Looking into a two-sided mirror: Similarities of Maggie Politt and Blanche Dubois
Sometimes a certain style is replicated or seen to be similar to each other when an author continues to write new things throughout his/her life. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar named Desire, the characters seem to go through similar situation problems between their respective books, both written by Tennessee Williams. The novel, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof revolves around the main character Big Daddy who happens to be dying of cancer and how his own family tries to do anything it takes to get their hands on his inheritance. Brick, is the son of Big Daddy and is married to Maggie Pollitt and he’s also a repressed man due to his drinking, smoking, and sadness…show more content… Although they seem to be on a different train of thought rather than flow with the way things work. For Blanche, she arrived at Elysian Fields to her sister’s shared home as a guest. After arriving and taking a gander around what her sister’s lifestyle was like, she asks “Will Stanley like me, or will I be just a visiting in-law, Stella”. Showing that she wasn’t exactly comfortable in her situation as a crashing guest, Blanche’s motives in trying to appease Stanley (the male lead) are crystal clear. She is simply just trying to show she is a polite well-mannered guest that only wishes to be accepted by Stanley (Williams 17). However in Maggie’s case, she has a completely different motif toward trying to appease Big Daddy (the male lead), which would be his inheritance. Meanwhile talking to Brick, Maggie ecplains that “Mae an” Gooper are planning to freeze us out of Big Daddy’s estate because you drink and I’m childless.” Mae and Gooper on the other hand are keeping up with their appearances by producing more and more children in an effort to appease Big Daddy. Brick and Margaret are not really doing anything productive or helpful in any way to even attempt to secure his inheritance. Therefore, Maggie urges Brick to do something about it and be able to participate in the contest for the inheritance (54). There is a misfortune upon these two female characters…show more content… In one scene Blanche opens up to Stanley’s friend, Mitch, after spending an entire evening and way past midnight with him. They both start to have small talk and ask around questions about each which eventually leads to Blanche’s former husband, Allen Grey. She starts to talk about him and how she found out that he was actually a homosexual the entire time when stumbled into a room, “The boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years…”(Williams 115). This was the first moment that crossed Blanche’s mind as a life changer other than the moment she had been “hit” with love. Having married a gay man that was obviously hiding his true feelings there was nothing she could’ve done about it except to keep quiet and play on with the marriage since there was no chance whatsoever of Allen loving Blanche as a woman. Not long after this ordeal came to pass was when Allen Gray decided to shove an armed gun in his mouth as Blanche shouted out to him, “I saw! I know! You disgust me…” In conclusion to the witnessing of this event and showing disgust may have been the final straw all from the feelings of shame and guilt. Allen probably felt overwhelmed with the pressure accumulating inside of him and decide to kill himself in order to release it all (115).