Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Andrea Bačinská

Forms of Violence in the Plays of Tennessee

Williams
Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph.D.

2011
 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Andrea Bačinská
 Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor, Mgr. Martina Horáková, Ph.D. for her useful advice, inspirational
remarks and encouragement
Table of Contents

Introduction 5

1. A Streetcar Named Desire 8

1.1. Blanche as a Victim of Tragic Events 11

1.2. Stanley and Blanche’s Relationship 14

1.3. Stanley and Stella’s Relationship 20

2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 25

2.1. Brick’s and Maggie’s Relationship Towards Skipper 28

2.2. Brick and Maggie’s Relationship 31

2.3. Big Daddy 35

Conclusion 40

Works Cited 45

English Résumé 48

Slovak Résumé 49
Introduction

Tennessee Williams’s writing gave him a reputation of being one of the greatest

American playwrights of the twentieth century. His unhappy life and frustration with

the contemporary world in which he lived became his inspiration for writing drama. In a

foreword to one of his plays, Sweet Bird of Youth, he states: “I discovered writing as an

escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable. It immediately

became my place of retreat, my cave, my refuge” (qtd. in Nelson 14).

Owing to a difficult situation at home, Williams was always seeking a refuge in

his writing. He felt sorry for his mother who had to cope with his father, an alcoholic, to

whom Williams hold a strong aversion (Donahue 5). In addition, Williams felt very

close to his sister Rose who, thanks to her shy nature, never left home (Nelson 11).

However, Williams did leave home and as a consequence he alienated from Rose which

became significant in his works: “The estrangement from his sister, which he viewed as

an overwhelming and irreparable loss, left him with a feeling that tortured him all his

life and has become a personal credo: the simple and devastating fact that to love is to

lose” (Nelson 13).

Events in his family shaped Williams’s character as much as his art and

therefore he developed a specific style of writing. He has been described by most of his

critics as a man with a “continual preoccupation with the same themes, the same kinds

of characters” (Weales 19). Throughout his work, he continuously tries to solve the

conflicts between his characters that suffer psychologically, emotionally and

intellectually. According to Donahue, most of Williams’s characters are emotionally

displaced people who are unable to face reality or to come to terms with their

environment. They use fantasy, alcohol or sexual promiscuity as an escape from a world

6
in which they are powerless (220). In addition, Donahue also claims that Williams’s

plays run several themes, most of which concern problems that Williams was facing

himself: a conflict between reality and illusion, destruction of the sensitive and romantic

by the insensitive and unromantic, the destructiveness of time, search for beauty in an

ugly world, conflict between the spirit and the flesh aspects and the consequence of

nonconformity usually represented by homosexuality (225-28).

In this Bachelor’s thesis, I focus on different forms of violence in Williams’s

plays, especially the violation of the body and soul of the characters and physical

violence between them. C.W.E. Bigsby, one of the world's best-known scholars of

American theatre, argues about Williams and the concept of violence in his plays:

“Throughout his career he was haunted by a violence which could not be resisted in

kind (though his early plays seemed to feel that possibility) but which could, perhaps be

controlled and accommodated by the creative mind” (22). Therefore, main themes and

distinctive nature of Williams’s characters are crucial to understand the concept of

violence which is presented throughout Williams’s writing. His plays are violent not

only because the characters are physically aggressive but also because the tragic events

that happened to most of Williams’s main protagonists shaped their personality and

made them traumatized. For that reason, they are emotionally disturbed and have

problems with dealing with critical situations. Verbal attacks are their form of defense

against harsh world and they use it so to protect their fragile nature.

I will focus on two plays: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) and Cat on a Hot

Tin Roof (1955), which are, among others, specific for their atmosphere of

oppressiveness and violence. I will argue that violence, cruelty and human brutality

function in both plays as a catalyst for the tragedy of the characters. I will also claim

that it functions the other way around, so that the tragic experiences from the past cause

7
the characters to be cruel to each other in the present events of the plays and that this

behavior is a means of defense. I will try to manifest that both plays have a tragic and

violent nature.

The first chapter examines the violence as an important aspect in A Streetcar

Named Desire. At the beginning there is a short summary of the play. Then I focus on

the main characters and analyze the reasons for their actions. I comment on their

language, relationships and analyze the tragedy of Blanche through the tragic events

that happened to her. I also aim to examine Stanley’s aggressive behavior towards

Blanche and Stella and the notion of domestic violence in their household. The second

chapter provides a close analysis of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In comparison to A

Streetcar Named Desire, this play is more psychological. Williams concentrates more

on the psyche of the characters and therefore the play is more focused on the dialogue

and overall hysteric atmosphere than on the brutal actions. I draw attention to the

personal tragedy of Brick. I also try to identify the violence in the speech and actions of

Maggie and Big Daddy. In the conclusion, I compare and contrast these two plays. I

examine the similarities in the tragic matters that happen in both. Finally, I focus on the

similarities between the main protagonists in both plays, as they are parallel to each

other.

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1. A Streetcar Named Desire

This play was written during the 1944-1945 and according to Camille-Yvette

Welsch, it introduces America, which was in that time facing social change, “to truly

adult problems of prostitution, homosexuality, rape, domestic violence, alcoholism and

mental breakdowns” (24). Welsch also claims that violence in this play was not such a

shocking element as America was recovering from Great Depression, World War II and

the Dust Bowl and Americans were already familiar with violence (24). Even though

many critics, including Vogel (84), Tischler (52) and Bigsby (63) claim that sexuality is

the tragic theme in the A Streetcar Named Desire I would like to suggest that violence is

also an important aspect that contributes to the tragedy of the characters. I believe that

sex is one of the key forces that lead to Blanche’s destruction; however, I will not only

focus on sexuality, as in the following subheadings I will also analyze the nature of the

main characters, the violation of their body and soul as well as their violent behavior. I

will examine the important relationships between the main characters in the play that

concern violent behavior and domestic violence and I will try to investigate where these

features come from.

A Streetcar Named Desire is inspired by Williams’s life in the French Quarter of

New Orleans (Donahue 30). The plot is set in the times of an expansive socioeconomic

change in America when the great Old South was about to decline (Dusenbury 135).

Big cities in the South (called New South), like New Orleans, became melting-pots of

ideas where values of the Old South were dismissed and new attitudes and believes

were introduced (Porter 153). A Streetcar Named Desire is mainly concerned with the

difficult situation of Blanche DuBois who comes to unconventional quarter of New

9
Orleans to stay with her sister Stella, and her husband, Stanley Kowalski. She is a

middle-aged woman from a Southern plantation called Belle Reve. She used to live

there with her relatives but suddenly they all started dying and so she lost all her close

ones except for her sister Stella who long time ago moved to New Orleans. Blanche lost

not only all her relatives but she also spent all the money she had on the funerals. So she

comes with one suitcase to her sister’s two-bedroom apartment seeking hope and

escape. Many critics, from Bigsby (58) to Porter (153), argue that this arrival of Blanche

to the city is a clash between Old and New South and therefore a death of a myth. Porter

claims that “The plot consistently presents the confrontation of a high-strung sensitive

woman and an alien environment” (155). This confrontation is manifested in the

relationship between Blanche and Stanley. Blanche’s traumatic experience from the big

city is parallel to what Williams experienced when he was eight years old and moved

from quit Mississippi town to St. Louis (Porter 155). The death of a myth in A Streetcar

is represented by Blanche who, as a representative of a deep South, is as dying in the

city. This metaphor of dying can be seen on Blanche’s developing mental disease that

eventually destroys her as at the end she has to go to a mental institution.

Yet both sisters decided to marry. Stella married a passionate Polish salesman,

Stanley Kowalski, and Blanche, as very young, married to poetic Alan Gray. Sadly for

Blanche, Alan only tried to cover his homosexuality by their marriage. Blanche’s

discovery and a following confrontation led to Alan’s suicide. Left alone, she could

never commit herself to another man, as she could not trust any. Therefore, she tries to

satisfy her emptiness by sexual encounters with many men. According to Bigsby: “To

her, desire was the antithesis of death and her relationship with young men a defense

against destructive process of time” (60). Time is very important for Blanche; she never

talks about her age being more than twenty-five, she needs to hear how great she looks

10
every day and she even has a relationship with a nineteen-year-old student of hers from

school where she worked as an English teacher.

