Campos 1
Alexis Campos
Shari Wolke
WRIT 117
16 October 2014
The Crutch that they lean on: Brick, Maggie, Gooper and Mae’s dependency in Cat on a
Hot Tin Roof
The crutch is a literal and metaphorical figure that Tennessee Williams uses in his
prizewinning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. A crutch is something you lean on physically,
mentally, and emotionally, and it is also a symbol that all the characters use in the play.
This play shows how humans can use money, items, and ideas to hold them up in life.
Tennessee Williams brilliantly used this symbol to show all the characters flaws and
faults. The crutch isn’t something the characters realize that they are using. Reading
through Cat on a Hot Tin Roof it is difficult not seeing all the ways that they use things as
a crutch to help themselves cope or be happy. The author teaches the reader that things
that you see about people may not always be what they revealed behind closed doors.
One of the main crutches used in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is used by one of the
main characters named Brick. For Brick a physical crutch is used from his injury.
Throughout the play brick needs the crutch for his mobility and his own emotional
support. “Give me my crutch,” Brick says hurt and trying to cope with his own issues
between him and his wife Maggie that when she gives him the option to, “Lean on me”
he rather allow himself to struggle and hurt then give her the satisfaction he refuses to
give her (Williams 14). Brick’s crutch is also used to criticize his masculinity “Give your
uncle his crutch, he’s a crippled, honey” which gets underneath his skin (Williams 28).
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When they use things to get under his skin he uses his crutch as a weapon “Maggie, you
want me to hit you with this crutch” which he wouldn’t have the option to do if he
wouldn’t have hurt himself (Williams 27). The author making Brick hurt and having to
use a crutch made his character a little more venerable to his troubles in life that he isn’t
willing to live with. That is the reason the Brick uses a different item as a crutch also.
Brick may be a quiet person and not say much but there is a reason behind that. He lives
with mendacity in his life that he can’t cope from it so instead of getting help he uses
alcohol as a crutch. Big Daddy loves Brick and doesn’t understand why he drinks and
wants to help him “You tell me why you drink an’ I’ll hand you one” so once again
Brick’s crutch is taken away again to bargain with someone (Williams 50). Big Daddy
isn’t the only one that has used Brick’s alcohol addiction as a way to bargain with him.
Maggie uses his addiction to get what she wants from him “and then I’ll bring you liquor,
and we’ll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death has come into” even if
it isn’t what is right (Williams 81). Brick’s issue with his crutches also causes others to
have a crutch to use of their own.
One of the other main characters Maggie uses her crutch to get her way with
everyone. Maggie’s crutch in life is Brick and his family’s money. Maggie has been
broke all her life, as indicated by her statement, “always had to suck up to people I
couldn’t stand because they had money and I was poor as Job’s turkey” (Williams 25). So
even though she is unhappy with her and Brick’s marriage she refuses to leave him
because she is scared of going back to life without all the luxuries money has given her.
She also uses Brick to give her the one thing she needs to keep all the money in the
family will give her “A child is coming, sired by Brick, and out of Maggie the Cat” by
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lying and saying she is having a child by Brick she is getting her money from the baby
and the satisfaction of her and Brick’s marriage (Williams 78). Maggie will use
everybody to get what she wants even if it has to be a lie. Even though all the family
doesn’t like and believe the lie she has told “Son, I’m goin’ up on the roof to the
belvedere on th’ roof to look over my kingdom before I give up my kingdom-“ Big
Daddy does and he gives her exactly what she has been hoping for (Williams 78).
The last biggest crutch that they have in the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is Gooper and
Mae. Gooper and Mae have the same type of mentality as Maggie has for their life.
Gooper and Mae may have a wealthy family but it doesn’t mean that they get all the
money, so they feel the need to get what they think they are obligated to have. They have
the power over things by knowing what others do not “they’re up to cutting you out of
your father’s estate, and now that we know Big Daddy’s-dyin’ of-cancer” and by having
this upper hand they make a plan to get what they will not get (Williams 8). Gooper and
Mae believe that they will get what they want if they can con their way into it “I’m askin’
for a square deal an’ by God, I expect to get one” but in reality it could never happen
because the author made Big Daddy is a very smart individual (Williams 72).
Despite the many flaws and faults that the characters have, they all have a crutch
to lean on for support. Their crutches that they depend on and hide behind reflect on them
as people. The characters will never be non-dependent of these crutches as long as they
choose to use them. They do not want to accept that they use these things as a crutch nor
do they see it as a flaw. Ironically crutches are supposed to help a person but when it
comes to Brick, Maggie, Gooper and Mae their crutches only hurt themselves. We may
never know what truly happens but we can assume the worst but hope for the best.
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Work Cited
Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York: New Directions Publishing
Corporation, 2004. Print