hello hello today we're gonna be talking about a cat in a hot and roof which is a play written by Tennessee Williams I don't want to waste too much time here so let's get right into it this is a brief organization of what we're going to talk about today uh this is the presentation assumes you've read the SparkNotes version of the book but as we're mainly focusing on what the ace wants which is going to be some characterizations some themes some symbolism Etc so we have just general information a bit of background the book takes place 1950s in the Summer where the American dream is a very very common theme throughout it in history and in the book the definition varies a lot but I find a good way to summarize it is that anyone can get the life they want if they work hard enough for example if you start a small business that business and you work really hard in the business then it will succeed and move on to you being very successful and pass me like passed down through your family Etc and there's a lot of common massaging homophobia during this time with the misogyny you can see this in the women characters how they sort of get pushed around a little nowhere really bats and I uh big mama many times throughout the book uh burst down to tears because of what big daddy says but no one really comments much on that either and with the homophobia this is very very prevalent as brick struggles a lot of internal homophobia over what happened with Skipper there's also an emphasis on family which is where you see Tennessee Williams he writes this really uh broken family that is falling apart on the inside on the outside they might seem fine in the 1950s had this focus on family so it was a very uh drama-filled event for this whole play in addition this uh Southern family is very well off on monetarily they have a plan a plantation servants a house doctor and a preacher so an analysis of the title I like to go with things a word by word or phrase by phrase so let's just start with the word cat the cat is not literal Mackie calls herself a cat in a hotson roof in act one and then big Maddie says may is a cat in a hotson roof in act two the cats can generally be a symbol of bad luck or being Sly and I think their cats are like slide are sort of cunning which goes in here we have a layer theme of greed and jealousy so I think the cat ties in very very well with this and let's analyze the whole phrase the Hot Tin Roof part the Hudson roof if we focus on Maggie instead of May it's brick and Maggie's relationship she really wants to leave but Maggie was born poor she doesn't want to die poor as well she flat out says this in act three and leaving brick would mean being all on her own and at the time in the 50s you a Woman by herself can't really do a lot well yes they can work it's not going to be equal pay it's she won't have that life of luxury that's already been given to her and that she has been enjoying as she goes out shopping Etc we see in act one she gets a gift for Big Daddy that's a very uh nice cashmere robe for the Big Daddy's birthday so she has been enjoying all the riches that being in this relationship has brought to her so even though this relationship is really hurting her she hasn't been able to leave at all so she goes on to say that brick she wishes that brick was at least an ugly kind of drunk or a fat drunk that way she would have some sort of reason to leave because a hotson roof a Hot Tin Roof you think about it it's really painful to be on tin is not one of those pleasant substances just to get hot but we have to analyze why the roof is hot the hotness can represent the fact that it the play takes place in the South during the summer which is a good way to view it but I think it really represents the boiling tensions that are heating up throughout the play as the play progresses the tin roof gets hotter and hotter and more people get sort of squeamish on this roof that's causing them pain whether that be well yeah the emotional pain of it all right so now we need to go over some general structure it's never never bad to go over structure on Ace exam as well as as long as you mentioned the significance of what the structure brings we have the general progression of the book which is do acts act one takes place throughout the evening uh act two during sunset and act three during night we see different focuses throughout the acts we have uh Maggie versus brick talking about their troubles in bed they briefly mentioned Skipper sort of I would say foreshadowing it'll be giving suspense to who Skipper is and also uh bricks alcoholism in act two it's more so brick versus Big Daddy as you talk about uh his bed troubles Maggie a bit more about Skipper and the trouble with alcohol and then act three talks about man goober versus brick and Maggie but as they fight over Big Daddy's inheritance the trouble of alcohol and their bed troubles how Maggie still has no children well you know I don't like viewing things from just three acts so if we break this down a little further we see a bit metaphorically this could represent the light the life cycle a little bit how we go from spring summer to fall to winter because of course uh the circle of seasons can also represent Circle of Life Spring things are starting to grow while winter things die and of course in the middle there's growth throughout uh spring some of the characters that represent this are The Unborn children of May and Maggie May is currently pregnant and Maggie lies about being so in summer we have the young kids of man goober I believe there's five of them they're sort of running yelling just screaming