Use this page when you know the book but need the right person, force, or relationship to carry the argument.
Come here when you need to sort out who matters, what they want, and where they actually help your argument in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Contents
Maggie is the most driven person in the play. She grew up poor, married into money, and refuses to lose her position. She talks when Brick won't, lies when the truth won't work, and keeps fighting even when Brick gives her nothing back. She is the play's engine.
Brick is a former athlete who has stopped engaging with his own life. He drinks to reach a state of numbness and resists every attempt to pull him back. His guilt over Skipper's death is the wound the play keeps pressing on. He changes slightly by the end, but Williams leaves it ambiguous.
Big Daddy is loud, blunt, and used to being the most powerful person in any room. He built the plantation himself and has contempt for weakness and pretense. His conversation with Brick in Act Two is the most honest exchange in the play, and it costs him the comfort of his false diagnosis.
Big Mama is devoted to Big Daddy in a way he openly rejects. She is often played for comic relief early in the play, but her grief when she learns the truth about his cancer is genuine. She represents loyalty that goes unrewarded.
Gooper is Brick's older brother, a lawyer with children and a plan. He has always done everything right and always been overshadowed by Brick. His push for the inheritance is calculating but not entirely unsympathetic; he has been waiting his whole life to be chosen first.
Mae is Gooper's wife and his partner in the inheritance campaign. She monitors Maggie closely, knows the pregnancy is a lie, and uses the children as props in the family performance. She is shrewd and unpleasant, but she is also playing the same game as everyone else.
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