preview

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Analysis

Decent Essays

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is written by Tennessee Williams, a gay American playwright from a hard life. Set in the 50s, the duration of the Cat play reviews the conflict between truth and illusion. Set in the 50s on a Mississippi plantation, Williams presents, Brick, an alcoholic ex-athlete who refuses to sleep with his vivacious wife, Maggie the “cat”, supposedly out of guilt over the suicide of his old friend, Skipper: what Brick is unable to confront is his own, and Skipper's, latent homosexuality. Williams was known for putting his own life into his works and the question of Brick’s inheritance and “click”, goes along with Williams wanting to show the internal struggles of a man and his responsibility not only to his family but also to himself, and whether it is better to live by lies or truth, while showing a piece of his life.
Cat is not structured in a traditional sense, unlike normal plays with divided up scenes, Cat is divided into just three acts. There is continuous action that mimics the chaotic actions of a family in distress, like most real life families they never stop fighting, playing, and being around each other. The play is characterized as a dramatic southern gothic work, although it can be argued as a mix of Gothic Southern Drama and Postmodernism. The Southern Gothic style seeks to explore social issues and reveal the cultural character of the American South. We can find some evidence of this in the postmodernist representation of the family and themes

Get Access