Exploring Pain in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
"Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," written by Tennessee Williams is a brilliant play about a dysfunctional family that is forces to deal with hidden deceptions and hypocrisy. The issues that this play revolves around transcend time and region.
By 1955 Tennessee Williams was already a well known and respected playwright. Theatergoers, as well as critics, had enthusiastically anticipated the arrival of "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof." Many loved the play, but they had difficulty with the play's resolution. (Winchell, 711)
...critics and ordinary theatre-goers have not always known what
to make of the play. Both the original and the Broadway versions
of the third act leave questions unanswered and an uneasy sense
that the answers suggested are willed and artificial. (Winchell, 711)
In addition, many people love Williams's play "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof" because the plot is intriguing and the character's secrets unfold slowly. His play's premise is unique and it is not a re-hashed drama. They enjoy that Williams entertains and enlightens. "Audiences go to his plays not to be shocked but to see the playwright's sympathetic portrayal of characters whose fears and loneliness reflect their own."" (The New Book of Knowledge, 174)
Tennessee Williams's plays have been praised and criticized by literary scholars. Most applaud his prose and mastery in developing characters, yet they are sometimes offended by his subject matter. Mark Royden Winchell wrote a compelling article analyzing Williams's play "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof." In his essay, Winchell states that the play "is a powerful work of art", yet he exclaims that it is perverse and "scandalous." (Winche...
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Leverich, Lyle. Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 1995, 3, 17, 55, 59, 128, 129, 260, 417, 574
McLean, Colin. Interview, April 25th, 8:10 p.m.
The New Book of Knowledge vol. 20 US, Grolier, Inc. 1994, 174-175
Reiter, Amy. A Capital Cat." Entertainment Design January 1999 7-8 proquest.umi.com/pqdweb
Smith, Bruce. Costly Performances. New York: Paragon House, 1990, 6, 17, 59, 157
Williams, Tennessee. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof New York: Penguin Books Ltd. 1955 24, 124, 125
Winchell, Mark Royden. "Come Back To The Locker Room Ag'in Brick Honey." The Mississippi Quarterly 48 Fall 1995 701-712 webspirs3.silverplatter.com/cgi-binwaldo.cgi
Wolter, Jurgen C. "Strangers on Williams's Stage." The Mississippi Quarterly 49 Winter 1995 33-51 webspirs3.sinverplatter.com/cgi-bin/waldo/cgi
Comparing A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof In the game of life, a man is given the option to bluff, raise, or fold. He is dealt a hand created by the consequences of his choices or by outside forces beyond his control. It is a never ending cycle: choices made create more choices. Using diverse, complex characters simmering with passion and often a contradiction within themselves, Tennessee Williams examines the link between past and present created by man's choices in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. "
The family dynamics for Tennessee Williams are evident of a lifestyle of despondency and tension within the household. Tennessee Williams mother Edwina Williams she considered herself a Southern Belle, and his sister Rose Williams was a sickly adolescent whom he shared his imaginative dramatizations with as he transcribed his plays. While Williams was in graduate school at the University of Iowa, Rose was institutionalized for schizophrenia and was underwent a pre-font lobotomy. “The symbolization of lobotomy in the “Glass Menagerie” play signifies the hurt that Tennessee Williams felt by his parents by not collaborating to him that his sister underwent surgery. In the play, Williams substitutes the mental illness of his real sister, with a physical limitation “a limp” which Williams substituted for the mental illness of his real sister, Rose. Even the father’s absence reflects periods when his bullying sales man father, Cornelius Coffin Williams, would go on the road, leaving Tom, Edwina and Rose at one another’s mercies (Charles Matthews, 1996-2016).”
Tennessee Williams was one of the most important playwrights in the American literature. He is famous for works such as “The Glass Menagerie” (1944), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1947) or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)”. As John S. Bak claims: “Streetcar remains the most intriguing and the most frequently analyzed of Williams’ plays.” In the lines that follow I am going to analyze how the identity of Blanche DuBois, the female character of his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, is shaped.