about having fun and in the fall we have may Maggie May Cooper I wrote May twice my bed I meant to put brick in there as well we have the general adults who are there then in Winter we have big daddy and big mama who are approaching the end of their life but if we expand this even further we can see that spring we combine this with the American dream because if you can expand something and then tie it into a theme you're golden we have spring which is the kids uh ring around living very happily you could say this is the American dream to be purely in Bliss and then summer we have brick and Maggie fighting each other wanting a future American dream so they're they sort of have the American dream they are living that life of luxury but it's been slowly let go as brick falls into this uh deep depression he hasn't gone to his job and all that kind of stuff and involved we have a goober May fighting with Maggie and brick really trying to desperately grasp that American Dream by getting a Big Daddy's inheritance then winter we have big mama trying to hold on to Big Daddy and unfortunately letting go of the dream of being able to live happily because that's when her husband dies that's going to be very very unfortunate events but we also need to talk when we're talking about structure we talk about this alternate ending so we have the we have two endings we're the one at Tennessee Williams originally wrote they have the one that went on to Broadway and I'm pretty sure is also in the movie adaptation so the director changed three main things brick has more visible character progression for Maggie generally making him more likable and securing the idea that he wasn't attracted to Skipper now you need to consider why they do these changes this book was written to be in the 1950s I think generally it was also released then and was um put on Broadway then so the character the people at the time also don't really want a homosexual character on stage so by securing the fact oh yeah he is going to bed with Maggie oh yeah he is uh pursuing these sexual relations we can see why the audience might prefer this sort of change and number two it's also more optimistic about Big Daddy's cancer by not having him experience the cancer pains at the very end of act three it's more optimistic it's more hopeful and not to mention big mama was very very upset about the idea of giving Big Daddy morphine so in the Pure or the real version of Acts 3 her deciding to go get the morphine for big daddy is a huge movement of character development and to have her go through that would be a devastating moment for both her and the audience so thus the audience doesn't want to feel very depressed once they leave a play because if they have a very bad ending less people would come as a result and finally with the third director change Maggie is implied to finally make love with brick in the the real ending in the Tennessee Williams ending there's a lot of ambiguity as in that ending because she turns off she turns on the rose silk lampshade she they're both like sort of in the darkish together and then Big Mama comes in with the morphine Big Mama and brick talk to each other for a little bit and Brooke says oh I wish only if I wish that you would love me only if I knew that was true which is a very vague ending while in the Broadway version it ends with them talking about going to bed with each other so by not continuing it further with I would say random nonsense but with more so filler it's more straightforward in the Broadway version and I find all these changes to be really ironic because Katana Hudson roof is really about how Society doesn't accept all these things and how display I wouldn't say is exposing that but is bringing light to some of these issues but by hiding away all these things those are lies so it's even promoting even more lies and more secrecy and I don't know I just think that was a little funny thing and now the characterization I think characterization is always like really intriguing so let's start to go through it there's well there's always general rules of characters for example uh there's main protagonists there can be the antagonists there can be uh the love character yeah like who you're pining after or whatever but in this one I feel like there's three kinds of characters it has the main characters who have a lot of direct relevance which is Brick Maggie Big Daddy Big Mama Maine Cooper right there's your supporting characters who serve a decent amount of utility and meaning they do feel a role in the play but it's ultimately not much I'm not saying you could remove them and the play would be the same but Loki yeah like Dr Bob I feel like all he did was to serve as a medical role to almost verify a Big Daddy's cancer and also distribute the morphine for his cancer and then Reverend Tucker I find his a role actually really interesting because we see that he promotes the church a lot right and he says oh I heard the church needs new air conditioning I heard all this I heard wow all these good changes are happening to these other churches and this is because he already knows that big guy's gonna be dying soon so he's slowly implementing the idea to them hey you have all these this inheritance money why not donate to the good old church because a lot of the 1950s were characterized by these heavily Christian or heavily Catholic values which are something wrong with that but it was a very common theme throughout this uh historical piece so I find that to be very interesting as this uh play centers around a lot of deception a lot of manipulation even and reverence hookers