earticle

영어

Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof shows a family living on a big plantation in a 1950’s capitalistic America, focusing on the family's material greed, self-consciousness on heterosexuality and homosexuality, and the social cognition about sexual identity. This paper is based on the premise that Big Daddy tried to redefine heterosexuality and homosexuality, and influenced Brick to confront his own sexual identity problems. It seems that Williams let his characters discuss sexual politics on stage as part of an effort to avoid political pressure about homosexuality. In order to defend homosexuality from social condemnation, Williams used correlations between Big Daddy and Brick, Brick and Maggie, and the Goopers. Conflicts between homosexuality and heterosexuality are organically exposed through psychological or active mechanisms, such as a characters’ intimation, concealment, and violence. Examining the process of self-consciousness and common social ideals concerning sexual identity, we can verify sexual discourses and resistance under a politically exclusive 1950's American society. (Daegu Catholic University)