Practice Essay

What, in your view, does Williams’s presentation of the relationship between Brick
and Maggie add to the meaning and e ects of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
In the intense play, Cat on a Hot tin Roof, skilfully crafted by Tennessee Williams, we see the
events of an afternoon and evening in the Pollitt household where ugly truths surface while
celebrating their patriarch's (Big Daddy’s) sixty- fth birthday. Brick and Maggie’s relationship
plays a key role in the development of the play and it adds to meaning and e ect through
exploration of Maggie’s unrequited love for Brick, their gender roles, and the symbol of their bed.
These combine to create a sense of their broken relationship.
Firstly, Maggie’s unrequited love for Brick adds to the sense of their broken relationship. We see in
the quote “Living with someone you love can be lonelier-than living entirely alone!- -if the one that
y' love doesn't love you”. This quote evokes a sense of pity in the audience towards Maggie as
she loves a man who does not love her. Even with all of Maggie’s advances and immense sexual
prowess, she is not the true recipient of Brick’s love. The quote “when we double dated in
college.. it felt like a double date between you and skipper,” shows how Maggie’s heterosexual
relationship with Brick, even when it should be the main concern (on a double date), is still
shadowed by Brick and Skipper’s bond. This presents their broken relationship as Maggie cannot
secure Brick’s a ection, and also brings in the idea of how in the patriarchy male relationships are
always placed above those with women- Big Daddy’s relationships with males a ects who he
decides to give his fortune too, and Brick’s relationship with Skipper made Maggie feel constantly
secondary. This constant prioritisation of male relationships in the play aids to unrequited love that
Maggie feels and presents her and Brick’s broken relationship.
Secondly, Brick and Maggie’s gender roles in the play also present their broken relationship. In the
piece of dialogue from Maggie “your so cool, so cool, so inevitably cool,” we see how Brick was
the ideal man- sporty, with a beautiful wife, handsome, in a fraternity, and ‘cool.’ Even those these
traits should see Brick as the ideal man, the death of Skipper leaves him broken both physically
and mentally, and he now needs to rely on his crutch or a theoretical crutch of alcohol to numb
this pain. Because of this, Maggie now has to assert herself into the dominant position in the
family to secure her desires, and we can see this in the commentary by William’s “Her voice has
range and music. Sometimes it drops low as a boys and you have a sudden image of her playing
boy’s games as a child”, highlighting to the audience Maggie’s complex gender role in the
household. She uses her sexuality to draw Brick into her but at the same time, to secure Big
Daddy’s fortune, must assert her own dominance with Brick’s lack of. Brick has become
emasculated while Maggie has become more masculine due to their given circumstance, and
these non conforming gender roles present to us their broken relationship. Another quote
presenting gender roles is Maggie’s dialogue when she says “My daddy loved his liquor, he fell in
love with liquor the way you have fallen in love with echo spring.” Brick may use liquor as a
scapegoat to regain some of his masculinity by numbing the pain that he feels but this quote is
also important as mythical allusions can be linked to both characters to Greek mythology, where
Brick is identi able to gure ‘Narcissus’, and Maggie ‘Echo’. In Greek mythology, Narcissus
escapes Echo and falls in love with his own re ection where he eventually dies. If Brick can
escape Echo, which can mean both Maggie and Alcohol, he may be able to nd his true self and
accept his homosexual desires, and then he may die peacefully, which also presents to us how
their relationship is broken and cannot be mended until Brick accepts his true self.
Thirdly, the audience view of the day’s events unfolds wholly in Brick and Maggie’s bedroom,
which aids the idea of their broken relationship. This setting is signi cant as in William’s note for
the set, the room is “It is gently and poetically haunted by a relationship that must have involved a
tenderness that was uncommon.” This is that of the late homosexual couple Peter Ochello and
Jack Straw. It is ironic that in a play exploring ideas of repressed homosexuality, there is an
underlying backdrop of a homosexual relationship. In a quote said by Brick in anguish, “Maybe
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that’s why you put me in this room that belonged to Jack Straw and Peter Ochello? In which that
pair of old sisters slept in a double bed,” he acknowledges the homosexual spirit that remains in
the room and uses a derogatory term ‘old sisters’, which can be said to be a form of ‘homosexual
panic’ as he violently discusses this idea that liking men may be apart of his sexual identity.
Maggie and Brick’s relationship is presented as broken as it is shadowed by a homosexual one,
showing that this relationship may merely be cover hiding reality. There is no change of setting in
the play aiding this idea that Brick cannot escape the everlasting homosexual presence of both
past and present. The tension of the play as a whole is aided by setting. “Our sex lie didn’t just
peter out in the usual way, it was cut of short, long before the natural time for it do do so.” This
dialogue from Maggie presents to the audience how Brick no longer sleeps with her in their bed
due to his disgust of her, while also reminding the audience of who this bed was once shared by,
further presenting their broken relationship.
Overall, broken heterosexual relationships that occur throughout the play, but especially between
Brick and Maggie. It is interesting to note the only relationship described or presented in a truly
loving way is that of Straw and Ochello’s. Their relationship can be seen as broken due to
Maggie’s unrequited love, their gender roles, and the setting of their relationship as well as the
play. The occurrence of broken heterosexual relationships in the play, aside from Brick and
Maggie’s, presents to the audience the idea of how Brick’s relationship could not be broken if it
was that of a homosexual one.

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What, in your view, does Williams’s presentation of the relationship between Brick

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