered by the
audience when Big Daddy and Mama will find out the truth about his
life-threatening cancer.
-​ The clock chimes that are heard represent the ticking clock on Big Daddy's
life. Big Daddy is commonly seen glaring at the clock.
-​ The clock also represents Big Daddy and Big Mama's relationship. He liked
the clock in the beginning (hence the reason he got it), but at time went on,
he liked it less and less and now feels pissed off at it (like he does to Big
Mama).
-​ Big Daddy believes that every man has a single overriding goal: not to die. He believes that
no amount of money can buy time and protect him from death
-​ "You can't buy back your life when it's finished. You can't buy back your life when
you're dead."
-​ (Link between Poison and Death)
-​ Many things are described to be poison, which lowkey supports the theme of death.
-​ Alcohol is described to be a poison through Brick's veins, and cancer is said to be
poison to Big Daddy
-​ Big Mama is afraid of needles because she doesn't know what's in them. This could
be because she fears there's poison from within them. (I'll go more into the needles
symbolism later)
-​ Lies are poison that slowly kill the relationships within the family

1.7 Maggy’s “Catty” Behaviour:

-​ Maggie’s sharp remarks and biting sarcasm
-​ “Why did y'give dawgs' names to all your kiddies?”
-​ Why is she Catty?
-​ “'Cause I'm consumed with envy an' eaten up with longing?”
-​ Longing / consumed by the family stability that Mae has with her husband and
children
-​ Maggie refers to herself as a "cat on a hot tin roof," symbolizing her precarious position and
constant state of anxiety.
-​ This metaphor encapsulates her struggle to maintain her place in a family and
society that values fertility and traditional roles for women.
-​ Her "catty" demeanor is thus a defense mechanism, a way to assert herself in an
environment where she feels marginalized.
2. {Symbolism}
2.1 Alcohol / Liquor
-​ Escape and Avoidance: Brick, one of the central characters, uses alcohol as a means to
escape from the emotional pain and unresolved conflicts in his life. His drinking symbolizes
his inability to confront the truths about his feelings, his past, and his relationships,
particularly the complex friendship with Skipper and his strained marriage with Maggie.
-​ Guilt and Shame: Brick’s alcoholism is a manifestation of his guilt over Skipper's death. He
drinks to suppress his feelings of culpability and to numb himself from societal and internal
pressures to conform or explain his emotions.
-​ Dysfunction: Alcohol also symbolizes the broader dysfunction within the family. The
Pollitt family is riddled with secrets, lies, and unresolved tensions, and Brick's drinking
underscores the inability of its members to communicate openly and truthfully.
-​ Loss of Control: Brick’s dependence on alcohol reflects his loss of control over his life. It
signifies his descent into apathy and his detachment from the world around him.

2.2 Poison
-​ Needles represent death
-​ In the original version of act three, Doctor Baugh offers Big Mama morphine for
when the pain hits Big Daddy. Big Mama says she is scared of needles and refuses to
do it, but when the pain strikes, she ends up asking Maggie for the package anyway
-​ This represents how she goes from a stage of denial to acceptance, which are
well-known to be the first and last stages of grief respectively
-​ Skipper died from a combination of drugs and alcohol. And so, it can be theorized that
some of the drugs might've been administered by needle and a faulty needle is what caused
his death.
-​ Big Mama is not a fan of modern medicine; she would rather have the cancer cut out of Big
Daddy rather than poison.
2.3 Brick’s Crutch
-​ Brick's Crutch represents his need and dependency upon alcohol
-​ When characters are fighting with him over his alcoholism, they tend to take Brick's crutch.
-​ In act one, Maggie refuses to give Brick back his crutch and tells him to lean on her.
-​ He refuses and later threatens to kill her with the crutch, showing how unstable
their relationship is due to his crippling addiction
-​ "I don't want to lean on your shoulder, I want my crutch!"​
-​ The crutch is a physical manifestation of Brick's emotional and psychological
crutches, such as his reliance on alcohol to numb his pain and avoid confronting
 uncomfortable truths. His refusal to accept emotional help mirrors his refusal to let
go of the crutch
-​ In act two, Big Daddy takes the crutch from him. He says in order to get it back, Brick must
answer honestly why he drinks.
-​ Instead of wanting the crutch, Brick requests having a drink after answering. This
represents how the crutch and desire for alcohol are equivalent
2.4 The Console
-​ The console contains the liquor cabinet and the phonograph
-​ Tennesse Williams directly quotes, "this piece of furniture, this monument, is a very
complete and compact little shrine to virtually all the comforts and illusions behind which
we hide from such things as the characters in the play are faced with..."
-​ Having a liquor cabinet in the bedroom truly shows how Brick can't cope at all anymore,
but also, when Gooper later asks for a drink, it shows how he can't cope either
2.5 The Bed
-​ The bed represents the marital problems between Brick and Maggie
-​ Tennessee Williams wonderfully demonstrates that by having the whole play appear in one
room. This shows how the entire family is heavily affected by Brick’s alcoholism and
Maggie’s childlessness
-​ In addition, everyone going into the bedroom shows how everyone keeps getting into their
business about it and won’t leave them alone on the personal matter.