When Blanche is confronted with Stanley, she considers him an animal and she tries

to persuade Stella to end her marriage with such a “common” man. Blanche says: “He

acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like

one!” (510). However, Stanley knows Blanche’s intentions and therefore tries to break

her relationship with Mitch as a revenge. Nelson characterizes Mitch as “the gentleman

Blanche has been seeking for so long. He is a caricature of a Southern gentleman, and

yet – curiously – he is a gentleman. He is good and he is kind and he sees in Blanche

something Stanley can never see: the true quality of a lady” (144). Moreover, Mitch

cannot be with Blanche when he discovers her secret past. He says to Blanche: “You’re

not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother” (547).

At the end of the play, Blanche is raped by Stanley when Stella is in the hospital

having a baby. She partly provokes this event as she constantly tries to flirt with

Stanley. During the whole play, Stanley does exactly the opposite of what Blanche

wants but she is still attracted to him in some way. She is convinced that her sister’s

marriage is only about sex and she tries to oppose it but she cannot as she is somehow

attracted to this concept of marriage. The whole play finishes with a tragedy of Blanche

who is placed in an asylum by a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Stella does not accept

Blanche’s story about the rape so she is left to live her life in a lie, but with Stanley and

their baby.

1.1. Blanche As a Victim of Tragic Events

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 When Blanche DuBois comes to the French Quarter in New Orleans at the

beginning of the first scene, she is an outsider, an intruder from the Old South. She is a

foreign element in the fast, new world, full of sex and jazz. Her clash with the

environment is inspired by Williams’s own experience when during the 1938-1939

Williams lived in New Orleans which was at that time home of strange, twisted and

bizarre characters who had previously appeared only in Williams’s mind (Nelson 38).

She enters Stanley’s world and certainly she does not feel comfortable. She is

immediately spotted by the residents of a quite poor Elysian Fields street as she looks

differently to everyone else living in the Quarter. “Her appearance is incongruous to

this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and

earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea

or cocktail party in the garden district” (471). Not only does her dress not fit the

environment but also her Southern manners seem strange to other residents of The

Elysian Fields. According to Vogel, “Blanche is not typical because she is classic−a

nearly perfect combination of tyrannical aspiration, idealism, failure and dignity, all

engendered by her region’s history and romantic ambience” (83).

Blanche comes from Belle Reve, a plantation that belonged to her family; a

place that she lost and from which her sister Stella escaped some couple years ago – “a

place of slow death and decay” (Weales 24). She does not fit in Stanley’s and Stella’s

apartment and their way of life. She cannot let go of her inappropriate manners as she

was born and raised in the Old South and unlike Stella she is not adaptable enough to

live in the city. Harold Clurman describes Blanche: “She is almost a willing victim of a

world that trapped her and in which she can find ‘peace’ only by accepting the verdict

of her unfitness for ‘normal’ life” (qtd. in Donahue 36). In addition, when she starts to

12
live with Stella and Stanley she does strange things that could be related to her Southern

manners. For example, she cannot bear a light bulb without a lantern (499); she takes

long baths (539); and she drinks liquor but always tries to defend herself by saying that

she drinks only a little so that none would think that she is a drunkard (474). Stella,

unlike Stanley, is the one that always tries to find an explanation for Blanche’s unusual

actions. Her behavior is one of a princess and she cannot let go of her manners and

therefore she provokes Stanley with each of her actions.

She is unfitted for the society and she becomes one of the greatest tragic

protagonists of Williams’ plays. To understand Blanche’s behavior when she comes to

New Orleans, one has to dig deeper into her past and the violent events that happened to

her. When Stella left Belle Reve in order to find a new life in New Orleans, Blanche

continued living with other family members on the plantation. However, the DuBois

family had to face many serious diseases on which a large amount of money was spent.

Most of the money was used for expensive treatments and funerals and at the end

Blanche was left alone to deal with a plantation by herself. Eventually, she was

incapable of keeping it and therefore she lost all the property of the DuBois family.

Blanche has to defend her actions to Stella who does not understand the situation: “How

in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss

Stella! …Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go! I let the

place go? Where were you! In bed with your–Polack!” (480). In addition, Blanche

entered into a marriage at an early age with Alan Gray who only sought help because he

wanted to cover his homosexuality. Blanche declares that she was madly in love with

him but she also admits that Alan was an unusual type of man: “There was something

different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a

man’s…” (527). However, Blanche does not know about his homosexuality until he

13
commits a suicide. This event becomes a major trauma in her life and she knows she is

responsible for his death. Blanche says: “It was because⎯on the dance-floor⎯unable to

stop myself⎯I’d suddenly said⎯‘I saw! I know! You disgust me…” (528). Heilman

asserts that by making Blanche says this, Williams finds a tragic guilt in the heroine

(19). At that moment, Blanche realizes her responsibility for Alan’s death as she could

not accept his homosexuality. She is influenced by this tragic event ever since and the

music throughout the play is accompanying her feeling of guilt. Heilman writes,

“Varsouviana” – the music for the dance from which Blanche’s husband broke

away to shoot himself – played at key moments throughout the drama.

Therefore, it is attached to Blanche’s sense of guilt rather than simply to the

whole shocking experience […]. Blanche speaks almost no additional words on

this central experience; it remains a wound, […]. At any rate, infinite regret, plus

an infusion of self-pity, provides Blanche with no way of coming to terms with

the disaster that borders on tragedy; when there is no reordering, shock becomes

illness, and illness eventually triumphs. (19-20)

Therefore, when Blanche comes to New Orleans she is already traumatized. She is

lonely and she is facing poverty. However, she cannot admit any of it and so she

becomes an easy victim of Stanley. She wants to retain an image of a Southern lady but

whatever she does her past is following her as Stanley keeps searching for it. He does

not believe that Blanche is led to New Orleans only because she lost the plantation and

therefore he digs deeper. His aim is to destroy her completely and eventually he

succeeds.

1.2. Stanley and Blanche’s Relationship

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 When Stanley appears on the stage for the first time he is carrying a package of

raw meat which he throws to his wife who objects at first but catches it. As Nelson

declares: “Immediately we are presented with the image of a crude, animalistic man; but

if Kowalski is a brute he is not a fool and he possesses an animal shrewdness and

vitality which cause Blanche to remark that she thinks it fitting that Belle Reve, the

DuBois ancestral home, should finally become a bunch of old papers in his ‘big,

capable hands’” (133). Later Blanche acknowledges that Stanley “is just not the sort

that goes for jasmine perfume! But maybe he’s what we need to mix with our blood

now that we’ve lost Belle Reve and have to go on without Belle Reve to protect us”

(492). Stanley is big, muscular, working-class man around thirty years old. He has

Polish ancestry which makes him a representative of the new diverse America after the

Second World War (Nelson 137). Stanley fought in Europe during the war and therefore

he possesses the qualities of a soldier. He has an explosive temper; he is strong but loyal

to his friends. He likes to stick to a traditional view of the family – he does not like

Stella to work because he likes to provide for his family. He enjoys being in charge of

things especially of those in his apartment.

At first, Blanche tries very hard to get Stanley’s attention by flirting and even

manipulating him. She is attracted to him in some way. However, it does not work for

Stanley as he possesses senses, strength and emotions like that of an animal.

Blanche: Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration. But look at me know! (She

smiles at him radiantly) Would you think it possible that I was once considered

to be⎯attractive?

Stanley: Your looks are okay.

Blanche: I was fishing for a compliment, Stanley.

15
 Stanley: I don’t go in for that stuff. (487)

Stanley feels powerful in his apartment and he stands confidently on his two feet. He

does not let Blanche to manipulate him. He is tough, straightforward in his speech and

he self-consciously claims his place in the world. He perceives Blanche as an intruder to

his world of poker, bowling and sex. Blanche can sense this environment of Stanley’s

and she does not feel comfortable in it. Nevertheless, she is playing with fire – teasing

Stanley with her love play and being a coquette. Porter characterizes Blanche as a

protagonist in whom the qualities of the Southern heroine are combined (164). These

qualities emerge especially from her approach to men. She loves to play with them and

she loves when she is in the middle of men’s attention. However, because she possesses

the qualities of the Southern belle she naturally expects men to be gentlemen and

therefore to be very nice to here. She demonstrates this behavior with three men-

Stanley, the newsboy and Mitch. For example, she sprays Stanley with her atomizer

which he immediately “slams” down as he is not in favor of her game. He even declares

that if Blanche would not be Stella’s sister he would get ideas about her (489). It means

that her behavior is not natural in New Orleans and men are not used to be flirted with.

