Psychoanalytic Criticism in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

What is Psychoanalytic Criticism and how can it relate to the play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams? Psychoanalytic Criticism was invented in the works of Sigmund Freud and consist of facts that proves that literacy readings express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author. Freud proposed that there are three parts of the mind, the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious. The unconscious is the part of the mind that stores feelings, thoughts, and urges unaware to the individual.

These mental contents and processes often influence the conscious experience even though we are unaware of their existence. During the play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams each characters seem to portray a great amount of deep core issues that they are unaware of and allows the audience to evaluate and question.

The psychoanalytic concept that the first character Brick shows in the play is extremely bipolar. Throughout the play, Brick shows some deep core issues like “Fear of intimacy.

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.. Fear of abandonment... Fear of betrayal... Low self-esteem…[and] Insecure or unstable sense of self” and his relationship with everyone in his life seems to put light on those issue for him (Tyson 16-17). Brick’s relationship with his wife, Maggie, seem to uncover his fear of intimacy because he distanced himself from his wife and spent such a long time without physically satisfying Maggie that it gets to the point where she tries to make him jealous by saying “Other men still want [her and that she] still turns heads on the street” and she also forces him to satisfy her “by locking his liquor up”(Williams 50, 172).

During his football career Brick was best friend with with one of the players named Skipper, the relationship Brick had with Skipper had the most effect on Brick, “Skipper and [Brick] had a clean, true thing between [themselves]— had a clean friendship practically all [their] lives”, however when Skipper died, Brick seemed to have a want and a need of a mental breakdown which made him turn to the alcohol as the mechanism.

The psychoanalytic concept that the second character Big Mama shows is “Fear of abandonment” (Tyson 16). Big Mama is the mother of Brick and Gooper and seems to be the person that everyone want to impress just to get Big Daddy to pay attention to them. Big mama is portrayed as a person that needs everyone to know that she is there, whether it is by others being “pretty cruel” to her or by putting “[her] loud voice everywhere, [her] fat old body butting in here and there” (Williams 68,78). However, Big Mama loves material things to the extent where it affects her relationship with others. For example, Big Mama went traveling with big daddy and “brought more stuff than [anyone] could haul in a couple boxcar… everywhere [Big Mama] wint on this whirlwind tour, [Big Mama] bought, bought, bought” a whole lot of stuff that is in the basement being unused by anyone and she could care less about them (William 88). Big Mama also cited with Mae and Gooper to get the company because she knew she could relate a lot with Mae when it comes to taking care of children and letting the men of the family to take care of business while they life a lavish life.

The psychoanalytic concept that the third character Gooper seem to show is “Low self-esteem [and] oedipal fixation” (Tyson 16-17). Gooper is the first child of Big Mama and as the first child Gooper seems to want the attention to be on him and no one else. Gooper did everything that he could to show big daddy that he was the perfect candidate to receive the company, including “giv[ing] himself body and soul to keeping [the company] up for the past 5 years” while Big Daddy was in his time of medical need, however, Gooper was still “treated like [he] was barely good enough to spit on and sometimes not even good enough for that”(William 154, 156). But when Big Mama announced that Brick was going to get the company, it seem to enlarge Gooper’s hatred for Brick and he tries to put Brick down for being an “alcoholic” (Williams 101). Gooper has a deep want to prove to himself and to people that he is more like Big Daddy than Brick ever was or is and that he is more capable than anyone to enlarge Big Daddy’s company.

The psychoanalytic concept that the fourth character Big Daddy shows is “Fear of intimacy” (Tyson 16). Big Daddy is the bread winner, the provider, and the business owner of his household however he did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Big Daddy grew up “quit[ing] school at ten years old and went to work like a nigger in the fields” and as the business “got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger”, he ended up marrying Ida (also known as Big Mama) and although he believed Big mama when she said he probably had Cancer which made him go “through the laboratory from A to Z”, he never really allowed himself to be vulnerable around Big Mama(Williams 79). Big Daddy always find a way to put Big Mama down, whether it is by saying “[she is] too old an’ too fat fo’ that sort of crazy kid stuff” she does or it is by denying the fact that she “love[s] [his] hate and [his] hardness” (Williams 70,80).

The psychoanalytic concept the fifth character Maggie shows is “fear of abandonment” (Tyson 16). Maggie is or was a lovesick puppy that followed Brick around to all of his games and tournaments and all she really wanted was for Brick to give her more attention than he was giving his fans. Maggie is very similar to Big Mama when it comes to having people’s attention on her. However, Maggie’s jealousy of Brick and Skipper’s relationships seem to have gotten herself in a bad mix up where she want to get rid of anyone close enough to Brick that might want to get rid of her in Brick‘s life. One of the people that had any chance of getting rid of her was Skipper. However, before Skipper could do anything about Maggie, she made sure he knew about the way that Brick felt about him and it was nothing good at all.

The psychoanalytic concept the sixth character Skipper shows is “fear of abandonment”(Tyson 16). Skipper is Brick’s best friend, they were joined to the hip when it came to anything. However most people see their friendship as a romantic relationship and one of those people was Maggie. Skipper, hearing what maggie thought of him and Brick, persuaded him to go to bed with Maggie “to prove it wasn’t true, and when it didn't work out, he thought it was true” and most people feel “disgusted … by things like that” (Williams 121,125). Skipper thought and in some way knew that Brick was one of the people that were disgusted by the idea of being involved with another man but he still called Brick and “made a drunken confession to [him] and on which [he] hung up” and the rejection was so bad that he decided to kill himself.

The psychoanalytic concept the seventh character Mae shows is “fear of abandonment” (Tyson 16). Mae is the wife of Gooper and she is the most fertilized women in the household. Mae and Gooper have 5 children and one on the way and Mae is doing everything she could to make sure that her family is well off. Mae is the person that persuaded Gooper to create “a plan to protect the biggest estate in the Delta” and that same plan gives Gooper some kind of leverage over the family so that he and his family could get what they want (Williams 159). Mae is also the biggest instigator in the family. She insist on listening to Brick and Maggie’s private conversation, she does not only listen in on them but seem to talk about what they’ve discussed with her husband and children and now all she has to do is sit back and watch them bully Maggie about something that is seriously none of their business.

In conclusion, the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams has a lot of characters that seem to hide or be ashamed of their psychoanalytic concept. Firstly, Brick being the second and last child of Big Mama seem to have created a pedestal for him and his sporting ways however he will always feel the burning shame of being responsible for Skipper’s death and as a cause of that use alcohol as a defence mechanism and he also detach himself with everyone around him. Secondly, Gooper being Big Mama’s first child does not put him in a pedestal as high as Brick’s but creates a competition between the boys for Big Daddy’s attention.