In the first act we meet Margaret Pollitt, the wife of Brick. Maggie through her beauty and her wit has managed to escape a childhood of desperate poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitt family, but finds herself suffering in an unfulfilling marriage.
Maggie is a character who holds the audience transfixed by her beauty and poise, but she is a hysterical and dissatisfied woman left feeling lonely by her man Brick.
Brick, the youngest and favourite son of Big Daddy, is a character who possesses the charm of someone who has given up and assumed a pose of indifference before the world. He embodies an almost archetypal masculinity, that of the self-possessed, self-contained, and untouchable man. However at the same time, Brick is an obviously broken man. Turning from his homosexual desire for his dead friend Skipper, Brick has depressively withdrawn from the world behind a screen of liquor. He is reduced to the daily, mechanical search for his click that gives him peace. He chooses to locate himself on the far side of the family drama.
Brick's feelings are materialised in his injury, a broken ankle incurred while jumping hurdles on the high school athletic field.
Tennessee Williams has cleverly used “Brick” as a name, which definitely shows similar characteristics to its character. His name also could be interpreted as him building a wall between himself and others especially his wife Maggie. He is hard, isolated, impassive, detached and uncommunicative, all of which are characteristics that are reflected in his neglect of his relationship with Maggie. Brick himself has the "additional charm of that cool air of detachment”
As an audience some of the first images we gain of Maggie are very feminine and sensual ones as she "stands in a slip of ivory satin and lace". She is initially introduced as being "a pretty young woman," but this powerful asset of hers is almost useless towards Brick as he denies the one thing she has confidence in sexuality and beauty as she tries to tell him "I've kept my figure". She tries to use jealousy against her husbands constant rejections as she says that Big Daddy is the one who takes notice of her sensual "shape" as he “always drops his eyes down my body…an' licks his old chops!" But even this does not make Brick the slightest bit jealous.
Throughout the conversations between Maggie and Brick, Maggie seems to be the dominant figure. Her voice is “both rapid and drawling, always continuing a little beyond her breath" which contrasts with Brick and his very short emotionless “without interest" input in the conversation. He often questions Maggie and asks for justification of what she has said. It appears that Maggie is now used to thinking and speaking for Brick as she says to him, “Why you know what they’re up to.”
Maggie presents herself almost as vulnerable; this appears to be one of her weaknesses.
The other images of her are ones of jealousy, of Mae as she has children "no neck monsters". This jealousy is in the form of hate, towards the children of Gooper and Mae Brick's brother and sister-in-law, "it's to bad because you cant wring their necks".
" This slight input is often unnecessary, as Maggie has grown used to speaking and thinking for Brick "Why you know what they're up to"., "touches her breast and then her hips with her two hands". The feminine way in which Maggie is described relates to the feline way in which she is also portrayed "Why! - am I so catty?" she is like a "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in the may she is unable to stay still "Margaret moves about the room…moves on" Maggie's vulnerability is not only in Brick's naivety towards her "figure" but also in society "I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof!" as she is regarded as coming from a background "poor as job's turkey" "having to maintain some semblance of social position,". Maggie is guilty of committing "mendacity" she does not only lie to herself in expecting to "revive" her and Brick's "sex life" and relationship but her own lies have convinced her of it as she truly believes in it happening "and its going to revive again"