She shows her Southern manners also when the newsboy knocks on their door. She

compliments him “you look like a young Prince out of the Arabian Nights” (519) and

kisses him even though, he is not interested in her. At all times, she needs to make sure

that she looks young and beautiful; however, only one man in the play can make her

feel that way-Mitch. Porter makes a point about her behavior by saying: “No matter

what disillusioning or degrading experiences she has to undergone, she never relaxes in

her role of the Southern belle” (164).

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 Blanche provokes Stanley and her behavior later triggers to the sexual violence,

Stanley’s brutal actions and her mental damage. Porter nicely summarizes the factors

that lead to Blanche’s destruction,

she makes an issue of the curtains that separate her sleeping quarters from the

married couple’s, she disrupts the ritual of the poker game […], she criticizes

Stanley’s manners at the dinner table. Her boasting lies about her life in Laurel,

about her rich suitors, and her superior attitudes toward the environment and

Stanley’s background are exposed by Stanley and lead to her destruction. (170)

Stanley’s brutality and violent nature are visible already in scene two when he shoves

Blanche’s trunk when looking for legal papers. He is a king in his home and he behaves

as he would own everything in the apartment. He does not care about offending anyone

and especially not Blanche as he does not like her from the beginning. His biggest

concern is money Blanche possesses. He believes Blanche is not poor because she owns

fancy clothes. However, he is not familiar with Blanche’s game of a Southern belle

which also includes wearing fancy dresses. Stanley is a simple man who does not see

beneath the surface. He only grasps what he sees and that includes Blanche’s suitcase

full of lavish clothing. Blanche’s presentation of herself provokes him so his

aggressiveness emerges. Williams uses verbs such as “slam”, “snatch”, “shove”, “rip

off” to describe Stanley’s actions when manipulating with things. As verbs convey the

actions, in Stanley’s case they are significant as they indicate his violent nature.

Williams’s specific choice of verbs contributes to a whole picture of Stanley’s

personality. Stanley also bangs drawers and doors all the time and he gets very angry

only because Blanche plays a radio during “his” poker night. “She turns the knobs on

the radio and it begins to play ‘Wien, Wien, nur du allein.’ Blanche waltzes to the music

with romantic gestures. […] Stanley stalks fiercely through the portieres into the

17
bedroom. He crosses to the small white radio and snatches it off the table. With a

shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out the window” (500). This behavior indicates

that Stanley cannot control his anger. The violent actions come from his nature and he

does not know what self-control means. He does not like to be teased and that is exactly

what Blanche does to provoke him. Therefore, his physical power is used to destruct

things around him and to show everyone that he can do whatever he desires.

When Stanley overhears the conversation between Stella and Blanche and finds

out that Blanche persuades Stella to leave him, he decides to fight Blanche’s attitude by

using her tragic past against her. He possesses animal instincts that enable him to judge

the situation and to choose the best method of counteroffensive. His reactions can be

compared to ones that he used as a soldier (cruel and callous); however, the strategy of

fight is different now. He wants a revenge for Blanche’s gossip and he enjoys searching

for means of destruction.“ Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and

attitudes. […] He sizes women up at a glance, with sexual classifications, crude images

flashing into his mind and determining the way he smiles at them” (481). Blanche

represents a challenge for Stanley and he wants to deal with her as soon as he can just

like a soldier undergoes his mission. He does not waste time and acts. Tischer writes,

Blanche is a challenge to his authority and family. He wants to get rid of this

woman but when he realizes that she is not leaving, it becomes clear to him that

he has to destroy her himself. (51)

Williams built up Stanley’s character very well and even though, he is from many parts

a brutal protagonist some readers might even sympathize with him as Blanche seems

very annoying. Many wish for Blanche to stop trying to control the last people who care

about her, and do some action instead of talking. She is a tragic hero who cannot

18
overcome her romantic manners and therefore she ends up disastrously. As Bigsby

asserts,

Stanley has a potential for violence, which is partly an adolescent anger and

partly the expression of a gap between his experience and something in him

which he can never fully express. Stanley represents the ‘crude forces of

violence, insensibility and vulgarity’, and he is a brute. (66)

Stanley’s realism clashes with Blanche’s romanticism and it produces a terrible effect.

His disability to suppress his anger becomes fatal for Blanche.

When Stella goes to the hospital to have a baby, Blanche stays in the apartment

with Stanley and becomes a victim of his desire to possess power over her. He is a man

and he is stronger than her and he uses this strength. The severe struggle between

Blanche and Stanley ends in Blanche’s rape. It is a climax of Stanley’s aggressive

behavior which he cannot control throughout the play. Blanche comes to Elysian Fields

already internally shattered by the tragic death of her husband but at the end of the play

Stanley violently takes over her body and becomes her executioner.

Blanche: I warn you, don’t, I’m in danger!

(He takes another step. She smashes a bottle on the table and faces him,

clutching the broken top.)

Stanley: What did you do that for?

Blanche: So I could twist the broken end in your face!

Stanley: I bet you would do that

Blanche: I would! I will if you⎯

Stanley: Oh! So you want some rough-house! All right, let’s have some rough-

house!

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 (He springs toward her, overturning the table. She cries out and strikes at him

with the bottle top but he catches her wrist.)

Tiger⎯tiger! Drop the bottle-top! Drop it! We’ve had this date with each other

from the beginning! (554-555)

Stanley seizes her body and rapes her. Nevertheless, this is not only the act of physical

violation but also a psychological one. Blanche can no longer live in everyday society

as her mental condition does not allow her to. She withdraws from society by going to

asylum. According to William Sharp, “the desire for beauty, the belief in something

more than animal that Blanche pretends to, collapses” (162). It is the act of her

destruction and her tragedy. She is internally disrupted and therefore she surrenders to

the actions going on around her. Bigsby declares that the rape is not just designed to

bring Blanche down but it is a calculated act by Stanley by which he is forcing the issue

to the conclusion (66). Stanley does not plan to rape Blanche; however, he is trying to

get rid of her for good. By buying her a ticket to Laurel, the city where Blanche worked

as a teacher, for her birthday, he declares that he wishes she would leave immediately.

The rape is Stanley’s spontaneous act but it happens to become a part of the plan which

aims to put an end to Blanche’s presence in their apartment. Bigsby compares Stanley to

an animal at bay and his planned actions to a fight against Blanche which makes her

surrender so she is left with dilemma to live with defeat (66). Consequently, Blanche is

taken to asylum by the doctor who she thinks is her gentleman caller because the one

who she was expecting, Shep Huntleigh from Dallas, did not show up. The

“Versouviana” is playing again in the background as the tragedy of Blanche comes to a

conclusion.

Stanley Kowalski achieves what he aims for. The destruction of Blanche is

completed and now he can be left alone with his wife and child. He violates Blanche’s

20
body and soul. As a consequence, she is no longer able to live in a normal society;

however, she is not willing to give up her life. In spite of all the tragic events in her life,

including the rape, she is still fighting to survive. She wants to be a part of society and

live a normal life with her gentleman caller who is yet to come into her life. Regardless

her strong desire to do so, it is no longer possible for her as she is traumatized by the

rape. According to Dusenbury, reality is unbearable for Blanche and therefore, she can

escape only into insanity (142). Blanche is left to live in her internal world full of

Southern romanticism and gentleman callers. In there, she can still find some happiness.

1.3. Stanley and Stella’s Relationship

Elia Kazan, the director of the first Broadway version of A Streetcar Named

Desire, claims that sex for Stanley is a need to dominate, and he needs to retain a

violent sexual battle in order to be faithful to the inner spirit of Williams’s story (qtd. in

Tischler 53). In A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams presents the reader with an issue

of domestic violence presented in a relationship of Stanley and Stella. Williams uses his

own experience to portray this violence as his mother was often abused by his

aggressive father, Cornelius Williams (Koprince 50). Williams’s mother did not leave

Cornelius during the early years of abuse. “I just stood by and took it,” she said (qtd. in

Koprince 50). Therefore, the cruelty and brutality of Stanley towards Stella is inspired

by Williams’s own father who often came home drunk and beat his mother.

Stanley’s attitude towards women is presented already in the first scene when he

comes to his apartment from the bowling alley:

Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes. Since

earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women, the giving

21
 and taking of it, not with weak indulgence, dependently, but with the power and

pride of a richly featured male bird among hens. (481)

Stanley is an example of a man who takes what he wants. From this extract one can see

that women are only sexual targets for Stanley. He uses his manly power to take them

and rule over them. He uses the same approach to Stella in their marriage. He believes

in male dominance in marriage and when Stella tries to stand up to him he either

ignores her or he says: “Since when do you give me orders?” (486).

