Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Other Plays by Tennessee Williams Summary

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Other Plays by Tennessee Williams is a collection featuring the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which explores the dysfunctional wealthy Pollitt family gathering for Big Daddy's birthday while he unknowingly faces terminal cancer. The play examines themes of mendacity, sexual identity, family dysfunction, and the corrupting influence of wealth through the troubled marriage of Brick, an alcoholic former athlete, and his determined wife Maggie "the cat".

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof appeals to readers interested in Southern Gothic literature, psychological realism, and complex family dynamics. Theater enthusiasts, students of American drama, and anyone exploring themes of truth versus deception, sexual identity, and mortality will find Tennessee Williams's work compelling. The play particularly resonates with readers examining marital conflict, addiction, inheritance disputes, and the masks people wear to maintain societal harmony.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams is absolutely worth reading as a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece that revolutionized American theater by addressing taboo subjects like homosexuality and death. Tennessee Williams crafts psychologically complex characters and explores universal themes of truth, desire, and family conflict with raw emotional power. The play's enduring relevance lies in its unflinching examination of how lies destroy relationships and its exploration of identity struggles that remain culturally significant today.

Tennessee Williams was one of America's most influential playwrights who created Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955, first performed at the Morosco Theatre in New York. Williams revolutionized American drama by pushing boundaries on taboo subjects including sexuality, mental illness, and Southern decay. His psychological realism and poetic language established him as a defining voice of mid-twentieth century theater, earning him multiple Pulitzer Prizes and transforming how American audiences confronted difficult social issues.

Mendacity, or pervasive lying, forms the central theme of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that Brick explicitly discusses with Big Daddy. Tennessee Williams explores how society constructs elaborate lies to repress "inadmissible things" like homosexuality and death, creating a destructive system where characters maintain false harmony rather than confront truth. Every Pollitt family member participates in mendacity—from hiding Big Daddy's cancer diagnosis to Brick denying his feelings for Skipper—demonstrating how lies poison relationships and prevent authentic connection.

The "cat on a hot tin roof" symbolizes Maggie's anxious, agitated state trapped in a sexually frustrating marriage with Brick. Tennessee Williams uses this metaphor to represent how the unbearable heat makes a cat nervous yet determined to stay on the roof—just as Maggie remains in her marriage despite emotional torment to secure Big Daddy's inheritance and win back Brick's love. The symbol captures her desperation, resilience, and the cruel transformation she undergoes as she becomes increasingly "catty" while fighting for survival.

The main characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof include Brick Pollitt, an alcoholic former football star tormented by guilt over his friend Skipper's death, and his wife Margaret "Maggie," a determined woman from poverty fighting to secure their inheritance. Big Daddy, the dying patriarch, embodies raw power confronting mortality, while Big Mama represents resilient unconditional love despite enduring cruelty. Gooper and Mae, Brick's scheming brother and sister-in-law with their "no-neck monster" children, compete for the family estate through manipulation and greed.

Brick's relationship with his deceased teammate Skipper forms the play's emotional core, characterized by ambiguous intimacy that Brick refuses to acknowledge. When Skipper called to confess his love, Brick hung up on him, precipitating Skipper's suicide and leaving Brick consumed by guilt and self-loathing. Tennessee Williams explores how Brick's inability to accept the true nature of their relationship—whether romantic love or deep friendship—drives his alcoholism as he seeks oblivion from the "inadmissible thing" of homosexuality in 1950s Southern society.

Wealth serves as a corrupting, divisive force in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that brings the Pollitt family together while simultaneously tearing them apart. Tennessee Williams depicts how Big Daddy's estate transforms family members into scheming "vultures" competing for inheritance—Gooper and Mae plot to prove their worthiness through children, while Maggie lies about pregnancy to secure their claim. The play reveals how money enables lies, breeds manipulation, and prevents genuine emotional connection, with only Brick remaining indifferent to the fortune everyone else desperately pursues.

Big Daddy Pollitt serves as the powerful patriarch whose terminal cancer diagnosis and impending death catalyze the family's conflicts over inheritance and truth. Tennessee Williams portrays Big Daddy as initially believing he's been saved from death, which temporarily energizes him to confront his family's hypocrisy before the devastating truth emerges. His confrontation with Brick in Act II forces both men to acknowledge uncomfortable truths about mendacity, mortality, and Brick's relationship with Skipper, making Big Daddy the catalyst for the play's central revelation about lies and repression.

Brick drinks incessantly in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to achieve a "click" of peaceful oblivion that numbs his disgust with society's mendacity and his guilt over Skipper's death. Tennessee Williams presents alcohol as Brick's escape from confronting the truth about his ambiguous feelings for Skipper and his role in his friend's suicide. His drinking also represents withdrawal from his wife Maggie, whom he blames for trying to seduce Skipper and exposing their relationship's true nature, ultimately embodying his desire to anesthetize himself against the pain of living with lies.

The bedroom setting in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof serves as a powerful symbol of sexual tension and marital dysfunction between Brick and Maggie. Tennessee Williams deliberately confines Act I to this intimate space to emphasize the couple's estrangement—the bed reminds audiences of their sexless marriage while the liquor cabinet represents Brick's escape mechanism. The room becomes a pressure cooker where private truths emerge before the family gathers, establishing the play's central conflict between desire and denial, connection and isolation in a space traditionally associated with intimacy and vulnerability.