Examine the roles of women in the play( by Tennessee Williams)

Please be aware to get information only from the play because I lost marks the last essay because some information were not in the play. Also keep in mind if I got a bad mark in this essay I will fail this course!

Use present tense.

Roles of Women in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is among the major plays by Tennessee Williams. The play is set in the Mississippi Delta on a plantation owned by Big Daddy Pollit, a wealthy tycoon in the area. The play centers on relationships among Big Daddy’s family members. Even though the play focuses on Big Daddy’s favorite son, Brick, and Brick’s wife, Maggie (also known as the Cat), it is about gender roles, focusing what the society expects of women. This play was written at a time when women were expected to find worth in marriages and to create sound family structures. Because a woman had children to take care of; she had responsibility for ensuring the continuity of the family. Even though the women characters in the play are shown as dependent creatures with diverse characteristics, they are all constrained by the norms and rules of society. This is because women were obligated to marry and, even when living miserable lives, pleasing their husbands. In the play, Brick is more than willing to offer Maggie that option, but she doesn't want to take it. In the case of Maggie and Brick, the drunkard husband is always reminding his wife that they are married in name only and living together to please the family. While Maggie has vowed to spend the rest of his life with Brick, she cannot experience emotional or physical intimacy. She does, however, accept Brick the way he is. She wants all of Brick and his love, but since she can not have that, she accepts the situation. Maggie still lives with Brick as per the expectations of society and the family. While Maggie wants a child with her husband to fulfill the family’s demands, Brick asks her how she is going to have a child with the man who hates her. This is an outright declaration that Brick does not want her in her life. As a woman, she has nothing to say in marriage. While women in this time could marry men who loved them, this is not the case in this play. Instead, the male characters are damaged and thus unable to love their wives as they should. Nevertheless, since women were to stay in marriages despite how oppressive those unions were; their strength was shown by the extent to which they could withstand these marriages. Maggie is not staying just to fulfill society’s expectations. She loves Brick and wants the money and status he and his family can give her. Both Brick and Big Daddy do not believe that their women love them. Big Mama behaves like a loyal partner who will stand anything from her husband. While she demonstrates loyalty and love for Big Daddy, Big Daddy does not see her as adding any value to his life. While she seems silly, this is her technique for surviving. Mae, who seems to be doing well, is perceived this way only because she is a baby-making machine. With five children and the sixth on the way. Since she has performed her duty, giving birth and thus ensuring the continuation of the family, her husband sees her as his path to achieving his dream of inheriting his father’s property. Mae is expected by Margaret to always parade her children in front of Big Daddy to prove to him that she is continuing the family, unlike Brick and Maggie. Since Daddy will not allow any of his sons inherit the plantation without assurance that his lineage will continue. As the play starts, Brick is taking a shower Maggie wants to use this opportunity to seduce him. However, Brick argues that she is only making a fool of herself. Based on an earlier declaration that failure to love her has made her a ‘cat on a hot tin roof’. At this point, it is clear that Maggie is aware that Brick does not love her. However, since in her society she will be blamed if her marriage does not work, she has to perform her duties somehow. Further, Maggie comes from a poor background and sees her marriage to Brick and bearing children for the family as the assurance of her financial security. She will be blamed by Brick’s family, but not necessarily bu society. The major duty of a woman in marriage was giving birth, and this is what Maggie wants to do. She can accept that her husband is a drunkard, gay, and not in love. Also the reason toward the end of the play that she lies that she is pregnant and tries to seduce her husband to assure that she and her husband obtain part of Big Daddy's estate after he dies. Even though Maggie desperately declares her love for Brick, just as Big Mama has declared her love for Big Daddy, Maggie gets the same response Big Mama got: “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was true?. This lie might prove to be fruitful for Maggie. To make the lie true, she convinces Brick to have sex with her in exchange for liquor. Maggie's basic character remains the same throughout the play. A progression can be seen, however, through her possible success in achieving her goal, and her humor and love make her sympathetic. Big Daddy, as the head of the family also plays a major role in dictating the role of women in his family. The fact that he declares that he will leave the plantation to the son with children proves that he sees women as sources of children. He is very free with his son, Brick when discussing his concept of women as objects to satisfy men sexually. He is not scared to show his sexual attraction to Maggie, his daughter-in-law, because of her physical attributes. He does not understand how Brick can ignore such a wonderful sexual object in bed. As evidenced in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” the role of women was to bear children and ensure that men had functional family structures, seen in the cases of Big Mama, Mae, and Maggie. Women showed courage by withstanding abusive marriages. There was nothing like divorce irrespective of how badly a husband treated a woman. Women in this play had to seduce their husbands to get them pregnant even when doing so would result in insults. They also had to support their plans, even when they were not happy with their husbands as is the case with Mae, who has to support her husband as he pursues the estate. Work Cited Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 1955