As mentioned in the previous section of this chapter, Stanley is a powerful man

in his household and he likes to be in charge of things and people living in there. He not

only destroys Blanche’s body and soul, he also dominates Stella. Koprince claims,

“Stanley’s macho need for control leads him to abuse Stella both emotionally and

physically” (51). On the poker night when Stella and Blanche return home, Stanley

whacks Stella’s thigh so all the other men laugh. He embarrasses her. Stella says: “It

makes me so mad when he does that in front of other people” (495). She is implying

that it was not for the first time he did it. This one small gesture is an example of how

Stanley operates in order to violate Stella emotionally so she would be subjected to him.

Stanley is a dynamic man and he is quick to protect his rights in his apartment.

He is short-tempered and sometimes he reacts inappropriately like during the poker

night when he gets angry with Blanche and tosses the radio out of the window. He

bursts out in anger when Stella calls him “Drunk⎯drunk⎯animal thing” (500) and he

rushes forward to attack her. He assaults her and she cries out “I want to go away, I

want to go away!” (501). This is the first time in a play where one is confronted with

physical violence. Koprince asserts that it is crucial for a reader to understand that this

attack on Stella is not an isolated event but part of an established pattern of abuse (51).

According to domestic violence expert Murray A. Straus, “When an assault by a

22
husband occurs, it is not usually an isolated instance. In fact, it tends to be a recurrent

feature of the relationship” (qtd. in Koprince 51). Therefore, it is highly probable that in

Stanley and Stella’s relationship this physical abuse is not rare, on the contrary, it

happens quite often. The upper-floor neighbor, Eunice, who is also a wife of Stanley’s

good friend, suggests this by telling Stanley:

You can’t beat on a woman an’ then call ’er back! She won’t come! And her

goin’ t’ have a baby! . . . You stinker! You whelp of a Polack, you! I hope they

do haul you in and turn the fire hose on you, same as the last time! (502)

When she addresses this, she also suggests that Stella finds refuge in her apartment from

Stanley’s aggressive behavior quite often, and therefore she is a victim of domestic

violence.

However, in the third scene Stella does not stay at Eunice’s for long. She is too

much in love with Stanley to make him beg under the window for a long time. She

accepts his violent nature and comes back to his arms. She does not take Stanley’s

beating seriously or she is denying that his actions are a real problem in their marriage.

From today’s point of view she acts as a typical victim who is not able to break the

circle of violence and abuse. Koprince names the characteristics of abused women

which can be applied on Stella,

1) they exhibit a low self-esteem that is usually related to repeated victimization;

2) they hold traditional views about women’s roles in the home; 3) they tend to

accept things as they are, believing that they have little control over their own

lives; and 4) they often cope with their situation through the mechanism of

denial. (53)

Stella’s low self-esteem is shown throughout the play when not only her husband

controls her and gives her commands but also when Blanche bosses her around; for

23
example, when Blanche wishes for coke and liquor to be brought to her by Stella. Stella

can be also seen as a traditional woman at home who is not working, therefore only

having money from her husband, and often waiting for Stanley with dinner prepared on

the table. The traditional role of woman is also seen in the baby Stella is carrying which

stresses the role of a woman as a child bearer. As I suggested before, Stella is

dominated by Stanley to a large extend but she accepts this and even considers it to be

natural. It seems that his touch and sexual affection are enough for Stella as they

compensate for slow emotional destruction that Stanley, the abuser, causes to his victim.

“Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with

her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the

dark flat” (503). Furthermore, their reconciliation comes in the form of sex. They are

attracted to each other so much that none of them can resist. Nelson claims that the

marriage of Stella and Stanley is based almost exclusively upon sex and it is symbolized

by the approaching birth of their child (134). Sexuality is very important in their

relationship and this is demonstrated in the third scene when Stella and Stanley

reconcile. Their sexual attraction has more power over Stella than the physical and

emotional violence caused by Stanley. Blanche highlights this fact when she says: “The

only way to live with such a man is to⎯go to bed with him!” (508). Moreover, it is clear

throughout the play that Stella loves Stanley. Yet there are two things in a contrast,

sexuality and violence. Stella is overlooking all Stanley’s violent actions and abuse as

the sexual attraction is stronger. Blanche does not approve of her sister’s actions and

Stella defends her position:

Stella: But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the

dark⎯that sort of make everything else seem⎯unimportant.

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 Blanche: What you are talking about is brutal desire⎯just⎯Desire!⎯the name of

that rattle-trap street-car that bangs through the Quarter, up one old narrow street

and down another…

Stella: Haven’t you ever ridden on that street-car?

Blanche: It brought me here.⎯Where I’m not wanted and where I’m ashamed to

be… (509)

Here, one can see a great contrast between the two women and their perception of Stella

and Stanley’s relationship. For Stella it is a sexual affiliation that holds her together

with Stanley; the attraction that she cannot overcome. At the same time, Blanche sees

only the brutal desire between them and she does not understand how Stella can be so

devoted to it.

To summarize, Stanley and Stella’s relationship is full of violence, brutality and

sex. The last thing makes somehow the first two unimportant for Stella and therefore

she is satisfied in this relationship. She is dealing with reality by denying that her

husband is a brute. She is submissive to him and he likes it that way. Blanche, as an

intruder to their relationship and home, is not welcomed by Stanley. Stella cannot do

anything with it because when Stanley decides to destroy Blanche and get rid of her,

Stella is incapable of facing him. The only way Stella can continue to live with him is to

deny that he raped Blanche. She cannot allow herself to believe Blanche as it would

ruin her and their baby. Therefore, she chooses Stanley and the baby over Blanche, and

continues living in a violent environment with her abusive husband.

25
2. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

In 1955, Tennessee Williams finished his three-act drama Cat on a Hot Tin

Roof. Donahue claims that it was the most controversial play of the 1954-1955

Broadway season. By controversial he means that it deals with a taboo subject of

homosexuality (70). Although I agree with Donahue that homosexuality is one of the

major themes in this play, I would also like to claim that the play deals with characters

that are very violent in their nature and this violence stems from their past and events

that happened to them. It includes not only the homosexual affiliation of the main

character Brick towards his best friend Skipper, but also Brick’s rejection of Maggie

because of her seduction of Skipper and the family history of Big Daddy and the Pollitt

family.

In order to understand the violent actions of the main protagonists, one has to go

deeper into analyses of psychology of the characters. Mannes claimed, in 1955, that the

play is

a special and compelling study of violence: the violence of an obscene,

gargantuan, perceptive man, Big Daddy, against his body’s end, against his own

frustrations, against the trap of his family; the violence of alcoholic Brick

against the woman and wife who ‘destroyed’ his pure and noble relationship

with another youth by suspecting its nature; the violence of the rejected Maggie

in her attempt to recapture her husband’s physical attention. (qtd. in Nelson 207)

Therefore, in this chapter, I will study the personal problems of the characters to find

out where their violent actions come from. They are verbally aggressive to each other,

hurting each other by inappropriate comments and they have no respect for each other.

I will examine these relationships and prove that the protagonists behave in the way

26
they do because they are all hurt. They all have shattered relationships and they are

living in a nonfunctional family that is based on lies. Their tragedy is that they cannot

find a solution to their problems. They are struggling in the conversations, it is hard for

them to be honest with each other and none of the characters can find peace in the

violent family environment. According to David A. Davis, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is “a

seminal family tragedy about truth, judgment and greed” (3).

