How could I not give this book 5 stars.
This is the start of an essay I wrote on this play for school:
Tennessee Williams’ 1955 play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and its 1958 film adaptation directed by Richard Brooks both offer a polarised view of femininity, whether women are portrayed as ‘monsters of fertility’ or objects of desire. Big Mama is the one who suffers from the most ridicule and dehumanisation, mostly by Big Daddy in both the play and the film. What sets the two apart is the way Big Mama reacts to the abuse. Maggie, on the other hand, has what Big Mama now lacks, which is that is she is often an object of sexual desire. In the film in particular, there is a visual representation of this through Hollywood’s ‘it’ girl at the time, Elizabeth Taylor.  While the film portrays women as extreme ends of the spectrum, the play gives women’s lives somewhat a sense of normalcy, shown particularly through the comparison of Maggie and Mae and often the middle ground through Big Mama. Williams shows that women have much more depth than their physical appearance, particularly in the 1950s where women were expected to be either a ‘monster of fertility’ or on the other end of the spectrum, someone whose sexuality is supposed to be worshipped by men in particular.