|
The setting for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a Mississippi plantation in the summer in the mid 1950s. Big Daddy, one of the main characters in the play, is the owner of the plantation. On the plantation is where cotton is picked. The 1950s is the time where the Civil Rights movement was in effect. At this time, nobody had slaves, but almost all of the field hands and the servants for Big Daddy were black.
 In 1953, President Eisenhower even made it an executive order that if a federal employee were found to be a homosexual that he or she could be fired. Most defense industries and others with government contracts followed this example. The U.S. Postal Service even aided these industries by putting tracers on suspected homosexuals' mail in order to gather enough evidence for dismissal and possibly arrest.Because the play setting is in the mid-1950s, that means that it takes place after World War II, when the baby boom started to take place. This means that it was normal for husbands and wives to have multiple children at this point in time. Gooper and Mae, Brick's brother and sister-in-law, have five children and another one on the way. Maggie and Brick don't have any children of their own. Aside from the fact that Big Daddy does want to give his plantation to Brick; Mae and Gooper feel that they are entitled to it because they have children that can take over things once they age. The fact that Brick and Maggie have not had any children after being together and being married is one of the main points of frustration for "Maggie the Cat" in the play. Not just because she does want to have children of her own; but also because she doesn't want to see Brick lose his share of the land just because he won't go to bed with her to even try to conceive a child. Sources:
|
