Character Analysis in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Term Paper

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Big Daddy," in Tennessee William's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

BIG DADDY POLLITT

Big Daddy" is one of the most important characters in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." The story revolves around him and his family, and their reaction to his pending death from cancer. Big Daddy wants to make sure the estate he owns will stay in his family, and he wants his son Brick to produce the heir that will eventually inherit the estate, there is just one problem, Brick does not have any children, and he may even be a bisexual. The two men have to discover each other, admit they love each other, and try to bring the family together.

Big Daddy was just a drifter when he first came to the plantation owned by two gay men, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello. He only intended to stay long enough to do some yard work and make some pocket money, but he ends up becoming the overseer of the plantation, and inherits it when they die. He loves the "twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile," and he is determined it will stay with Brick, who he thinks is the better and more deserving of his two sons.

Big Daddy is of course a big man, powerful, with a big booming voice, and bravado to match. He eats too much, he drinks too much (although not as much as his son, Brick), and he loves other women too much. He is the "epitome of Southern masculine virility and assertiveness (158)" (Crandell 112).

He is also crude, tells dirty jokes, treats his wife like a dishrag, and is clearly not a member of the "genteel" South.

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He cannot tell his sons that he loves them; he has trouble even saying he "likes" them. "The greatest example of this lack of communication and the attempt to overcome it, can be found in the relationship between Big Daddy and Brick. Big Daddy and Brick love each other and yet they hurt each other deeply. They lacerate each other as each makes the other face a terrifying truth-Brick, in a bitter and shameful defense against his father's probing, and Big Daddy, because his love for his son will not allow him to throw his life away" (Editors).

During the play, the characters are celebrating Big Daddy's birthday, and Gooper will not tell Big Daddy he is dying until after the party, so no one knows except the son that is "practically salivating in his hunger for this power" (Editors). When Big Daddy does find out the truth, at first he does not believe it, but he does finally recognize that he is dying, which makes him even more determined to make sure Brick takes over the land, because he is the son that is most like his father, for better or worse.

He makes no apologies for his crude behavior, including the comic-rude treatment of his wife. He has no background in genteel courtesies and no….....

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