they're like yo it's free real estate and then we have the extra characters they perform little to no actions I feel like they're mostly mentioned the servants are there to be of utility the kids of being Goofer are just sort of oh they're annoying or they're used as a point to why Maine Cooper should receive the inheritance rather than uh Maggie and brick all right now for Brick and Maggie's relationship it's really a centerpiece of a play it causes a lot of drama and a lot of issues in the family it's also notably the first time something is referred to as Captain Hudson roof and it's also rightfully one of the main ones for that reason their relationship also serves as natural bookends for the play what I mean by this is that it is really introducing the very beginning of act one and at the very end of act three they're still on they're still discussing it which develops this conversation now in real life a lot of these problems don't get fixed in one day or even like one afternoon and I think Tennessee Williams portrays that really wonderfully and I love the discussion that Maggie isn't really broken apart by Brick's alcoholism or possible homosexuality in fact she tells him yeah you're probably gay dude but rather she just hates how indifferent he is to her for example when she's trying to talk to Brick about his father's birthday breakfast really doesn't care he's sort of out of his mind and the reasons for that are the alcoholism impossible and how he might be gay for Skipper so that's I feel like that's the reason why those issues are discussed is because those are some of the sources to that kind of uh lack of Attraction for her and and general Skipper is a huge problem in their relationship brick really told Maggie to shut up in the first act when she mentioned him and how Rick found out about Maggie and Skipper making love to each other from Skipper which is a really traumatic event for him and now a Skipper's dead he can't act on anything that he might have felt towards Skipper it's just Maggie who's there and brick commonly tells Maggie just to leave him if she doesn't want to be there then just leave which is a really harmful really broken relationship when you think about it and I think that really shows in that one scene in act one where brick has his crutch and he's trying to hit Maggie with it and really saying that he wants to kill her with it which is really I'm lost for words really it's a really harmful event for some people you know then we also have the parallels of brick and goober or this is like rivalry between each other it's not even barely a rivalry if Brooke isn't really trying to fight that battle to being uh constantly in toxic intoxicated throughout the play but we'll analyze them nonetheless brick is a very strong word anything about bricks or commonly used to build houses is a very strong material and who chose Brick's name well it's going to be well it was Tennessee Williams but it's also Big Daddy and big mama who wanted him to have this name and since Brooke is such a strong name you see how it's the head of the household and this is also in comparison to Cooper goober I feel like it's a childish names that's a soft ooh sound which can be a child's response things whereas that's the word goop which is just you know a little playful word so if Robinson says Cooper wasn't really supposed to have this backbone he's supposed to be like fun to be around despite being born first which is commonly in Media or commonly in real life you'll see the characters one first is the one who's the head of the household but brick was born a few years after which I think is really interesting and in addition brick is commonly referred to as the only son of Big Daddy and big mamas happens during a lot of uh heated discussion and Cooper gets rightfully obsessed by this he's commonly ignored by his parents despite being the one who commonly Works harder he I'm pretty sure he's a lawyer as his job he has a lot of life kids all that kind of stuff well brick he's lost what he had after Skipper's death is crushing alcoholism he worked as a sports announcer he was an All-Star athlete Etc and he just doesn't have any more but we find this really interesting place where brick he's satisfied where he is he doesn't care if he gets the inheritance he doesn't care if he gets his job back he doesn't even care if he recovers at all he just wants to be in peace meanwhile Cooper He's not satisfied he wants more he's I wouldn't say greedy by nature but yeah he wants more even though he has all of what he has and we commonly have this animal's metaphor and that what I mean it's very specific it's very Niche I haven't seen like many websites even talk about this one when I was trying to research for this video but I've just found little places so I'm gonna talk about it uh Maggie and may can be said to be cats they're commonly like I actually called This by uh Maggie calls herself a cat and Big Daddy calls me a cat they're vicious and Sly and they also hiss at each other when you read the uh play directions brick can be used to be a monkey with how he swings uh his crutch he also swings and sways and doorways yeah he is drunk but also a lot of things have symbolism when you go further into it so we have to look past that original meaning uh the kids are called Animals Monsters uh no nicked monsters really they're set to cause all the chaos but it's really intriguing that all the adults are really doing that over the inheritance money over Big Daddy's cancer over Skipper Etc uh Big Mama I don't see anywhere in there what specifically says this but I feel like she