In the tree-acts, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof deals with the family problems of the

Pollitt family. The whole play takes place during one warm summer evening on the

plantation in Deep South. The big plantation of twenty-eight thousand acres is owned

by Big Daddy Pollitt, a millionaire, who inherited the place from a pair of old bachelors,

Jack Straw and Peter Ochello. It is Big Daddy’s birthday and so the whole family meets

to celebrate it. Big Daddy is returning from a clinic where he was tested for cancer

because has been suffering from strong pain for a long time. He has two sons, Gooper

and Brick who are very different from each other. Gooper is a lawyer, who lives with

his wife Mae and their five children (another one on the way) in Memphis. In contrast,

Brick is a sport announcer who used to be a professional football player. He recently

broke his ankle in an attempt to jump over the hurdles on the high school football field,

during the middle of the night. Brick is his father’s favorite; however, he disappoints

him as he cannot conceive a child with his wife Maggie. Even though, Gooper has a

good job and is financial independent, he is still not good enough for Big Daddy. Big

Daddy sees that Gooper’s life is based on money that controls his life and therefore

whatever Gooper does he cannot get in favor of his father. On the contrary, for Brick

the relationships are more important than money. Therefore, he chooses the career of a

football player and is doing what he loves rather than something else. He wants to enjoy

27
the life at the moment while Gooper thinks about the future. That is the reason why

Gooper tries to live according to a concept of a perfect family, as it looks good, and he

is therefore raising a lot of future heirs. Big Daddy is not pleased with Gooper and Mae

as their actions are carefully calculated and Big Daddy knows that. Even though Brick

is the opposite as he is inactive towards his family and not interested in talking to

anyone, he is still Big Daddy’s dearest son.

The whole celebration becomes an excuse for discussing the inheritance of the

old man’s estate in the Mississippi delta. Gooper thinks the whole plantation will be his

as he is relying on a fact that Brick is an alcoholic and he and Maggie are childless.

Therefore, Gooper thinks that Big Daddy will prefer to give the plantation to him and

Mae. Gooper and Mae also know that only Maggie will fight for the property because

Brick does not care. They stay in a room next to them and therefore they hear about the

trouble Brick and Maggie are facing. Brick does not want to sleep with Maggie, as he is

“disgusted” (940) with her. He is a hard drinker and he drinks in order to get out of

reality that he cannot deal with. All the problems between Brick and Maggie arise from

the death of Brick’s best friend, Skipper, who used to play football with him. Skipper

committed a suicide when Brick refused to accept Skipper’s homosexuality and hanged

up a phone on him when he needed his friend the most. The hanged up phone call

suggests that Brick is unable to face the truth – the relationship he had with Skipper was

something more than a friendship. In my opinion, Williams suggests that they were both

homosexuals who could not come out because they would not be accepted by the

society, as it was very controversial to do so in that time. They could not even admit this

fact to themselves and therefore they were suffering. Bigsby comments on their

relationship, “The homosexuality, which may or may not have coloured the relationship

between Brick and his friend Skipper, exists as an image of suppressed truth” (85). This

28
suppressed truth carries itself throughout the whole play, in all the relationships between

all the characters.

2.1. Brick’s and Maggie’s Relationship Towards Skipper

In order to understand the relationship of Brick and Maggie, one has to look

farther into their past and comprehend the significance of unusual relationship between

Brick and Skipper. The problems that Brick and Maggie have to face in the present of

the play are largely influenced by their relationship towards Skipper, who is presented

in the play only in flashbacks. I suggest that the violent actions and verbal attacks that

Brick does are all a result of the events that happened with Skipper. However, it is

important to know that the theme of homosexuality in this play should not overshadow

the experience of dramatic dialogues between the family members that suggest that all

characters suffer from the unfortunate past events. As Bigsby claims “the peculiar

concern at the heart of this play is not simply the question of the individual’s sexual

identity, but it is that which tends to charge it with a submerged power” (85).

In the first act, Maggie talks to Brick about the problems that they have. She

tries to analyze it but Brick seems not to be interested. He is completely passive, despite

of her attempts to evoke in him any kind of feeling. However, as Maggie alludes to

Skipper, Brick gets very annoyed “Maggie, shut up about Skipper. I mean it, Maggie;

you got to shut up about Skipper” (908). He does not want to talk about Skipper and

calls Maggie’s attempt “a dangerous thing to do” (908).

Skipper was Brick’s closest companion in college and his teammate in a

professional football team. For Brick, this relationship was “one great good true thing in

his life” (910) but for Maggie it was completely something else. She perceives it as too

29
intense and unnatural and suspects Skipper of homosexuality. “She saw in their

organization of the professional football team the unwillingness on the part of both to

leave each other, and when Skipper began to drink she confirmed her suspicion that he

needed Brick exclusively and would destroy him and his marriage in time” (Nelson

202). Maggie perceived Skipper as a threat to her marriage and therefore she used the

situation when Brick lay injured in the hospital and challenged Skipper to prove his

heterosexuality by making love to her. The attempt did not work out and that became a

proof of Skipper’s homosexuality. Maggie interprets her seduction of Skipper to Brick:

“So we made love to each other to dream it was you, both of us!” (909). When she

expresses this it is clear to both of them that Skipper’s relationship to Brick was

something more than a friendship. As a consequence of Skipper’s realization of his

homosexuality he began to drink and take drugs. “Skipper broke in two like a rotten

stick⎯nobody ever turned so fast to a lush⎯or died of it so quick….” (950-51). Brick

cannot live with a person who caused such a trauma to his best friend and therefore he

starts to kill his pain in alcohol.

Maggie’s actions make Brick an alcoholic with no goal in his life, only to drink

in order to kill his disgust. Nelson claims that Brick is not disgusted because Skipper

was a homosexual and because he might have been involved in a homosexual

relationship. His disgust comes from the feeling that his one pure ideal love was in

reality tainted at its core and that his idealization of this relationship had fallen. Nelson

calls Brick’s experience a tragic disillusionment (219). Brick, inside himself, cannot

reconcile with this disillusionment and therefore his suffering cannot find an end.

Moreover, Brick refuses to take any responsibility for Skipper’s death even

though somewhere deep inside him he knows that he is also guilty as he refused to talk

to Skipper when he confessed about his sexuality; and that was their last conversation.

30
Brick never openly announces his sexual orientation; however I believe it is implicit

throughout the play that he is a homosexual. Williams could not directly reveal Brick’s

homosexuality as it would be very controversial in the 50s but from my point of view it

is clear that Brick suffers so much from the lost because he realizes that Skipper was

more than a best friend for him. However, the society and Brick’s family do not allow

him to be honest not only with himself but also with his close ones. I agree with Weales

who declares that “Brick chooses to reject rather than to be rejected, to drink in disgust

at society, but he carries with him the pretenses of that society, the need to lie about his

sexuality, just as the rest of the characters lie about family, money, position, affection,

disease” (29). Therefore, Brick is emotionally devastated and he cannot recover. He

does not see any future for himself as if the life without Skipper would not be worthy

living. So he chooses passive rebellion which allows him to punish people around him

who cannot accept his homosexuality. I believe his passivity is a calculated act by

which he wants to show his aversion towards the society that could not accept Skipper’s

nature and which therefore caused his death. Arthur Miller, one of the best-known

American playwrights, perceives Brick’s approach to his experience as

idealization in order to retreat from ambiguity as he does from grossness. Brick

wishes to stop time so he could reach an indefinite future full of world of sport

and male friendship. He is trying to resort to the ideal by drinking of alcohol and

withdrawal from sexual contract. Brick is simply not a part of the world around

him, the one that changes value into price. (qtd. in Bigsby 92)

To summarize, because of Skipper’s death, Brick is predestined by Williams to

end tragically. He lives in a fictional world of idealization thanks to his addiction to

alcohol. However, in real he is tragically disillusioned and he uses alcohol in order to

kill his real feelings. By doing that he rejects Maggie, his family and the whole reality

31
going on around him. The disillusionment that Brick experiences can be compared to

the one that Blanche is going through after the rape. These two characters can be

undeniably related to each other and therefore I will focus on the comparison farther in

my thesis. Moreover, Brick’s wife killed the only thing in his life that made sense to

him and he cannot forget her. He rather chooses to live in the world of illusion caused

by alcohol where he does not have to accept his feelings towards Skipper. He is

traumatized by everything that happened and his violent actions in the play are only a

substitution for his internal pain.

2.2. Brick and Maggie’s Relationship

Maggie is the most dynamic character in the play. She is emotionally strong and

has the ability to manipulate those around her. When she and Brick graduated from

college she gave him an ultimatum about the marriage: “Now or never” (950). As a

result Brick marries her. She has a strong personality that overflows the whole room.

Maggie is quick in thinking and she knows perfectly what she wants. Powers

summarizes Maggie’s motivation to stay with Brick: “Maggie remains with Brick

because of her sexual and economic dependency of him, an enslavement fostered by a

patriarchal system, and she is willing to overlook his degeneracy to hold onto the things

to which she believes she is heir and that define her as a heterosexual woman” (125). In

these characteristics, Maggie can be related to Stella who is also sexually and

economically dependent on Stanley. They both use their woman powers when trying to

get what they want; however, in the end they both remain controlled by their husbands

even though they do not realize it. Furthermore, when relating Maggie to a model of

heterosexual woman, she is unhappy, as she cannot reach her goal – to compel her

32
husband to make love to her. “You know if I thought you would never, never, never

make love to me again⎯I would go downstairs to the kitchen and pick out the longest

and sharpest knife I could find and stick it straight into my heart, I swear that I would!”

