UMASS AMHERST DEPARTMENT

OF THEATER PRESENTS

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Jared Culverhouse

The Rand Theater

February 26th March 7th

This Study Guide was researched and prepared by undergraduate student Caroline
Radigan and MFA Candidate in Dramaturgy, Amy Brooks under the guidance of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater.
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Study Guide I Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Study Guide Contents

Story Elements
Introduction
Setting
Characters

Picture found from: http://www.broadway.com/buzz/166691/cats-meow-how-

tennessee-williams-cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof-keeps-prowling-back-to-broadway/
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Study Guide I Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Introduction
Here we are in the Deep South when Tennessee Williamss
favorite play first comes to life in 1955. This is the same year
that Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus for a white
man in Montgomery, Alabama. The United States sent over two
hundred million dollars to Vietnam. The Supreme Court has just
ruled that segregation in schools is unconstitutional via Brown v.
Board of Education. We are in what some would call the Leave
it to Beaver era, when gender norms, racism, and the nuclear
family ideals were at their peak.
Tennessee Williams is, arguably, the most influential
playwright of twentieth century American drama. His ideas and
thematic elements were bold, even too bold for censored and
heteronormative Hollywood. Only a few years before Cat was
published, two famous books were released that spoke about
human sexual behavior, known as The Kinsey Reports. The first
volume was Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and
followed by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953).
Comparisons and interviews of sexual activity from females and
males were interpreted by zoologist Alfred Kinsey and sexologist
Wardell Pomeroy. (Yes, apparently you could be a sexologist in
the 1950s!) These publications were highly controversial; Kinsey
claimed that about 10% of the American population at the time
was gay. Not only was speaking of sexuality on national news
provocative at this time, but this also forced Americans to have
conversations on what was considered a taboo topic.
Lets not forget that in Hollywood, all creators had to
practice their craft under the Production Code of 1930, also
known as the Hays Code. These guidelines provided
authoritarian censorship over what could and could not be
shown in American films. This included banning any pictures that
produced murder, excessive kissing, misgenation (sex
relationships between the white and black races) (The Motion
Picture Production Code of 1930, n.p.), and homosexuality.
When comparing the version of the script you will see at UMass
to that of the famous motion picture with Elizabeth Taylor and
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Study Guide I Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Paul Newman from 1958, notice how all indications of

homosexuality are excluded from the film.
Lastly, and most importantly, it is valuable to note that our
version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens during Black History
Month. Williams displays the American South and our nations
horrible history of slavery; we are taken to a cotton plantation
from the post WWII-era. Tennessee Williams is writing this piece
during the same time that the American Civil Rights Movement is
gathering steam. Notice how every character in the original
film of Cat is white? Of course, its not a coincidence.

Picture found on:

http://filmreviewonline.com/2011/03/26/elizabeth-taylor-19322011/
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Study Guide I Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Setting
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof takes place in Glorious Hill, a
fictitious town located in the Mississippi Delta on Big Daddys
twenty-eight thousand acres of land. As described by author
Nancy Tischler in Student Companion to Tennessee Williams, we
are in the traditional Deep South where cotton is king, the land
is rich, men are men, women are women, and no deviant
patterns are allowed (Tischler 80). Our stage is set in a
bedroom in Big Daddy and Big Mamas plantation home, which
Williams notes is Victorian with a touch of the Far East
(Williams 15). The audience is looking at wicker furniture, wide
doors and a liquor cabinet in the midst of summer heat. We do
not see any other rooms in this two-story home; variations of
daylight and dusk show us that this production takes place on
only one summer evening with no interruptions and no time
lapse in between Acts.
This land was previously owned by two men, Jack Straw and
Peter Ochello; Big Daddy Pollitt became the overseer of the
plantation and eventually inherited it from the two lovers. In
fact, the bedroom that we see is the very same one that the
bachelors shared. Brick criticizes his father for having him and
Maggie live here in Act II, as if Big Daddy was suspicious about
his sons sexuality all this time. Do you think Big Daddy knew?
Whats more, do you think he even cares?
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Study Guide I Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Characters
Margaret (Maggie) is a fiercely loyal wife who has married
into wealth. She appears seductive and vulnerable; she is
fiercely loyal and masochistically compelled to stay with her
cold husband, Brick. We could consider Maggie to be a survivor.
There are moments when we learn about her upbringing, born
poor, raised poor, expect to die poor unless I manage to get us
something out of what Big Daddy leaves when he dies of
cancer! (Williams 61). However, shes worked hard to get where
she is. She has a college education and married into wealth;
both of these things she prides herself in whenever she thinks
about Maes success as a mother.

Brick is arguably the most misunderstood character in Cat.

And this could be for a few reasons. One being that Bricks first
impression is of a very cold, very unresponsive man; we ask
ourselves in the beginning, why does he ignore Maggie so
much? Does he even love her? We learn as the play progresses
that Bricks best friend (and possible lover), Skipper, is
deceased. Is he still mourning? Did he drink this much before
Skippers death? Brick is handsome and the favorite son of Big
Mama and Big Daddy. He marries Maggie right after college
graduation. His life seems wonderful until he injures himself and
has to leave his athletic dreams behind. Brick is broken,
mentally and physically. He is on crutches and immobile
throughout the duration of the play and feels trapped in his own
emotions. Lets think about something for a moment: Maggie is
always considered the cat that is stuck on the hot tin roof. But
could Brick be considered stuck as well? By his marriage? By
societal expectations to love women, or by his family to take
over the plantation?

Mae Pollitt exemplifies conformity of a woman in this

notorious Leave it to Beaver era. She is a good breeder, as Big
Daddy notes, who is in the proper social circles with a
respectable reputation. She, unlike Maggie, does not have a
college education but has brought five no-neck monsters into
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the world and helps her husband Gooper however she can to
obtain Big Daddys land once he passes.

Gooper Pollitt is the envious brother of Brick with a

successful career as a corporate lawyer and the trophy wife and
children. Gooper does everything the right way, but is still not
the favorite of the Pollitt sons. He not so secretly plans to secure
Big Daddys estate with his wife, Mae.

Big Daddy is the patriarch of the house. The plantation

millionaire has distaste for his wife, son, and grandchildren as
we learn through his conversation with Brick in Act II. He is
misogynistic and shows this through his language towards
women in the play, referring that he wants to buy a beautiful
woman and choke her with diamonds or that Mae is a good
breeder. The way he talks about his wife, Big Mama, to his own
son is enough for anyone to realize that he is sexist. With this
being said, he loves Brick immensely and wants him to inherit
the acreage once hes gone.

Big Mama (Ida) in her own way could be considered a cat

on a hot tin roof. She has remained faithful in a marriage with a
man who says he does not love her; she is overjoyed when she
finds out that Big Daddys stomach pain was nothing but a mere
spastic colon. She wants her baby boy Brick to create some new
Pollitts and blames Maggie for their lack of childbearing. Do
you see any similarities with Maggie and Ida?
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Works Cited
"The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)." The Motion Picture
Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code). N.p., 12 Apr. 2006. Web. 05 Feb. 2015.

N.d. Cat's Meow! How Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Keeps Prowling Back
to Broadway. Web. 05 Feb. 2015.

Tischler, Nancy Marie Patterson. Student Companion to Tennessee Williams. Westport,

CT: Greenwood, 2000. Print.

Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: New Directions, 2004. Print.