could be referenced to a pig almost it's really mean and I don't believe it personally but she's constantly made fun of for her weight and size she squeals about what she's feeling sort of she sobs person's here she's very emotional with what she feels and that's I feel like to be representative in pig I feel like a pig is a very uh closed off creature uh but also with brick in the actual play he is compared he's not gonna really compare to a monkey but he is compared to a dog the dog who didn't eat after his owner died because he's very depressed after Skipper's death and the servants I feel like they could be served as farmhands or they're paid to deal with this they're paid to deal with all the chaos going on just like how farmhands would to a barnyard and all the animals that are in it and then we have our fourth topic which is the themes our first theme is mendasti I believe it's one of the most apparent themes and it's first mentioned in act two I believe when brick is telling big guy that why he drinks is because of mendacity mendacity is the idea of lying group being untruthful there's two types of Lies I really see in this play but if there's more then let me down let me know down below there's Versa live deception which is purposely withholding information for example about Big Dice cancer they're constantly holding that away from him which is a lie you know somebody oh he's doing fine there's also a bold face lie which is a very clear lie that could be disproved which is Maggie's pregnancy in act three these lies also I would say have the most impacts on the family for example uh goober and Meg like very very upset Maggie when she tells them that she could be pregnant and Big Daddy Big Mama are absolutely depressed when they hear that he does have cancer and I find something really interesting is that brick is really sick of vendacity it's why he drinks yet he still engages with it he's honest with big daddy about his cancer but he let uh he lets Maggie lie about being pregnant even though that would clearly involve him in that and he also lies to himself about Skipper and how he feels about it's he engages with lies but he doesn't want anything to actively hurt him he might think Big Daddy might die soon so he should let Maggie lie about being pregnant to give him hope he might feel something towards Skipper but he doesn't want to be viewed as this disgusting homosexual in the family so he still continues to lie about it and we have masculinity and sexuality a tie these two in tweets into each other because Tennessee Williams the whole book I or the play I'd say is about all his social norms and how they interfere with families but also structure them and he also as he upholds these social norms he also disrespects them and I think a really cool way Maggie often takes a masculine role in a family she commands him to go into bed with her all that cast off and we see this mainly in act three where she takes a pillow off of the couch and puts it into the bed demonstrating how she's finally taking control she is telling him what to do right and in addition brick for the masculinity theme Rick and Big Daddy are quite often Parallels for their Charming masculine they get all this attention to them they get all this love even though they might not deserve it and they also don't believe that they do deserve it they die doesn't think big mama loves him and brick doesn't think that Maggie loves him and there's also is the theme that they could go with someone else and be happy in the same way or in Brooke's case where he doesn't really mind going with someone else there's also this recurring theme of toxic masculinity and I think something really cool is how homosexuality shapes his talks masculinity right the two are intertwined in a way they're in the fraternity it was mentioned in I think act two where the homosexual guy he had destroyed reputation where they found once they found out he was gay he was kicked out right away Skipper destroyed himself after brick did not return his confession or quietly rejected it and brick most likely will destroy himself if he doesn't accept these feelings that are within him over Skipper's death whether it be platonic or romantic and then we have greed and jealousy greed it really ties into mendacity if I had to choose a theme for this book that wasn't greed I wasn't is great because it motivates them to lie about what is going on for example man goober are trying to be extra friendly to big guy to get his inheritance because they have the knowledge that he does have cancer and he probably is going to die soon but also gooper is quite jealous of brick that's where we see this greed and jealousy tie into each other he's always trying to get the parents to love him in the same way but in the end big mama calls bricks her only son in act three and grouper has quite a lot of outrage at this as he spots so much harder than brick to get his role he I'm pretty sure he's a lawyer he has a very well-off family he's doing great for himself he helps out with uh Big Daddy on the plantation but he's still not being regarded as an equal to Brick or even above brick he has brick is ultimately crippled by his alcoholism and and so Tennessee Williams is giving this message that the American dream is unattainable unattainable and unrealistic because he's fought so hard but he hasn't got in that American dream that he desires there's also a lot of anti-gels yeah I'd say or characters that feel Superior for certain things may is a really good example for how she caused a belittle's Maggie in act three for not having any children and Maggie