(892). Maggie comes up with this dramatic notion as she expects Brick to pursue her

not to do it. She believes that by statements like this one she can eventually urge Brick

to make love to her. She thinks twice about what to say and uses her language

strategically to reach her goals. She purposely exaggerates in order to create a sensation

which would change Brick’s point of looking at things. Maggie is trying to emotionally

blackmail him because she is in a desperate struggle to save Brick for herself but also

for the plantation. Even though she is trying very hard it is all just a game for her.

However, her game does not work on Brick as he knows Maggie very well and is

familiar with her melodrama.

Maggie’s speech provokes a furious reaction from the other family members.

Internally, she wants a revenge for her failing marriage. She strongly desires not to be

poor again and that includes keeping her husband, who is a prime candidate for the

inheritance, and also destroying Gooper and Mae who are trying to put Maggie down by

highlighting that she cannot have a child. She releases her frustration on Gooper’s

family by calling his children “no-neck monsters” (884) and his wife a “monster of

fertility” (886). She is irritated by the fact that Mae breeds children only to be the

inheritors of the plantation and she openly hates them. Her comments make all the

others around her react violently as she purposefully provokes them.

Her husband, Brick, is constantly drinking throughout the whole play. However,

as I already mentioned, he is not an aggressive drinker but more of a passive one. The

only time when he reveals bellicosity is when Maggie brings Skipper into conversation.

It is followed by a violent struggle between Maggie and Brick:

33
 Brick strikes at her with crutch, a blow that shatters the gem-like lamp on the

table. […] Brick hops awkwardly forward and strikes at her again with his

crutch.⎯alive! I am alive, alive! I am… He hurls the crutch at her, across the

bed she took refuge behind, and pitches forward on the floor as she completes

her speech. (911-12)

The most sensitive topic for Brick is Skipper. He holds his anger inside him against the

whole world and only the slightest mention of Skipper makes him explode like a bomb.

Maggie’s cruel comments lead Brick to revelation of his fragility and vulnerability

connected to death of his best friend. He is going through a constant internal struggle

and the closest one to him, Maggie, is not able to help.

Moreover, she offers him condemnation instead of love. She is more interested

in money that she would inherit than in the fact that her husband is disgusted with her.

She is willing to stay with a homosexual man that does not love her only so she would

not be poor like her ancestors. She even says to Brick “I’m not living with you. We

occupy the same cage” (895) which proves that there is nothing any more they would

have in common that would tie them together. She is driven by her past experience of

poverty and therefore she would not give up her opportunity, to get to money, by any

chance. Her cleverness enables her to manipulate with people “Brick and I are going

to⎯have a child!” (971) and so she is as powerful as to change the direction of the plot.

She announces it when she decides to flee from a position of a victim of accusations by

other family members. She intends to make the pregnancy truth. Therefore, Nelson

asserts that Maggie knows very well what she wants. She wants Brick and is not afraid

to admit it; she wants to bring happiness to Big Daddy but she also wants her place in

the sun and the plantation (203).

34
 Heilman observes, that in this play Williams is pulled into two different

directions, one toward the portrait of a strong competitive woman, the other toward the

inner conflict of a protagonist with a tragic potential (24). Brick is predestined for a

tragic end as he cannot bear staying in a fake marriage. He is trapped in the society’s

expectations to maintain a heterosexual marriage. In addition, he is confined in the

dysfunctional and dishonest family which is about to start fighting over the inheritance

that he is not even interested in. He is frantic and he tries to forget about his situation by

drinking. He drinks to kill his feelings of disgust with Maggie and mendacity in his

family. Therefore, he chooses alcohol as a means to kill his pain. By doing that he is

destroying himself not only physically but also emotionally, as he cannot bear to wait

for the “click” (894). Brick drinks until he gets the click in his head which is the only

thing that makes him peaceful. When he mentions this fact to Big Daddy he publicly

admits that he is an alcoholic and that he already gave up fighting it. Maggie, in

comparison to Brick, is fighting the circumstances the best she can and as the only

character in the play she does not end up tragically. Davis explains this fact by saying

that Maggie is different to the Pollitts because her multi-faceted personality makes her

tremendously complex and quickly adaptable. He asserts that Maggie faces her

circumstances with cunning and therefore she succeeds in reaching her goals (9).

At the end of the play, Maggie is satisfied as she makes the Pollitts believe that

she is pregnant and her direct actions lead to Brick giving up and finally making love to

her. “And so tonight we’re going to make the lie true, and when that’s done, I’ll bring

the liquor back here and we’ll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death

has come into…” (975). Brick is suddenly willing to convert the lie into reality which is

a final triumph for Maggie. By making this decision Brick ends his passive behavior

and acts in a way that nobody would expect. When he internally consents to Maggie’s

35
lie it is as he would forget about her punishment and agree that he is the one guilty and

not her. When he does that he becomes one of the Pollitts and commits to mendacity

which earlier he revolts against by his passive behavior. He gives up his resistance that

he held for so long and which made him the rebel in the family. However, his rebellion

also makes him the only honest character in the play. The click in Brick’s head makes

him not only peaceful but also subservient to the circumstances. Nevertheless, it is not

clear what Brick will do once he looses this click and starts to be aware of reality again.

Williams leaves this open so one can only guess if Brick will transform, give up his

rebellion and join Maggie in her pursuit of money or he will remain a passive rebel

against the mendacity in his family. Either approach he chooses; at the end of the play

he is still perceived as a tragic protagonist who cannot accept the guilt. Williams

indicates that even if Brick would get rid of alcohol he would not reach a satisfactory

state, as by doing that he would only complement the family and the untruthful

relationships they have. According to May, Williams is aware of the fact that Brick’s

tragedy remains obscure (6). Williams comments on the uncertainty left behind Brick’s

personality: “Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as

a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s

own character to himself” (qtd. in May 6).

2.3. Big Daddy

Big Daddy is a strong, big man who owns a whole plantation lying in the

Mississippi delta. He is a head of the Pollitt family; however, his strength is weakened

by the fact that everyone around him is lying to him about his illness. He has cancer and

it is slowly destroying his body. Big Daddy is in a big contrast to Brick as he fights the

36
injustice in society and in his family in an active way. He thinks that he is healthy and

therefore ready to deal with the family issues that have been going on for a long time

behind his back when he was in pain. Big Daddy dictates the tempo in the second act

and somehow is continuing Maggie’s restless search for the reason of Brick’s inactivity

and restrain from life. He represents the aggressive power that forces Brick to realize

that his real problem is realizing that the relationship with Skipper was not so innocent

and pure as he thought it was. Moreover, Big Daddy is powerful and straightforward

also towards his wife Big Mama. Frequently, he verbally offends her and openly admits

that he cannot tolerate her. Dan Issac claims that Big Daddy’s language is what makes

him an exciting character as he employs both lyricism and bombast in a slang way

(272). Big Daddy’s vulgarity and directness come from the fact that he realizes that he

is not dying, and therefore he can do whatever he wants in order not to loose time any

more. For one day, his birthday day, after three years of pain, he is sure he will not die.

This fact is driving him towards his goal – to find out about Brick’s problem, heal it and

prepare him to inherit the plantation. Living in this lie makes him act cruelly not only

towards his wife but also to Gooper, Mae, Maggie and Brick. “I’ll talk like I want to on

my birthday, Ida, or any other goddam day of the year and anybody here that don’t like

it knows what they can do!” (921).

The whole second act is dominated by Big Daddy and his personal talk to Brick.

He addresses some aggressive and confrontational questions to find out Brick’s reason

to drink. He even jerks a crutch from Brick and makes him stand on the injured ankle

only to cause him pain. Big Daddy is violent towards his favorite son but he does that as

a part of investigation for Brick’s reason to drink. He throws away his crutch that

symbolizes a means to slow destruction of Brick’s character, and uses it to blackmail

him. “First you answer my question. Why do you drink? Why are you throwing your

37
life away, boy, like somethin’ disgusting you picked up on the street?” (939). Big

Daddy’s punishingly hard and uncomfortable practices make Brick admit that the

reason of his disgust is mendacity. Rejecting this excuse, Big Daddy concludes his long

monologue to Brick by saying: “I’ve lived with mendacity!⎯Why can’t you live with it?