3. {Dramatic Effects}

3.1 The Fireworks

-​ Act two ends with fireworks
-​ Fireworks represent the exploding tensions between Big Daddy and Brick
-​ The children are known to be actively watching the fireworks. Big Daddy and Brick only
hearing them instead of watching shows how much happier the children are, and yet again,
so much closer to the American dream
-​ Act three opens with Big Mama saying she hates the smell of sulfur that the fireworks give.
This means she hates it when all of them fight

3.2 Thunder and Lightning

-​ Lightning comes before thunder
 -​ Thunder and lightning occurs at the end of act 2 and periodically throughout act 3. The
lightning can symbolize the warning and foreshadowing to all the drama, and the thunder
represents the relationships finally crashing.
-​ With a specific example, Brick thinks about telling Big Daddy about his cancer and then
implies it with a sentence later.
-​ For the audience, the lightning is Brick’s thought, and the action by Brick is the
thunder.
-​ Big Daddy can’t read Brick’s mind, so he was only able to see the lightning. And so,
for a moment or two, he’s in disbelief regarding it all, as he didn’t have the warning
of the “flash of light.” In which “the light” or “going to the light” is connected with
one’s final moments. So perhaps his death is approaching quickly.

3. {Paradoxes in the Play}

1.​ Relationship between Brick and Big Daddy, who claim they have “never lied” to each other,
and yet their entire relationship is built on talking around the truth rather than
confronting it directly.
a.​ Big Daddy proudly asserts, “Then there is at least two people that never lied to
each other,” to which Brick dryly replies, “But we’ve never talked to each other.”
Despite their mutual pride in supposed honesty, they have actually avoided all
painful truths for years.
b.​ Their “honesty” is itself a paradox: it exists only because they have not said anything
real at all.
c.​ Williams presents the idea that the absence of lies is not the same as the presence of
truth, revealing the deeper emotional dishonesty underlying their silences.
d.​ In truth, the only character that is perhaps the farthest from the idea of
mendacity is Maggie herself, who wishes to turn her lie into a truth; or
perhaps her only intention is to save face because there is no other option left
for her after she lied. (opposing perspectives)
2.​ Brick’s passionate defense of his relationship with Skipper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is
paradoxical:
a.​ He insists it was “pure” and “clean,” and yet he cannot stop protesting against any
suggestion that it was homosexual in nature.
b.​ As Brick declares, “Skipper and me had a clean, true thing between us! … any
true thing between two people is too rare to be normal.”
c.​ He simultaneously clings to the idea of their emotional intimacy while violently
denying that it could be interpreted sexually.
 d.​ His excessive defensiveness, seen in his outburst (“YOU THINK SO, TOO?!”),
ironically suggests that even he is not fully sure where the boundaries of that love
were.
3.​ Maggie’s love for Brick in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is so obsessive that she confesses, “Even
with my eyes closed, I just see you!”
a.​ Despite Brick’s open disgust and his encouragement for her to “take a lover,”
Maggie clings desperately to a marriage that exists only in name.
b.​ Her devotion is tragically paradoxical: the more Brick rejects her, the more Maggie
clings to him, turning love into a kind of masochism.
c.​ Williams paints Maggie as a woman trapped between desire, pride, and the crushing
reality of unreciprocated affection, showing how love in a decaying marriage can
curdle into suffering.
4.​ Brick’s alcoholism in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof presents a sharp paradox.
a.​ Brick drinks not merely to forget painful truths, but because sobriety forces him to
confront the overwhelming mendacity around him.
i.​ Brick confesses that he drinks out of disgust with society’s pervasive “mendacity”.
b.​ Ironically, however, his drunkenness leads him deeper into self-deception.
c.​ As Brick himself states, “A drinking man’s someone who wants to forget he isn’t
still young an’ believing.” In attempting to escape the lies of the world, he sinks
into personal illusions, revealing that his flight from mendacity only traps him more
firmly within it.
5.​ The difficulty of genuine communication in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is another paradox that
Williams crafts meticulously.
a.​ Although characters are constantly talking, they fail to truly connect with one
another. Brick laments this failure when he says, “Communication is—awful
hard between people an’—somehow between you and me, it just don’t—.”
b.​ Despite the abundance of dialogue, words in the play swirl around the truth
without ever piercing it, resulting in profound isolation amid the appearance of
intimacy. In Williams’ world, language becomes a barrier rather than a bridge.
6.​ Inadmissible Things
a.​ Death
b.​ Homosexuality
Dramatic ways:

-​ Sighs
-​ Arms crossed
-​ Smug smiles
-​ Green glows prevent sustained dialogue