Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Ambiguity

Relationships are rocky and rocky. In Tennessee Williams’s 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, this simple yet complex idea sets the bar high for writers who want to tell a story about the complexities of families and their most intimate turmoil. A recurring debatable theme from the play is the subject of protagonist Brick’s sexuality. While characters in the play never outright say the obvious term, the homosexual undertones are embedded in Brick’s history with his recently deceased best friend, Skipper. By focusing on the ambiguity of Brick’s possible sexuality, Brick distracts from the main ideas of the play: the deconstruction of the “perfect” nuclear family and the untruthful role they play in society. Brick’s wife (and the other protagonist

Together, the pair is not balanced, which could further deepen Brick’s desire to go back to the days before he felt the familial societal pressures placed upon him. Perhaps, something overlooked when discussing the topic of Brick’s sexuality is the actual source: Brick and Tennessee Williams. Brick is described as being an honest man and throughout the play, he does not give a reason to believe otherwise. From his blank stare responses to Maggie in Act I to the frustrated conversation he has with Big Daddy throughout all of Act II, Brick is completely transparent. In fact, he seems surprised that Big Daddy had the same thoughts as Maggie in regards to Skipper and himself. During a tense scene in Act II, Brick exclaims, “Why can’t exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep friendship! between two men be respected as clean and decent without being thought of as...Fairies....”

Another factor could be the “Maggie and Skipper slept together” elephant in the story. The relationship between Maggie and Skipper was also a surface level one in which Brick says that, “poor Skipper, went to bed with Maggie to prove it wasn’t true” (125) in regard to the ideas that Brick states Maggie poured into his head. Discussion surrounding Brick’s sexuality is still a hot topic in classes today, but in an interview with The New York Times back in 1975, the writer of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof had something to say on the matter: “the subject of Brick's sexual confusion is no longer the sensation it once was, so that the real theme of the play- the general mendacity of our society- is more clearly seen” (Bervist). Coming from the writer himself, Tennessee Williams agrees that the true theme is often overlooked because of the suspicions surrounding his own work. Williams, in the same interview, is shown to really dislike the idea that his plays are perceived the way they are. Writer of the Times article, Robert Berkvist, goes on to say, “Williams scoffs at those who suggest his plays are really transvestite dramas- closet plays about