Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Essay

Tennessee Williams is regarded as a pioneering playwright of American theatre. Through his plays, Williams addresses important issues that no other writers of his time were willing to discuss, including addiction, substance abuse, and mental illness. Recurring themes in William’s works include the dysfunctional family, obsessive and absent mothers and fathers, and emotionally damaged women. These characters were inspired by his experiences with his own family. These characters appear repeatedly in his works with their own recurring themes. Through The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams presents the similar thematic elements of illusion, escape, and fragility between the two plays, proving that although similar, the themes within these plays are not simply recycled, as the differences in their respective texts highlight the differences of the human condition.

Maggie, the daughter, is timid and little, she is a younger sister. Maggie has scars because of a fire in the house, she is like a child, and shy of her burns. She always shuffles around in the shadows of her popular older sister, Dee. She lives and works with her mother on the farm. Maggie is a respectful and innocent young woman who has not yet come to be her self.

major factor in his detachment from society. Of course, he does it to himself, and

other hand, is the taller of the two, but also the dumbest, due to his

Through a variety of literary and cinematic techniques respectively, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men and Sean Penn’s Into The Wild illustrate how the fulfilment of one’s life, and their pursuit of happiness, hinge upon friendship, dreams, and one’s attitude towards life and happiness in general. Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice And Men illustrates the importance of friendship and dreams in a context of hardship and economic downturn. This is done by using George and Lennie and their dream of landownership and material possession to demonstrate how dreams give people the hope required to drive themselves, and how friendship offers them the ability to keep going even if their own spirit should break. Sean Penn’s 2007 film Into The Wild

“His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths.” (Crane 1) The definition of countenance is a person’s face or facial expression. This particular quote establishes the emotional state of Jimmie. The little gangs that infiltrate the neighborhood cause chaos within the people and often lead to brutal fights and violence.

    Tennessee Williams allows the main characters in the plays, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, to live miserable lives, which they first try to deny and later try to change.  The downfall and denial of the Southern gentlewoman is a common theme in both plays.  The characters, Blanche DuBois from A Streetcar Named Desire and Amanda from The Glass Menagerie are prime examples.  Blanche and Amanda have had, and continue to have, many struggles in their lives.  The problem is that Williams never lets the two women work through these problems and move on.  The two ladies are allowed to destroy themselves and Williams invites the audience to watch them in

In the book, Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caufield, the main character is a negatively charged person, doesn't want himself or others around him to grow up, and suffers from depression because of his brothers death. This is obviously Holden's way of alienating the entire world and delaying the consequences of facing reality. Alienation is a big theme in Catcher In The Rye, and something that Holden depends on most often.

Maggie comes from a very strained family life, living in poverty. She lives in a horrific tenement in the Bowery neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side, with her two younger brothers, Jimmie and Tommie. Jimmie is hardened against any sympathy due to the years he spent on the streets fighting with gangs and is currently working as a truck driver. Tommie was the infant of the family who passed away at a young age. The tenement is filled with argumentative feelings amongst her parents. Mary Johnson, Maggie’s mother, is an alcoholic and very aggressive. She has been noted for torturing Maggie with hateful words over actions that she has done. Mr. Johnson, the father, was also very aggressive with his children and an alcoholic like his wife, he too passed away. Maggie had a relationship with a friend of

     J. D. Salinger’s only published full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, has become one of the most enduring classics of American literature. The novel’s story is told in retrospect by the main character, Holden Caulfield, while staying in a psychiatric hospital in California. This is a coming of age tale that is wrought with irony. Holden Caulfield, Mr. Antolini, and Phoebe are the main symbols of irony.

more and more like Big Daddy's and at the end of the play repeats his

Tennessee Williams once said that, “Every artist has a basic premise pervading his whole life, and that premise can provide the impulse to everything he creates. For me the dominating premise has been the need for understanding and tenderness and fortitude among individuals trapped by circumstance.” Williams is an individual trapped by circumstance who gained inspiration for many of the characters in A Streetcar Named Desire from his own life. The play consists of a dysfunctional bunch of characters: a hysterical woman, a ditzy wife, and an aggressive husband, each with a connection to Williams’s personal life.

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of Poe’s greatest literary works that embodies his signature themes of death, violence, and darkness. Poe’s main character begins his narration of his horrible wrongdoings regarding them as a “series of mere household events” (Poe 705). However, this is where Poe’s satire and irony begins and the story progresses to show the deranged mindset of this character as he tries to justify his actions. As the main character proceeds to rationalize his crime, Poe is able to convey a sense of irony through his use of foreshadowing, metaphors and symbolism.

In the short story the "The Cat in the Rain" by Ernest Hemingway, the cat is a symbol around which the story revolves. As a central symbol, the cat reveals the psychological state and emotional desires of the American wife.

Set in St. Louis Missouri prior to World War II, Tennessee Williams reflects back on his deeply tragic and dysfunctional familial experiences in, “The Glass Menagerie”. Williams brilliantly incorporates real aspects of society to reveal how they contributed to the nonreal aspects and the conflicts which affected his family. The real aspects of the play which had a significant impact on the lower middle-class families such as the Wingfields included, the economic hardships surrounding the Great Depression, the fall of the American south, society’s intolerance towards homosexuality, and many threats abroad. Although Williams play was merely a series of hazy memories, the nonreal aspects combined with the major societal conflicts contribute