1152 Williams, Tennessee
Little of this affects Brick, who continues to
drink throughout the play, mired in his inability
to accept the “mendacity” that he feels ruined his
career as a football player; his marriage to Maggie;
and, worst of all, his friendship with Skipper, who
has died of alcoholism himself. The relationship
between Brick and Skipper hangs over the play like
a dark cloud. So close were the two that they cre-
ated a special professional football league so they
could extend the good times they had as collegiate
stars. The two are dogged by insinuations of homo-
sexuality, which Brick denies with a vehemence that
merely increases the suspicion.
Whether or not Brick’s embracing a futile exis-
tence matches Maggie’s desperation to fight such a
life remains debatable. In order to satisfy the whims
of his director, Elia Kazan, Williams crafted two
third acts for the drama with decidedly different
endings. In the one Kazan accepted, known as the
Broadway version, Big Daddy returns for the third
act, whereupon Maggie falsely announces that she is
pregnant. The patriarch embraces the news, and the
play ends with Brick defending his wife and going
to bed with her, ostensibly to conceive the child.
However, for Williams, Brick’s reversal is unrealistic.
Brick and Big Daddy engage in a long conversation
meant to turn the young man around in act 2. How-
ever, in The Theatre of Tennessee Williams, Williams
writes, “I don’t believe, that a conversation, however
revelatory, ever effects so immediate a change in
the heart or conduct of a person in Brick’s state of
spiritual disrepair.” Therefore, the original ending
seems more effective. For one, Big Daddy does not
return to the stage, and his howl serves as a trumpet
blast announcing his descent into a futile, painful
ending. Maggie makes her announcement, which
no one readily believes (Gooper and Mae announce
throughout to anyone within earshot that they can
hear Brick reject Maggie on a nightly basis), yet
which Maggie determinedly will make a reality, as
she hides Brick’s liquor and refuses to give back to
him until he ends her sentence as a woman sleeping
alone.
One may argue the play ends on a positive
note, as Maggie manages to make Brick succumb
to her wishes with promises they will have a child,
and Brick will assume authority over Big Daddy’s
empire. However, Maggie’s victory does not promise
Brick will cease drinking, nor does it ensure that the
tension between these two and Gooper and Mae
will end. In fact, one may argue that this child will
enter a more futile world than the one depicted in
the present.
Chris BellprIde in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Pride consumes the characters in Tennessee Wil-
liams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. However, depending
on which character we examine, pride can be a posi-
tive or negative characteristic.
Big Daddy built his empire on pride—pride in
his hard work and business acumen. Shamelessly,
he shows off his wealth. The play is set in a room
in his fabulous plantation home, a testament to his
great wealth. The room has all the modern amenities
of the 1950s, including an expensive liquor cabinet
and entertainment unit, complete with phonograph,
television, and speakers. The playwright describes
this as a gaudy monstrosity that dominates the room
and provides no aesthetic value. At times during the
play, characters discuss other accoutrements within
the house that seem to exist for no other reason
than display.
The tendency to fill their lives with material
objects complements the family tendency to cover
the truth as well. Big Daddy is diagnosed with
terminal cancer, but his son Gooper convinces the
doctor to tell both his father and mother that the
affliction is only a “spastic colon.” The lie convinces
the old man he will soon resume his seat at the head
of the table. Gooper, a successful lawyer in Mem-
phis, shamelessly attempts to maneuver past his
younger brother Brick in order to receive the bulk
of Big Daddy’s inheritance. Since the days of the
ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, lying has been
viewed as a manner of illustrating pride, and Gooper
certainly meets this definition.
Gooper’s wish to claim the family fortune from
his alcoholic brother, Brick, is understandable,
though his method is questionable. Like Gooper,
the audience sees Brick’s pride on several levels.
As a youth, Brick had earned a measure of local,
then national, fame as an athlete. In a sense, this
seals his fate early, as he finds himself in a state of