Tennessee Williams Notes adapted from Sparknotes Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Act 3 Tennessee Williams Notes adapted from Sparknotes

Act 3 Act 3 begins with the revelation of Daddy's cancer, a revelation that immediately splits the family into its respective camps. The good children, that is, the successful Gooper and fertile Mae, reveal themselves in their avarice, envy, and greed. Speaking in Big Daddy's name, Mama identifies Brick and Maggie as his rightful heirs. The scene begins in dramatic irony, Mama still unaware of her husband's cancer. Especially poignant is how Mama marvels at how much Daddy ate at dinner. Note how Gooper looks to Daddy's certain suffering with "grim relish." When Gooper and the doctor begin to tell Mama, Mae, as always, performs a burlesque of the dutiful daughter-in-law. Her eagerness for the revelation is clear nevertheless. Mama pushes her aside. The revelation of Daddy's cancer to Mama is the principle action of this scene. As noted above, Mama appears as a comic and touching figure, a naïve, sincere woman who does her femininity wrong in her tragically bad taste and notoriously crude manners. Devoted to a husband who has no interest in her, Mama is a woman who above all has stood by her man. The play is enamoured and at the same time somewhat amused with this image of dogged feminine loyalty. The revelation of Daddy's cancer is Mama's dignified moment.

Act 3 Upon the revelation, Mama reveals her investments immediately, calling for her only son and begging Maggie to help him get on his feet so he can take over the estate. Gooper and Mae spring into action, appearing at their most vicious, presenting themselves as the family's rightful heirs. Their sadism reveals itself. Gooper savours Daddy's suffering, wanting him drugged up and dead. He has always resented his parents' love for Brick and has moved to protect his interests. They present Mama with a will that she firmly rejects. As Gooper has warned, however, he knows how to protect his interests. Oblivious to Gooper, Mama flings herself awkwardly against the indifferent Brick, his coolness forcing another woman into helpless desire. Though she knows all too well what has been going on, Mama places all hopes in Brick, in his assumption of his duties as Daddy's rightful heir. Brick must become a family man: he must provide Big Daddy with a "grandson as much like his son as his son is like Big Daddy." We have already remarked upon the narcissism of Big Daddy's dream. Though not explicitly observed, it is clear that the perpetuation of the family line through Brick is Daddy's immortality. Brick turns from Mama, unable to comfort her, leaving Maggie to assure her that he recognizes her plea. He appears utterly removed from the travesty before him, singing to himself softly, moving in and out of the room, turning the phonograph and drowning the others out, progressively withdrawing into his drunken haze. Brick's "almost deadness" makes it impossible for him to fulfil his filial duties and assume his place in the family line.

Act 3 As noted above, Mama invests her hopes in Brick fulfilling Big Daddy's dream and becoming a family man. The responsibilities of fatherhood would somehow stop his drinking, and the estate could go to the rightful heir. The idyllic fantasy of the family restored, however, is yet another of the play's many lies. This lie belongs to Maggie, who invents the coming of a child. In face of all she knows, Big Mama, clinging to her family, desperately fixates on her lie, running to Big Daddy to tell him his dream has been fulfilled. Its announcement and Maggie's attempt to realize it take place against the bellows of the dying Daddy. Mama second entrance for the morphine underlines the horrible agony that takes place in the adjoining rooms, an agony that takes place under Mae and Gooper's sadistic gaze. In making this lie, Maggie would assuage the dying Big Daddy and assure her and Brick's place in the household. At best it would only temporarily keep Mae and Gooper at bay. Brick, moreover, appears as untouchable as ever. His decision to not protest Maggie's lie rests less in a desire to save Maggie's face than in his resignation. Brick is bent on finding his click alone. Having finally found it, he strolls peacefully from the room, leaving Maggie in her solitude. Note here the wonderfully maudlin image of Maggie clutching her pillow in misery.

Act 3 Here Maggie becomes her most desperate, bribing her husband with liquor to conceive a child. Brick has nothing to say. He can only repeating sadly Big Daddy's bitter line— "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?"—when Maggie professes that she loves him and that he wants his love. Brick remains a broken man, deep in mourning for his beloved Skipper, wracked with guilt over his friend's death and the unspeakable desire between them, disgusted by his inability to confront their love. He has withdrawn depressively from the world. Earlier we noted Cat's affinities with conventional melodrama, a genre consisting of stock characters and soap operatic plots that hinge on romantic intrigue and end in the restoration of the happy home. Though making use of melodrama's high emotionalism, exhilarating histrionics, and other devices often considered to be in "bad taste," Cat's rather dismal ending, involving the total demystification of the family, makes its departure from this genre clear. In this respect, subsequent Cats diverge sharply from its original version, particularly its reactionary cinematic adaptation. MGM's Cat shows a Brick reformed through a more extended, and rather trite, heart-to-heart with Big Daddy. The script of the version of Cat first premiered, which was revised in collaboration with director Elia Kazan, also leans toward a more conventional resolution, though hardly to the extent of its Hollywood counterpart.