Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Character Sketch of Big Daddy and His Tactics With Brick

Essay by sLvRk155esCollege, UndergraduateA-, November 2004

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Big Daddy is, in fact, the embodiment of the American Dream, and through his character Williams shows how the American society has sacrificed all values in the temple of the most popular value in the world, money. The American Dream has an ugly face, and Big Daddy is a commercial success, but a failure in every other way. He has failed as a human being in that he centered his little empire around himself and became blind to the needs and feelings of those around him. Big Daddy himself acts as if money is his only value as a human being, or perhaps he is afraid.

An invisible struggle takes place within Big Daddy as he tries to approach Brick, as a loving father approaches his need child, exposing his innermost tenderness and insecurity. The conflict is between his love for his child and his determination to get to the truth, and the mentality of his upbringing in a poor family where the father was usually an unapproachable, distant figure.

Through the difficulty of Big daddy and Brick to talk openly and not around the subject, Williams displays the lack of communication between people, which leads to loneliness and isolation. They talk and talk while saying nothing of essence and not listening to each other most of the time: "Communication is awful hard between people". As Brick says, "We talk, you talk in circles! We get nowhere, nowhere!" However, Big Daddy's care and willingness to understand is fierce and so is his determination to communicate with his son. "Don't let's-leave it like this, like them other talks we've had...it's always like something was left not spoken". Both men are about to find out that when they don't avoid talking of the truth it's "painful", and as Big Daddy...