Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Essay

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Tennessee Williams, which tells of a Southern family in crisis. Two of the main characters, Brick and Margaret (Maggie) Pollitt are having marital issues, with Maggie trying to save face for the rest of Brick’s family as they have all gathered together at the twenty-eight thousand acre plantation that is home to the family’s patriarch, Big Daddy, who is celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday. Although Big Daddy and Big Mama have found Big Daddy’s latest clean bill of health from the prestigious Ocshner Clinic as a reason to celebrate, the rest of the family knows the truth: Big Daddy has cancer and will not live to celebrate another birthday. Everyone has decided to keep the truth from Big Daddy, everyone except Brick. As the play unfolds, each of the central characters must come to terms and deal with the issues that they have tried to keep buried inside. Margaret is figuratively the “cat on a hot tin roof.” Her marriage to Brick is in shambles. Due to her brother and sister…show more content…
Psychologically, she sees them as viable threats to her financial stability, she views the children as ill-raised nuisances, but she tries to maintain her presence known to whom she thinks really matters, Big Daddy. Margaret even teases to Brick that Big Daddy has a liking or “lech” for her (p. 887). Margaret feels that without having borne any children, she believes her looks is the only thing that she has as a weapon to secure his place in the world. She is meticulous in what she chooses to wear, gawks over herself in the mirror, and flirts with her father in law in order to beguile him and earn his favor. She even goes to great lengths to purchase a cashmere sweater as Big Daddy’s birthday present and claim it’s from Brick so that Big Daddy will keep them in mind when he decides to divvy up his

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