has that possibility of feeling jealous over the marriage that me and goober have as in act three she's also more passionate towards brick about how she wants kids and once there was also a flash of ominous green light first I was like why is that there but also green represents jealousy or ambulance someone's green with envious someone could say and then there's proxies in literature and emotional proxy is a correlative object that allows an emotion or struggle to be represented visually and theatrically what this means is when something is used to represent an emotion it can be very very similar to symbolism and I'd say that Maggie and Skipper are proxies for Brick In order to bring out some of the Brick's repressed feelings and also point out how brick and Maggie aren't in a successful relationship they show these internal things quite externally well someone could argue this isn't really a theme theme if you use this word in your exam it's going to make the ace examiners go ooh because not a lot of people really know about proxies I'd say and this also fuels a lot of the flame of the drama intention for the audience when Slater connected that alcohol is Brick's recent proxy so he can cope and finally have peace over what happened with Skipper so brick has all these proxies I use desperately trying to crutch on in the way that he is falling into his deep depression and I say crutch because his crutch could also be considered a proxy in a way there's also the theme of difficult communication a difficulty communicating is a common everyday thing I think Tennessee Williams really captures that because in the beginning of the play it opens with not communicating well Maggie's trying to have this conversation with brick and Brick's just nodding the lawn he vaguely agrees what she say because he's really heavily intoxicated right and he probably just doesn't care overall and then later bricks and the constant search for alcohol and doesn't care for having these conversations he even tells his own father that he likes The Sound of Silence more than talking despite knowing that Big Daddy has cancer is probably going to die soon and Brick's also searching for this click in his head which adds into how he isn't listening to what others are saying but it's the quickest sort of an onomatopoeia right so he isn't really communicating well because he's not listening for what he should be then big day frequently says I can't talk about anything in the householders frequent eavesdroppers there's people on the phone that are talking at the same time and as a reader this can get confusing because communication is a bit difficult here there's also the case that big mama can't hear Big Dice sister over the phone and you can question why this was was the phone not loud enough was uh Big Daddy sister not loud enough was Big Mama did she have bad hearing but also could she not want to hear what was being said and this possibly foreshadows how she was in a state of denial after hearing about Big Daddy's get cancer she was asking if it was a dream over and over again and then we have death and regret there's I'd say three and a half ways that death appears one of a sort of symbolism so you can take that as you will the first one I say is the most clear one is that Skipper's death is ruined uh no uh Skipper's death ruined brick as he regrets not having seen anything return that's the way the two themes sort tie into each other really clearly there's also a story that big guy tells brick when a dogs or or dies and the dog stops eating very possibly this has an implied detail of how big Daddy thinks brick is not eating due to depression over Skipper Rick crew says no I am eating I'm not like a dog I'm we're not in uh Skipper and I are not connected in any way but if someone has a drink while an empty stomach the alcohol will hit them harder so there's also that secret meaning behind that and also death shows through Big Daddy's future death which is constantly gives suspense throughout the play by heavily wondering whether Big Daddy mama will find out the truth about this life-threatening cancer and how once they do chaos ensues pretty much but also the the half away that death appears is I I'd say it's the clock chime as it represents the ticking clock on Big Daddy's life and how big daddy is commonly seen glaring at the clock as he does not want his life to end even if he doesn't know us First Tennessee Williams write it to be that way in addition the clock represents Big Daddy and Big Mama's relationship he liked that clock in the beginning and they got on their honeymoon but he liked it less and less now he feels like really upset about it as he does to Big Mama he just doesn't only treat it as such a nice thing anymore and then we have poison this one one of my favorite ones many things are described to be poison which also supports his theme of death that goes on alcohol is described to be poisoned through Brick's veins and cancer is said to be poisoned to Big Daddy and Big Mama's really afraid of kneeled because she doesn't know what's in them this could be how she fears how there's poison in them and I'll go more into this needle symbolism later on also lies are poison that slowly kill the relationships within their family there's many ways you can tie this into poison so also topic 5 there's a lot of symbolism in this play the first as I just mentioned earlier is the needles needles represent death right and the original version of act three Dr Bob gives Big Mama morphine for when the pain hits Big Daddy Bing mama says she's scared and easily and refuses to do it when the pain