F. Scott Fitzgerald best selling book "The Great Gatsby" and Tennessee Williams play “Streetcar named desire”,are two american classic that share identical themes then you would picture. Since, Jay Gatsby is illustrated as a wealthy hard working man, while Blanche Dubois is characterized as a lying former prostitute who tries to escape reality, by creating her own fantasy you would think they don’t have much in common. By comparing, both the play “Streetcar named desire” and the novel “The Great Gatsby”, Blanche and Gatsby are not so different after all. By analyzing the two characters, in this comparative essay, I will be stating how Gatsby and Blanche are alike. Both Gatsby and Blanche share many similar themes, firstly they tend to deceive others, secondly they are confused by the difference between reality and illusion, and lastly they both have strong desires that leads them to their downfall. Both characters in these novels have a false perspective of their reality.
Tennessee Williams employs the uses of plot, symbolism, and dialogue to portray his theme of impossible true escape, which asserts itself in his play, The Glass Menagerie. Each of his characters fills in the plot by providing emotional tension and a deep, inherent desire to escape. Symbolism entraps meaning into tangible objects that the reader can visualize and attach significance to. Conclusively, Williams develops his characters and plot tensions through rich dialogue. Through brilliant construction and execution of literary techniques, Williams brings to life colorful characters in his precise, poignant on-stage drama.
As I reflected more and more on Wilson's masterpiece, my anger turned to curiosity Instead of my curiosity waning, it grew. I felt like I was unraveling a huge ball of yarn. In a play about family, a million different issues lived. I was astounded at the number of issues that Wilson touched upon, issues ranging from family relationships, to problems in the workplace, racial tensions, and infidelity. And under each one of these was another, underlying issue, the reason, or the catalyst that enabled these to prevail. Part of the genius of this piece is that it is like an onion, with many layers, and can be interpreted on many different levels.
In the study of Tennessee Willliams' plays: "Suddenly Last Summer" and "The Glass Menagerie", we can find a great deal of autobiographical connections. "The Glass Menagerie" is particularly considered the author's most biographical work. It is described by the playwright as "a memory play"; indeed, it is a memory of the author's own youth, an expression of his own life and experiences. Similarly, "Suddenly Last Summer" includes many of Tennesse Williams' real life details.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.
Tennessee Williams is widely known as one of the greatest playwrights in American history. Tennessee Williams's personal life and experiences have been the direct subject matter for his dramas. He uses his experiences and universalize them through the means of the stage. His life is utilized over and over again in the creation of his dramas.
Tennessee Williams was one of the greatest American dramatists of the 20th century. Most of his plays take us to the southern states and show a confused society. In his works he exposes the degeneration of human feelings and relationships. His heroes suffer from broken families and they do not find their place in the society. They tend to be lonely and afraid of much that surrounds them. Among the major themes of his plays are racism, sexism, homophobia and realistic settings filled with loneliness and pain.1 Tennessee Williams characters showed us extremes of human brutality and sexual behavior.2 One of his most popular dramas was written in 1947, and it is called A Streetcar Named Desire.
As a playwright write William’s was not afraid to depict his own life through his literary works. William’s has been a very significant author in literature, as described by the New York Times (1983) as “the most important American playwright after Eugene O 'Neill”. Tennessee William’s was also recognized because of the way he wrote, and his impact on society, and his personal experiences, inserted into the plays. ‘He had a profound effect on the American theater and on American playwrights and actors. He wrote with deep sympathy and expansive humor about outcasts in our society. Though his images were often violent, he was a poet of the human heart’ (M. Gussow, 1983). Three of his most famous works, out of all that he had were The Glass Menagerie, A street Car Named Desire, and lastly Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In all three of these plays they depicted/ reflected a point in time where William’s went through a negative experience, which influenced him to insert these experiences into the plays. Also in all his plays, they were about a family and their struggles to see the reality of their world and trying not to go along with the norms of society. A similarity in all the plays was that William’s made the women in all these plays as himself. In other words the women represented his life. "It 's true my heroines often speak for me. That doesn 't make them transvestites. Playwrights
Williams, Tennessee. "The Glass Menagerie." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. 1999. pp.1865-1908.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.
Tennessee Williams of Columbus, Mississippi, and author of the play The Glass Menagerie creates a well-rounded character by the name of Tom Wingfield. The author reveals many aspects of this character throughout the play, which focuses on the memories of the three main characters that live in a St. Louis apartment in the late 1930s. As the story progresses, the reader observes how each of the characters unravel and unfold to their needs and wants. Tom is displayed as a character who lives in a world that is different from reality, so, therefore, he behaves in a fashion that makes him seem falsely selfish, creative, and adventurous.
Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, 4th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995. 1519-1568.