Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the play’s treatment of alcohol addiction and anti-gay bias. This section also references brief mentions of suicidal thinking and child sexual exploitation.

As the play opens, Brick Pollitt is in the shower. His wife Maggie enters their bedroom, shouting at him over the roar of water. She begins undressing and complaining that one of Brick’s brother’s “monsters” (children) stained her dress. Brick emerges, one foot plastered in a cast, claiming he couldn’t hear Maggie. His brother, Gooper, and his wife, Mae, have five children with another on the way, and Maggie continues to complain about the children’s behavior at dinner. She claims Gooper and Mae show off their children “like animals […] at a country fair” (197) and make snide remarks about her lack of children. She claims Gooper seeks to deny Brick his inheritance of the family estate now that their father, Big Daddy, has been diagnosed with cancer.

Maggie berates Brick for helping Gooper and Mae’s case against them by “devoting [himself] to the occupation of drinkin’” (248) and breaking his ankle jumping hurdles on a high school track. However, she believes Big Daddy likes Brick more than Gooper and her more than Mae—as she sometimes catches him admiring her body. Brick barely responds, and when Maggie notices he isn’t looking at her, her smile slips. However, she plows on, discussing the family dinner he missed and Mae’s family history. 

When Maggie finally catches Brick watching her in the mirror, his expression makes her gasp, and she demands to know what he is thinking. He insists he wasn’t thinking about anything. Maggie acknowledges she has undergone a “hideous transformation” because she can no longer “afford to be thin-skinned” (367). She says living with someone who doesn’t return her love is lonely, and Brick asks if she would like to live alone. She tries to change the subject, asking him about his shower and offering an alcohol rub or cologne—but he refuses. Maggie remarks he has stayed in good shape despite his drinking and mentions someone named Skipper—but stops short. Instead, she wishes Brick would lose his good looks to make her “martyrdom” easier. In the past, he was “a wonderful lover” because he was “indifferent” to sex. Maggie says she would die by suicide if she thought Brick would never sleep with her again, but has not given up: She is like “a cat on a hot tin roof,” intending to stay “as long as she can” (436).

Maggie again asks Brick what he was thinking about, wondering if it was about Skipper. He picks up his crutch and hobbles to the liquor cabinet. Maggie insists “laws of silence don’t work” (448), that he has to talk about what is wrong. Brick drops his crutch and asks her to pick it up for him. She tells him to lean on her, but he shouts at her to give him his crutch. Maggie does, remarking he hasn’t raised his voice in a long time, thinking this “crack in the wall” of composure (471) is good. Brick, with drink in hand, tells her that the outburst was because he hasn’t yet felt the peaceful “click” of alcohol. He asks her to keep her voice down, and she asks him not to drink more before Big Daddy’s birthday party. Brick forgot about his father’s birthday, and Maggie tries to get him to sign a birthday card. He refuses, reminding her of the “conditions” they agreed to: He doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. Maggie retorts that they “occupy the same cage” (531), complaining that the conditions are “impossible.”

Suddenly, Mae enters the room carrying a trophy shaped like a bow. She complains that it’s too dangerous to be left in reach of the children. Maggie retorts that children should be taught not to touch things that don’t belong to them, but Mae brushes her off, saying she would understand if she had children of her own. She tells Brick that her children put on a performance after dinner. Maggie apologizes for having missed it and asks Mae why all her children’s names sound like dogs. Mae accuses her of being “catty,” but then someone calls for her from downstairs, and she hurries off. 