Hell, you got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity, is

there?” (942). Ruby Cohn comments on Big Daddy’s answer: “Though the words

appear abstract out of context, they are a coda to the specific lies of Big Daddy’s life,

and the italicized words give rhythm and meaning to the coda, which declares that lies

are life” (54). This part of discussion between Big Daddy and Brick also brings them

closer as they find out they have both been dealing with the same problem-mendacity.

Moreover, Big Daddy’s statement also reveals that while Big Daddy was searching for

Brick’s reason to drink he happened to uncover the problem they have in common. In

this part of the play, the father and son are bonding because they are both frustrated with

the relationships in the family. They become very open to each other and according to

Brick, it is unusual for them two to have a conversation like this one. Brick observes:

“Well, sir, ever so often you say to me, Brick, I want to have a talk with you, but when

we talk, it never materializes. […] Communication is ⎯awful hard between people

an’⎯somehow between you and me, it just don’t⎯” (931). The whole second act is a

demonstration of a powerful father-son relationship. They find out that what connects

them so much is the struggle in the dysfunctional family and the distorted relationships

that they have with their wives. Brick claims that what makes all the members of the

family lie is that they are alive and what makes him and Big Daddy truthful is that they

are almost not alive (953). This is an important remark as it summarizes why Big Daddy

feels so close to his younger son. It also shows that any rebellion, either active or

38
passive, is not going to be effective in the family struggle as both Brick and Big Daddy

are predestined for a tragic end.

In addition, when Brick accidentally tells Big Daddy that Gooper and Mae have

been also lying about his diagnoses and that they have been planning to take over the

plantation, he is horrified and disgusted: “CHRIST⎯DAMN⎯ALL⎯LYING SONS

OF⎯LYING BITCHES! […] Yes, all liars, all liars, all lying dying liars!” (954). Davis

states, that the revelation of Gooper and Mae’s plan is more tragic and disheartening for

Big Daddy than his own prognosis, which indicates that he cares about the family

legacy more than about his own health (5). Consequently, Big Daddy flees to refuge in a

different room and, in the original version of the play, he does not come out any more.

So in the third act, one can only hear how he is suffering in pain.

Tischer emphasizes that there is a connection between the character of Big

Daddy and Williams’s own father Cornelius Coffin Williams, a violent and aggressive

man who never supported his son in anything he desired to do. (qtd. in Powers 128).

However, Powers farther claims that in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Williams for the first

time artistically reworks the cruel image of his father, as in the other plays he either

expresses his deep-rooted bitterness with him, as in Sweet Bird of Youth, or he totally

erases his physical presence, as in The Glass Menagerie (128).

Big Daddy is a dramatic character that raises the tension of the play and

challenges his favorite son in order to help him. He creates a violent atmosphere by

being hard on Brick and his wife, about whom he also makes inappropriate jokes.

Without Big Daddy, the play would not be so dynamic and therefore when this play got

into the hands of Elia Kazan, the director of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, he

made Williams rewrite the whole third act (Williams 977). Kazan felt that Big Daddy is

so important for the play that when in the original version we hear him only scream out

39
of pain, it is not enough (Donahue 71). However, as I am analyzing the text of the

original play I will not examine the Broadway version. Nevertheless, I agree with Kazan

that Big Daddy is a very unique character in the play that develops the tension and

dynamics. He also pushes Brick to the edge of his thinking so he realizes his

alcoholism. Big Daddy uncovers a common reason for their struggle in the family and

they realize that they have been friends as they are the only honest people in the family

(953). Big Daddy’s unbreakable personality is also symbolized by his huge and obese

figure. He is a man who requires respect from everyone. Even though, he is powerful he

cannot prevent greed from his family members which makes him also a tragic character.

At the end, he is betrayed, ill with cancer and powerless. The big man is dying.

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Conclusion

Most of the plays that Tennessee Williams wrote in his life deal with violence,

sex, alcoholism and failure. Esther Merle Jackson sums this up by saying that the writer

is concerned with the reality of a “broken world” (26). Most of the protagonists in his

drama cope with the individual search for a way of redeeming a shattered universe

(Jackson 27). This motive is found in both plays A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on

a Hot Tin Roof. World of almost all the main characters in the two plays is broken and

destroyed. They are trying to live and deal with it the best they can; however, it does not

go well for them. They suffer; they are frustrated and eventually end up tragically.

“Williams’ dramas are psychological tragedies” (Donahue 219). The protagonists are

emotionally violated and even though they are trying to fight the tragic reality, some of

them eventually give up. The physical violence is applied when they do not know how

to handle the reality. They throw things around in order to release their anger but it does

not help them to compensate their pain. They struggle with the world around them but

they can never reach a satisfactory solution. At the end, they are either punished or they

have to live in a lie.

Blanche in A Streetcar is similar to Brick in Cat. Blanche was madly in love

with her husband just as Brick had the only true relationship in his life with Skipper.

The common tragic past of Blanche and Brick influences their behavior in the present

events of the plays. Both Skipper and Alan Gray confessed to their closest friends that

they were homosexuals. Brick and Blanche refused to accept their orientation as it was

unacceptable in society to be same-sex oriented. Moreover, Blanche was the last person

Alan had talked to before he pulled the trigger just as Skipper’s last conversation was

with Brick. Hence, they blame themselves for these deaths. They try to deal with the

41
loss but they are not succeeding. They are both emotionally devastated and cannot

recover. They keep blaming themselves for the deaths and therefore they can no longer

live a normal life. Blanche compensates her pain in the relationships with other men.

She is searching for a real meaning in her life but she cannot find it. While having an

internal struggle she is destroying herself by having sexual relationships with strangers.

Brick is killing his emotions with alcohol. Opposite to Blanche, he rejects all the

relationships around him while blaming himself for Skipper’s death. While Blanche is

trying to find an escape from the violent events by creating her own world full of

gentleman callers and beautiful things, Brick is trying to kill his pain by drinking

alcohol and by punishing his wife Maggie who is guilty of Skipper’s death as much as

Brick is.

By rejecting homosexuality, both Blanche and Brick brought their punishment

upon them. According to Arthur Ganz, homosexuality in Williams’s work is

simultaneously an object of sympathy and of revulsion. He claims that there is an

intimate connection between the guilty rejector and martyred homosexual and the

punishment of the former regularly echoes the destiny of the latter and therefore, the

two are not always distinguishable (213). In A Streetcar, Blanche and her homosexual

husband were separate, but both faced tragic and desperate ends while in the ambiguous

Brick these figures began to converge (Ganz 213). Williams himself was homosexual

and therefore this theme is seen in most of his plays, A Streetcar and Cat being no

exception. Both Blanche and Brick live in a lie that homosexuality does not exist in

their relationships; however, when it comes out that it does, it destroys them both.

Blanche and Brick are not able to face reality but Blanche is fighting her destiny while

Brick only gives up. Nevertheless, in the end there is a better future for Brick than for

Blanche. Brick is willing to accept Maggie’s lie and it is left open if Maggie will lead

42
him to a better life without alcohol or not; whereas, Blanche is psychologically

devastated and at the end Stella has no other resolution to her problems than to leave her

in the hands of doctors. Therefore, while in Cat Brick and Maggie reach some kind of a

compromise in a form of a future child; in A Streetcar Stella has to choose between

Blanche and Stanley. No compromise is possible and as a result, Blanche is taken to a

mental institution and Stella stays with Stanley.

Moreover, while in A Streetcar a reader is presented with animalistic Stanley, in

Cat, Maggie “the cat” is introduced. Both are associated with animals, however, while

Stanley is solving his internal problems by using physical force, Maggie is smart and

can defend herself verbally. Bigsby comments on Maggie and Stanley:

Yet Maggie is like Stanley only in her energy, her ability to dominate those

around her. Her real strength, and the basis of the play’s basic optimism, lies in

her recognition of qualities and values which she possess, in the use of her

strength not just to destroy and subordinate but to support. (94)

They are both dominant characters and they know what they want from life. They both

manipulate their partners. Stanley uses Stella’s sexual attraction to him in order to

control her. He always gets whatever he wants and usually it is by using violence and

physical force. Stanley is a simple, working-class man but he successfully uses power to

make Stella subordinate to him. He knows that he has the ability to control women and

he is not ashamed to show his dominance. Unlike Stanley, Maggie clever in her

manipulation with Brick and instead of force she uses lies which she tries to hide.

