Brit American drama week 9 29/11/2018

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams

TW

-born Thomas, 26/3/1911 in Columbus, Mississippi

-died 1983, NYC hotel room surrounded by alcohol and drugs

-‘Big Daddy’ and his aggressiveness is a representation of his own father

-attempted relationships with women before accepting homosexuality

-close relationship with sister Rose, diagnosed as schizophrenic. She was later lobotomised

-poorly received work, turned to alcohol and drugs

-brother hospitalised him

-memoirs 1975, story of his life and afflictions

-American naturalism – movement started in late 19C. Extreme realism. Suggested roles of family,
social conditions, and environment in shaping human character.

Cat

- Mississippi plantation
- Civil Rights movement 1954-1968; right to be free from racial discrimination, equal
opportunities in housing, education, employment
- Big Daddy owner of cotton plantation; workers and servants black [not slaves though]

Sopo context

- homosexuality; American psych association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder

- Kinsey reports – sex lives of humans. Discussed shifting nature of human sexuality, more as a
spectrum. Controversial.
- 1953 Eisenhower made an executive order that if a federal employee were found out to be
homosexual, they would be fired.
- Brick gay, lack of sexual interest towards Maggie.
- baby boom; Gooper and Mae have five children. Feel entitled to plantation as they have
children who could take over in the future. Maggie and Brick’s lack of children a source of
frustration in the play.

Themes

- deception
- wealth
- dreams
 - gender
- sexuality
- communication
not talking to but at each other
hide the truth, build walls. Construct a version of reality, hiding the truth from
themselves
- mortality
- mendacity

TW – ‘the interplay of live human beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis’

laughter as a motif

production history

OBC 1955, Pulitzer prize for drama, nominated for 4 Tonys

film version 1958, 6 oscar nominations, 3 bafta nominations. Criticised for censoring the
homosexuality aspect.

2017 west end – modern ‘touches’ eg mobile phones

activity – women’s liberation and sexuality

Facts Questions
Social theory of intense development followed why does this pattern repeat itself in so many
by period of remission (suffrage struggle  lull forms in so many facets of history?
 sixties)
Postwar feminism surge – permitted to work why was liberation sidelined after the war?
during wartime then expected to return to
oppression?
Legal element of sexuality – defined and allowed how are these constraints echoed in the play?
only in marital context. Women conditioned to
find self-worth in marriage; unconditional
loyalty seen as a beautiful, desirable trait
1950s hypocrisy – women seen as sex symbols how was women’s sexuality perceived?
(Marilyn Monroe) yet threat of nude photo leak
made Monroe fear for her career
Expectation of fertility to create nuclear family – was this a goal, another form of social
seen as optimal repression, or something else?
sex as a means to an end, procreation What was the social impact of the lack of
(adherence to social norms/money etc) emphasis on female sexual enjoyment within
marriage context?
Lolita published 1955 What impact did this have on perceptions of
female sexuality? Controversial but successful
book.
Social stigma against divorce (until 1969 divorce ???????????????????????
reform act)
Kinsey 1953 sexual behaviour in the human
female – personal interviews with 6000 women,
concluded that women are less sexually active
than men. Seven-point numerical sexuality scale
instead of three (homosexual heterosexual
bisexual)