English Literature

Introduction
Despite his initial protests to the contrary, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that Tennessee Williams indeed intended to create in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a major character in the form of Brick who was unequivocally homosexual in a society which viewed such a sexual orientation as a serious deviation from social expectations and norms.  A review of the academic literature reveals that homosexuality was a theme which pervaded much of Williams work in one form or another at the same time, the literature also tends to take a neutral view toward Bricks actual sexual orientation.  This paper will argue, on the other hand, that Williams did create Brick as a homosexual character and that his characterization was deliberately subtle because of the historical context in which the play was written and because of Williams desire to keep his own sexual orientation cloaked from the general public at a time when homosexuals were being persecuted in the United States.

In terms of learning experiences and learning objectives can be derived from a reading and analysis of this piece of literature, there is a wealth of information.  First, this play illustrates in a very profound way how literature can be used as a form of social or political criticism.  Writers can create characters, settings, and conflicts in order to present real matters of social and political debate.  Second, this play demonstrates the oppressive constraints which can be imposed by dominant social and cultural values.  In the instant play, for instance, not even a genuine feeling of love can transcend these dominant social values, expectations, and constraints.  Finally, this play highlights the vulnerability of a sensitive male by creating an environment in which only strength and aggressiveness are viewed as positive male traits.  This can, as this paper will show, lead to a devastating sense of emotional loneliness and psychological trauma.  The following discussion and analysis are written with these specific learning experiences and learning objectives in mind.
Historical Context  Tennessee Williams and American Taboos in the 1950s

As an initial matter, it is important to place Williams play in its proper historical context.  This is especially true with respect to this papers thesis, that homosexuality was a more important and pervasive theme with respect to Brick than is commonly acknowledged, because the academic literature seems to deny or otherwise minimize Bricks homosexuality while emphasizing Skippers confession of a homosexual attraction to Brick.  It is certainly true that scholars and commentators have discussed in detail the homosexual theme what emerges from a careful review of these commentaries, however, is a rather persistent suggestion that Bricks drinking and his general sense of unhappiness was more connected to his sadness toward events generally rather than the consequence of the death of his true love.  Part of this confusion has been fuelled by the playwrights own words more specifically, when questioned about Bricks sexuality back in 1955, Tennessee Williams stated that

Brick is definitely not a homosexual . . . Bricks self-pity and recourse to the bottle are not the result of a guilty conscience in that regard.... It is his bitterness at Skippers tragedy that has caused Brick to turn against his wife and find solace in drink, rather than any personal involvement, although I do suggest that, at least at some time in his life, there have been unrealized abnormal tendencies
This quote demonstrates that even the creator of the play was being mendacious or that he retained unresolved opinions about his main character.  He begins by stating that Brick was unequivocally of a heterosexual orientation at the end of the quote, however, Williams delicately suggests that Brick was in fact in possession of what he characterized as abnormal tendencies and that these tendencies or urges were never physically consummated.  The most that can be derived from this quotation from the playwright is a superficial conclusion to the effect that Brick never engaged in physical sexual activities with Skipper.  He did nevertheless have sexual urges toward Skipper, he declared his devotion to his best friend both during life and after his subsequent death, and given the textual evidence and the qualifications that Williams made it would seem impossible to conclude that Brick was not homosexual.  Further, given the fact that he is completely uninterested in his beautiful wife from a sexual point of view, it would appear unreasonable to conclude that Brick was of a bisexual orientation.  The most rational interpretation is that Brick was intended as a homosexual character, that this homosexuality could not be written about or otherwise presented explicitly because of social constraints in existence at the time the play was written and performed, and because Williams was worried about criticism of his own sexuality if he presented Bricks homosexuality more forthrightly.

It is well-established in the historical literature that homosexuality remained a taboo topic when Williams wrote Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  Indeed, it was worse than being taboo and in many instances an admission of homosexuality at this time led to severe social sanctions and consequences.  It has been noted, for instance, that the U.S. Senate held hearings in 1950 on homosexuals and other sex perverts working for the government. These hearings spurred the purge of thousands of gay men and lesbians working in government agencies, and they exacerbated police surveillance of homosexual communities nationwide during the 1950s and into the 1960s.

