Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the play’s treatment of alcohol addiction and anti-gay bias.

Throughout Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, characters adhere and subvert traditional gender roles. Men and women are expected to behave in specific ways to construct the ideal American family. However, as the play progresses, adherence to gender roles is revealed to be an illusion, a symptom of the “mendacity” of society. Characters like Brick and Maggie appear to conform to gender stereotypes, but oftentimes obscure complex realities. Meanwhile, characters who unquestioningly embrace gender stereotypes are framed as “grotesque” or “ugly,” suggesting their complicity in deception.

As two of the play’s most complex characters, Brick and Maggie illustrate the illusion and deception in portraying traditional gender roles. From the outside, Brick and Maggie are a perfect couple: Brick is a classically handsome all-American man, a former football star, while Maggie is likewise beautiful, spending Act I in her slip, primping and preparing for Big Daddy’s birthday party. However, upon closer inspection, Brick is far from unshakable, and Maggie is not delicate. Brick is “broken,” literally and metaphorically: He cannot move on his broken ankle without his literal crutch, and cannot function without the metaphorical crutch of alcohol.