Maggie asks Brick to get dressed for the party, as she has laid out a suit for him. He counters that he cannot wear trousers over his cast, and that he’ll wear silk pajamas instead. Maggie asks how much longer her “punishment” must go on. She again says she feels like a cat on a hot tin roof, and Brick replies she should jump off as cats always land on their feet. Then, he tells her that she should take a lover. Maggie can’t think of any man besides him and again wishes he would “get fat or ugly” (633). She locks their door and pulls the curtains for privacy, but Brick tells her not to embarrass herself. She tries to touch him, but he wards her off with a small chair. They are interrupted by Brick’s mother, Big Mama. Annoyed, Maggie lets her in. Big Mama asks Maggie why she changed her dress, and Maggie complains about Mae’s children. Big Mama thinks she must not like children, which she fiercely denies. Brick is back in the bathroom, and Big Mama asks him to come out so she can share good news: Eventually, she tells him through the door that Big Daddy’s medical report notes he has a spastic colon rather than cancer. She is relieved and rushes out to answer a phone call. 

Big Mama comes back and asks Maggie if Brick has been drinking. Maggie tries to downplay her husband’s alcoholism with a giggle, but Big Mama points out that he never drank before he married Maggie. She asks Maggie about their sex life, insisting something is wrong. After she leaves, Maggie feels alone. She stares at the mirror, mocking herself as “Maggie the Cat.” Brick emerges from the bathroom and refills his drink. Maggie believes their sex life “was cut off short” (823), but is certain it will return—so she works to stay attractive. She pleads with him to look at her body as other men do, but he again encourages her to take a lover. She refuses, claiming she would rather stay on the hot tin roof. Brick suggests Maggie leave him, but she also rejects this. She doesn’t have money for divorce and reminds him that Big Daddy is dying of cancer. Brick is confused because Big Mama just announced that his father’s condition isn’t life-threatening. Maggie reveals she and other family members hid his cancer diagnosis to preserve the human dream of “life everlasting” (887). The family will tell Big Mama the truth after the party, but for now, Maggie tells Brick that they have to stop Mae and Gooper from denying Brick’s inheritance. She has been poor all her life and is determined to stake her claim to Big Daddy’s fortune. Brick continues drinking as she talks, wandering out of the room.

As she slips her bracelets on, Maggie tells Brick that her mistake was confessing “that thing with Skipper” (957). Brick warns her to shut up, but she reveals she slept with Skipper “because it made both of [them] feel a little bit closer to [Brick]” (964). He shouts to one of his nieces to bring everyone upstairs to start the party. However, Maggie continues: She says Brick and Skipper’s love was “one of those beautiful, ideal things” from a Greek myth, but could never be talked about or “carried through to anything satisfying” (993). Brick threatens to kill her with his crutch, claiming his friendship with Skipper was the “one great good true thing in his life” and accusing Maggie of “naming it dirty” (1011). She denies this, arguing Skipper died because his love was too pure. Brick points out he married her, and she agrees only Skipper felt “unconscious desire” (1024) in their friendship. Maggie recounts her and Brick’s marriage and graduation from college, reminding Brick that he and Skipper turned down job offers so they could start a professional football team. However, Skipper started drinking, and Brick had to stop playing after a spinal injury. On Thanksgiving, Brick watched their team’s game from a hospital room, and they lost because Skipper was drunk. After the game, Maggie drank with Skipper, and told him to admit his love for Brick or let him go. He slapped her but later slept with her in “a pitiful, ineffectual little attempt” (1033) to prove her wrong. 

Brick lashes out at Maggie with his crutch, and she remarks she “destroyed” Skipper by voicing a “truth” forbidden by society. After sleeping with Maggie, Skipper “was nothing at all but a receptacle for liquor and drugs” (1038). Brick tries to hit her again, and she says she doesn’t claim to be a good person, but is at least honest. She reminds him that while Skipper is dead, she is alive. Brick throws his crutch across the room as one of his nieces enters. She returns his crutch, and Maggie tells her to leave. The girl retorts that Maggie is jealous because she doesn’t have children and prances out. Alone again, Maggie tells Brick that she went to see a gynecologist and that there is no reason she can’t have babies. He points out that it is difficult to have a child with “a man that can’t stand you” (1093), and she admits she will have to solve this problem. They are interrupted as the rest of the family enters for Big Daddy’s party.