This surveillance extended to the media and the entertainment industry in which Tennessee Williams was employed.  It has also been noted that homosexuals were treated by the government as being sympathetic to communism and that many homosexuals were unfairly characterized as being both deviant and potential traitors to America.  As a result, and fearing becoming targeted by the government at the time, many homosexuals felt pressure to pass as heterosexual in order to remain employed, they increasingly resented gay male swishes gay men who appropriated female gender mannerisms as visible markers of their sexual identity.  It was within this historical context, in which homosexuals were being targeted as sexual deviants and also as potential communist sympathizers particularly in the entertainment industry, that Tennessee Williams made the aforementioned comments about Bricks sexuality.  It is hardly surprising that he downplayed his intentions with respect to Brick, that both in his interviews and the plays text he presented Bricks true homosexuality very subtly in order to avoid government censor, and that homosexual issues were extraordinarily contentious at the time the play was written.  Thus, for purposes of this papers thesis, it is important to clearly understand the historical framework within which the play was written and performed.  Explicit portrayals of homosexuality were frequently censored and the writers could be blacklisted or worse.  It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Tennessee Williams was so circumspect in his interviews about his creation of Bricks character.  A textual analysis suggests rather forcefully that Brick was intended and functioned as a male homosexual hiding his true sexual orientation from his family and from the society in which he lived.

Personal Context  The Authors Sexuality
In addition to the aforementioned social constraints regarding the portrayal of male homosexuality in a play in the 1950s, some scholars have also focused in the sexual orientation of Tennessee Williams.  One of the more conventional types of analyses in this respect argues that A number of critics have recently argued that what they perceive as Williamss inability to come to terms with his homosexuality resulted in a split in his work between public and private forms of literary discourse.   These conclusions have been based on a comparative study of Williams different types of writing.  It has been noted, for example, that Williams created openly homosexual male characters in both his poetry and in his short stories whereas he failed to portray male homosexuality so explicitly in his plays.  The proffered explanation is that he refused to do so in his plays because they reached a broader audience and might expose his homosexuality to public scrutiny. The only way in which Williams was supposedly willing to express his gay identity in his plays was by refracting it.   The characters in his play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, must therefore be studied with reference to the historical context and with reference to the playwrights larger body of work.

Thus, before proceeding to a textual analysis of Bricks character, it must be acknowledged that Williams interviews in which he disavowed the possibility that Brick was a deliberately created homosexual character are likely to have been deceptions aimed at self-protection.  First, the government was actively and aggressively waging a cultural war against homosexuals and it would have been personally and professionally dangerous for Williams to have honestly declared in these interviews that Brick was indeed a homosexual.  Second, a review of Williams larger body of work clearly demonstrates that he frequently created highly visible homosexual male characters in private writings with a limited audience whereas he created much more subtle types of homosexual male characters in his plays that were exposed to a much larger audience.  Finally, perhaps attempting to hide his own homosexuality, Williams was fearful of being exposed and subjected to the homosexual and communist witch hunts of the time.  The remainder of this paper will analyze the textual evidence in support of this papers thesis that Brick was unequivocally a homosexual character hiding his sexual orientation from both his family and from society more generally.

Bricks Homosexuality  An Unequivocal Sexual Orientation
Bricks sexual orientation is most clearly illustrated with reference to discussions and disagreements that he has with his wife and with his father. The object of his sexual affection, his old friend and football teammate Skipper, has died before the play commences and the precise nature of the relationship is presented in terms of reflections and commentaries by the living characters.  Perhaps the most pivotal piece of textual evidence pointing to Williams subtle creation of Brick as a homosexual character, at least from an analytical point of view, is the fact that Skipper declared his homosexual attraction to Brick before he died.  Maggie, his wife, continuously sought to understand why her husband was so fond of him and so reluctant to treat her with a similar level of affection.  Indeed, at one point, she traced the origins of this budding homosexual attraction to an earlier time when they were all university students specifically, Maggie stated that  It was one of those beautiful, ideal things they tell about in the Greek legends. It couldnt be anything else, you being you, and thats what made it so sad, thats what made it so awful, because it was love that could never be carried through to anything satisfying or even talked about plainly. Brick, I tell you, you got to believe me, Brick, I do understand all about it I-I think it was noble ... Why I remember when we double-dated at college, Gladys Fitzgerald and I and you and Skipper, it was more like a date between you and Skipper. Gladys and I were just sort of tagging along as if it was necessary to chaperone you--to make a good public impression.