strikes she ends up asking Maggie for the package anyway this represents how she's going from stage to denial to acceptance she has to go through this quickly because this is hitting big daddy very quickly with the pains and these are known to be the first and last stages of grief respectively with uh anger depression and bargaining being in the middle Skipper also died from a combination of drugs and alcohol and so can be theorized that some of the drugs might have been administered by a needle or a faulty needles and that's what caused his death breaks crutch I see this as sort of like a classic one like crutch represents his need and dependency on alcohol when characters are fighting with him over why he drinks they tend to take Brick's crutch in Act One Maggie refuses to give brick back his crutch and tells him to lean on her he refuses and later threatens to kill her with the crutch which really shows how unstable their relationship is due to their crippling addiction brick is having all these outbursts at Maggie and Maggie just wants to help him in this sad case and also in act two big daddy takes a crutch from him he says in order to get back brick must answer honestly on why he drinks instead of wanting to crutch brick requests having a drink after answering this represents how the crush desires his desire for alcohol right because if you truly wanted to walk around he'd just take the crutch right and he keeps going in and out of rooms just to get another drink to have some privacy to get that click in his head so Rick's crutch represents part of his alcoholism then we have the console when I saw this at first I didn't really know what it was but I have some pictures here it's essentially a part of a phonograph or an alert cabinet together and Tennessee Williams directly quotes ended an interview so take this as God's word pretty much this piece of furniture this Monument is a very complete and compact little Shrine to virtually all the Comforts and Illusions behind which we hide from the things as the characters in the play are faced with so this means it's showing how characters can't really cope anymore but more specifically how brick can't cope anymore and also goober later asked for a drink and when big daddy says okay I'll give the plantation a brick and Maggie that's that's it because Maggie is pregnant and gooper can't cope with this idea so that's when he takes a drink of alcohol from the console and some people are confused the first time they read this they see uh brick getting drinks of alcohol so they sort of think that he's going to a kitchen or like a little bar a little uh perhaps like a little island in a kitchen but he's not he's going to his counsel every time this and that really shows how it's all in this one bedroom like the play then we have the bed the famous bed inside the bedroom the bed represents all their marital problems Tennessee Williams really demonstrates this by having the whole play appear in one room this shows how the entire family is very affected by Rick's alcoholism and Maggie's childlessness in addition everyone going into the bedroom shows how everyone keeps getting into their business about it won't leave them alone on personal matter in act three where Maggie and gooper not magazine grouper Maine Cooper are sort of fighting uh Maggie and brick they keep bringing this up oh you're drunk you aren't going to your job anymore oh Mackie you aren't pregnant how why can't you do that right then we have topic six of dramatic effects I didn't put too many into here but I put the ones I thought were the most important we have the fireworks so act 2 ends with fireworks I think the fireworks represent the exploding tensions between Big Daddy and brick because that's the ACT where they're mainly sort of fighting with each other and the children are known to be actively watching the fireworks while Big Daddy and brick are only hearing them instead of watching the show and this really demonstrates how much happier the children are and yet again are so much closer to the American dream they're having fun they're watching the show while Big Daddy and brick have to focus on their problems and in addition act three opens with Big Mama saying how she hates the smell of sulfur this means she hates it when all of them fight thunder and lightning I think this one's sort of a cool one so we all know that lightning comes before thunder right and the thunder and lightning occurs at the end of Act 2 and periodically throughout act 3. the lightning can symbolize the warning and foreshadowing to all the drama and the Thunder represents the relationships finally crashing between each other with a specific example brick thinks about telling Big Daddy about his cancer and then implies it with a sentence later for the audience the lightning is Brick's thought for example if you're reading the book rather than watching the play you'll see that in line and see him thinking about it right and then the action is when brick actually says it and Big Daddy can't read Brick's mind and nor can the audience if you actually see the play so he was only be able to um he was only able to hear that thunder right and so for a moment or two he's in displease regarding it all and he didn't have the warning of the flash of light in which the light were going to the light is often connected to one's final moments so perhaps his death is also approaching quite quickly thank you for watching this it means a lot to me if you have any suggestions down below please just you know let me know I'll see you next time 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