Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams, 1955) winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof explores the complex family relationships of the wealthy cotton tycoon family of Big Daddy Pollitt. Several recurring motifs such as social morés, greed, superficiality, decay, sexual desire, repression and death are explored. The role of “Maggie the Cat” was forever immortalized on the world’s psyche by the late Elizabeth Taylor and has come to be one of the most iconic roles in the dramatic canon. Cat embodies the recurring theme of mendacity especially relative to bowing to the complicated rules of social conduct in Southern society and culture. The recurring line, “Wouldn’t it be funny if it was true?” , in response to proclamations of love say much about the human fascination with “love” and the uncertainty that love brings with it.