This passage is telling for several reasons.  First, Bricks wife is intimately aware of his lack of a sexual appetite for women.  She is his wife, she is described as being beautiful and witty, and the fact that an ostensibly masculine football player would not be sexually interested in his wife is surprising.  Second, this quote traces Maggies suspicions back a number of years her suggestion that she and Skippers date were merely functioning as social chaperones in the name of social propriety reinforces the notion that the most intimate relationship was always between Brick and Skipper and that women were superfluous.  Finally, this statement has been made by Maggie with her having previously slept with Skipper in an effort to feel more intimate with Brick because she has always known that she and Skipper were in love with Brick whereas Brick resented his wife because he loved Skipper.  Williams has thus created a wife who functions as a personal cover for Bricks hidden sexuality, a chaperone for the plays public audience, and it is quite clear to Maggie if not to the reader that Brick is unequivocally in love with Skipper in the romantic sense.  Bricks denials are predictable in his social environment, much as Williams denial that Brick was a homosexual was motivated by the repressive social environment in which he worked, and these denials function more as attempts to hide than they represent actual denials of the truths being asserted.

Brinks difficult conversation with his father in the second act reinforces the fact that everyone within the play is clearly aware of Brinks sexual orientation.  Whereas his wife represents a sort of chaperone behind whom Brink hides his homosexuality, his father seems to represent society more generally.  Big Daddy, the father, is the head of the family and the head of the family business.  He thereby functions as a sort of masculine model against which Brink is developed as an entirely different type of man.  One scholar has noted in this respect that Big Daddy Pollitt appears to have tyrannical control over his Delta plantation empire, seeming to rule without pity his wife, Big Mama sons, Brick and Gooper daughters-in-law, Maggie and Mae his grandchildren his doctor and his minister HYPERLINK httpwww.questia.comPM.qstaod5000385234(Kullman, 1995, p. 668).   An integral feature of Big Daddys tyrannical masculinity is his definite heterosexual orientation.  At one point during his heated discussion with Brink, for instance, Big Daddy states that Yes, boy. Ill tell you somethingthat you might not guess. I still havedesire for women and this is my sixty-fifth birthday (Williams, 1998, p. 119).  The dominant male role model is therefore heterosexual, he questions his sons sexuality, and he doesnt believe that his lack of sexual interest in Maggie can be attributed to age or boredom.  Once again, however, Brink attempts to deny the true substance of the relationship interestingly, however, he feels obliged to provide his father a further explanation that he had not provided his wife, stating that

Skipper and me had a clean true thing between us-had a clean friendship, practically all our lives, till Maggie got the idea youre talking about. Normal No-It was too rare to be normal, any true thing between two people is too rare to be normal. Oh, once in a while he put his hand on my shoulder or Id put mine on his, oh, maybe even when we were touring the country in pro-football en shared hotel-rooms wed reach across the space between the two beds and shake hands to say goodnight.

Again, Williams is subtle.  He is subtle because he allows Brink to acknowledge feelings of emotional intimacy and minor types of physical contact.  He has Brink admit that this particular relationship between two men was not normal and that they touched while in two beds located close together.  Big Daddy does not believe Brink any more than Maggie, although they are motivated by different concerns and considerations, and Williams deliberate textual choice suggests that the reader as should not believe Brink either.
 
What consistently emerges from a close examination of the textual descriptions and the dialogue is a man who is not allowed to express his sexuality openly and confidently.  He is hiding from his wife, from his father, and from the rest of his family as well as from society more generally.  The conventional wisdom seems to be that Brink turns to alcohol in sadness over his friends death.  The more accurate conclusion might be that Brink felt responsible for Skippers death because he was unable to break free of social norms and constraints in order to admit his romantic attraction as Skipper himself had done.  Skipper had died, figuratively at least of a broken heart, and Brink seems on the road toward drinking himself into an early grave.  The text, in short, is not coherent unless it is read to understand that Brink was himself a homosexual in hiding.  When this type of textual analysis is combined with the historical context in which the play was written, and Tennessee Williams own personal fears about his homosexuality becoming known more widely, it becomes even more likely that Brink was in some ways an alter ego and that his denials were attempts to protect himself in a cruel and judgmental world.

Conclusion
In the final analysis, given all of the available evidence, it seems fair to suggest that art imitated life to a certain extant in Tennessee Williams Cat on a Tin Roof.  The play was written and performed in a time when the American government was persecuting homosexuals and hunting suspected communists.  Brink was the ultimate symbol of American masculinity in certain ways, such as being a physically fit football player, and yet he was nevertheless hiding his homosexuality.  Evidence in the historical record supports such a conclusion, evidence in the authors background and other written work supports such a conclusion, and all of the behavior of the plays characters supports such a conclusion.  Whether Williams was superimposing his own fears onto the characterization of Brink is a plausible line of reasoning though beyond the scope of this paper.  It is enough to conclude that, despite Williams public denials, there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the thesis that Brink was deliberately though subtly created as a male homosexual in a world where homosexuality was socially unacceptable.