Maggie would lie about anything if she could get an assurance that she will not be poor

in the future.

In addition, Stanley and Maggie are both attackers who desperately go for what

they want. Stanley knows that Stella would do anything in order to make him happy and

43
he uses this against Blanche. In comparison, Maggie uses Big Daddy’s love toward

Brick in order to make Brick change his mind. They both build on the destroyed

relationships among their close ones in order to reach their goal. By doing that they

cause an atmosphere of violence and oppressiveness to develop in their families.

Stanley and Maggie cause the violent feelings to accumulate throughout the plays so

both plays reach the climax because of their actions.

Both plays are tragedies concluded with suffering. Whereas, in A Streetcar it is

Blanche who cannot recover emotionally from the rape and ends up psychologically

devastated; in Cat it is Big Daddy who ends up as a victim of mendacity in his family

and with cancer which, as Blanche’s mental sickness, cannot be healed. While A

Streetcar shows an impact of violence on Blanche, Cat is not concluded with a clear

solution to the events that happened in the Pollitt family. One knows that Big Daddy

will eventually die; however, a reader is left with a hope for Brick for better future with

Maggie and their child in the plantation. Therefore, in both plays, the resolution to the

violence is death; either a psychological one of Blanche who can never return back to

normal society, or physical death of Big Daddy. Both deaths are results of the cruelty

and human brutality of the family members. While in A Streetcar, Stanley is responsible

for Blanche’s death; in Cat Big Daddy’s cancer is a symbol of cruel lies of all family

members which have been slowly destroying Big Daddy and leading to his end.

To conclude, in both plays violence is a force that destructs morality and causes

emotional or physical death of the characters. “Violence permeates the atmosphere⎯it is

not simply attached to one or another character” (Porter 174). It is a compulsion to the

tragedy. Blanche’s body and soul is violated just like Brick’s. Stanley is a cause of

Blanche’s mental destruction just like Maggie is a producer of Brick’s pain. Violence is

44
in the nature of Williams’s plays. It is presented in the dialogues, in the actions of the

characters and the violent atmosphere eventually leads to the tragedy.

45
Works Cited:

Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama.

Cambridge: U of Cambridge P, 1984. Print.

Cohn, Ruby. “The Garrulous Grotesques of Tennessee Williams.” Tennessee Williams:

A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Stanton, Stephen S. New Jersey: Prentice-

Hall, Inc., 1977. 45-60. Print.

Davis, David A. “Make the Lie True: The Tragic Family in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and

King Lear.” The Tennessee Williams Studies. The Tennessee Williams Annual

Review, 2002. Web. 28 Oct. 2011. < http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/

archives/2002/2davis.htm>

Donahue, Francis. The Dramatic World of Tennessee Williams. New York: Ungar,

1964. Print.

Dusenbury, Winifred L. The Theme of Loneliness in Modern American Drama.

Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1960. Print.

Ganz, Arthur. “The Desperate Morality of the Plays of Tennessee Williams.” American

Drama and Its Critics: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Alan S. Downer.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1965. 203-17. Print.

Heilman, Robert Bechtold. “Tennessee Williams’ Approach to Tragedy.” Tennessee

Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Stanton, Stephen S. New Jersey:

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977. 17-35. Print.

Isaac, Dan. “Big Daddy’s Dramatic Word Strings.” American Speech. 40.4 (Dec. 1965):

272-278. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/453098>

46
Jackson, Esther Merle. The Broken World of Tennessee Williams. Madison: U of

Wisconsin P, 1965. Print.

May, Charles E. “Brick Pollitt as Homo Ludens: ‘Three Players of the Summer Game’

and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” Modern Critical Interpretations: Tennessee

Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea

House Publishers, 2002. 5-17. Google Books.Web. 24 Nov. 2011.

<http://books.google.com/books?

id=VAUsCJ5YZjMC&pg=PA5&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=fal

se>

Nelson, Benjamin. Tennessee Williams: The Man and His Work. New York: Obolensky,

1961. Print.

Koprince, Susan. “Domestic Violence in A Streetcar Named Desire.” Bloom’s Modern

Critical Interpretations: A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Harold Bloom. New ed.

New York: Infobase, 2009. 49-60. Google Books. Web. 26 Oct. 2011.

<http://books.google.co.in/books?

id=OUjEa53n9L0C&pg=PR3&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&

q&f=false>

Porter, Thomas E. Myth and Modern American Drama. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1969.

Print.

Powers, Douglas W. “Lifted above Tennessee Williams’s ‘Hot Tin Roof’: Tony

Kushner’s "Angels in America" as Midrash.” South Atlantic Review 70.4 (Fall,

2005): 119-138. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/

20064690>

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Sharp, William. “An Unfashionable View of Tennessee Williams.” The Tulane Drama

Review 6.3 (1962): 160-71. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/1124941>

Tischler, Nancy M. “‘Tiger⎯Tiger’ Blanche’s Rape on Screen.” Magical Muse:

Millennial Essays on Tennessee Williams. Ed. Voss, Crandell, Devlin, Albert

Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2002. 50-69. Ebrary. Web. 27 Oct. 2001.

<http://site.ebrary.com/lib/masaryk/docDetail.action?

docID=10387638&p00=magical%20muse>

Vogel, Dan. The Three Masks of American Tragedy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP,

1974. Print.

Weales, Gerald. American Drama Since World War II. New York: Harcourt, 1962.

Print.

Welsh Camille-Yvette. “World War II, Sex, and Displacement in A Streetcar Named

Desire.” Critical Insights: A Streetcar Named Desire. Ed. Brenda Murphy.

Pasadena: Salem P, 2009. 23-40. Salem Press. Web. 29 Oct. 2011.

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Williams, Tennessee. A Streetcar Named Desire. 1947. Tennessee Williams: Plays

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English Résumé

The purpose of my Bachelor Thesis is to analyze the different forms of violence

which are found in the two plays of Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire and

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The thesis focuses on the analysis of the relationships between

the main protagonists and it particularly examines the violent nature of the plays. My

aim is to argue that violence, cruelty and brutality function in both plays as a catalyst for

the tragedy of the characters.

The thesis is divided into two chapters and each one is based on the textual

analysis of the play. The first chapter deals with A Streetcar Named Desire and it

studies three main characters of the play-Blanche, Brick and Stella. It focuses on the

violent events that happened to Blanche in the past and it is concerned with Stanley’s

aggressiveness towards the two women. The second chapter concentrates on the

frustrated characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and it draws attention to the triangle

between Brick, Skipper and Maggie. It also deals with the authoritative figure of Big

Daddy who represents the dynamics in the play. Finally, the conclusion provides a short

comparative analysis based on the two previous chapters. I point out the analogies as

well as the differences between the plays and I summarize the violent features occurring

in the two analyzed plays.

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Slovak Résumé

Cieľom mojej bakalárskej práce je analýza rozdielnych form násilia ktoré sa

objavujú v dvoch hrách Tennesseeho Williamsa Električka zvaná túžba a Mačka na

horúcej plechovej streche. Práca sa zameriava na analýzu vzťahov medzi hlavnými

postavami a skúma najmä násilnícku podstatu hier. Mojim zámerom je dokázať, že

násilie, krutosť a brutalita iniciujú tragédiu hlavných hrdinov v oboch hrách.

Práca je rozdelená do dvoch kapitol a každá je založená na textovej analýze hier.

Prvá kapitola za zaoberá Električkou zvanou túžba a zkúma tri hlavné postavy-Blanche,

Bricka a Stellu. Zameriava sa na násilné udalosti ktoré sa v minulosti prihodili Blanche

a na Stanleyho agresivitu k dvom hlavným ženským postavám. Druhá kapitola sa

sústreďuje na rozčarované postavy v Mačke na horúcej plechovej streche a upozorňuje

na trojuholník medzi Brickom, Skipperom a Maggie. Taktiež sa zameriava na

autoritatívnu osobnosť Big Daddyho ktorý predstavuje hnaciu silu hry. Nakoniec záver

ponúka krátku porovnávaciu analýzu, ktorá je založená na dvoch predchádzajúcich

kapitolách. Zdôrazňujem tam podobnosti a rozdiely medzi hrami a zhrňujem znaky

násilia ktoré sa objavujú v dvoch rozobraných hrách.

50