Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Tennessee Williams's second Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, confronts homosexuality, father-and-son relationships, greed, manipulation, aging, and death. It is considered today with A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie as among his finest works for the stage. In this new offering in the Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations series, Harold Bloom offers his critical eye to the characters of Brick, Big Daddy,l and the deceptive Maggie the Cat, presented here with a bibliography, a chronology of Williams's life, and a handy index.

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is an intense drama about the members of wealthy Southern family as they grapple with one another over who will inherit the family estate. Throughout the play, the characters must face greed, mortality, homosexuality, disappointment, and disgust. The play was written by Tennessee Williams and was first performed in the Morosco Theater in New York City on March 24, 1955. It was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

In this unique and engaging collection, twelve essays celebrate the legacy of one of America's most important playwrights and investigate Williams's enduring effect on America's cultural, theatrical, and literary heritage.   Like Faulkner before him, Tennessee Williams gave universal appeal to southern characters and settings. His major plays, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Glass Menagerie to A Streetcar Named Desire and Night of the Iguana, continue to capture America's popular imagination, a significant legacy. Though he died in 1983, only recently have Williams's papers become available to the public, bringing to light a number of intriguing discoveries--letters, drafts, and several unpublished and unproduced plays. These recent developments make a reassessment of Williams's life and work both timely and needed. The essays in this collection originated as presentations at the 27th annual Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature at The University of Alabama in 1999. The book addresses a wide range of topics, among them the influence of popular culture on Williams's plays, and, in turn, his influence on popular culture; his relationship to Hollywood and his struggles with censorship, Hollywood standards, and the competing vision of directors such as Elia Kazan; his depictions of gender and sexuality; and issues raised by recently discovered plays. Anyone interested in American literature and drama will find this collection of fresh, accessible essays a rewarding perspective on the life, work, and legacy of one of the bright stars of American theatre.