However, it can be claimed that Gooper, along with his partner Mae is really motivated the prospect of financial prosperity. Both he and Mae appear to be loyal and complaint to Big Mama and Big Daddy. Yet, despite the fact that Gooper has achieved all that society has asked of him, he remains unable to please his father, who seems to prefer Bricks company to his. Furthermore, the main link between the two is the fact that neither will let the other embrace their illusions that society has imposed upon them. This separates these two characters from all others in the novel, as Big Daddy tells Brick that there are ‘at least two people who never lied to each other.
As the play proceeds, it is revealed that Brick is severely agitated by the fact that the purity of his relationship with Skipper is strongly questioned. But he is not the only one in the Pollitt household suppressing his true feelings. For example, Big Mama hides truth about Big Daddy’s feelings towards her through a mixture of false laughter and attempts at appeasing him.
Big Daddy himself is both a victim and a perpetrator of the action of lying, as the truth of his health is kept from him, yet he tells Brick he has little emotion for his wife, for his eldest son Gooper or for his wide and grandchildren. Ironically, it is Big Daddy who tells Brick he’s ‘got to live with it, there’s nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?” The cat on a hot tin roof herself; Maggie, lies when she claims she is pregnant. However, her motives are revealed earlier when she claims “you can be young without money, but you can’t be old without it”, in regards to Bricks proposed inheritance of Big Daddy’s plantation.
However, upon occasions it becomes difficult to differentiate between elements of illusion and reality within the play. This is due to the fact that each member of the family views others through their own egos. For example, Brick seems shocked when Maggie says she loves him, saying ‘wouldn’t it be funny if that was true’, but this could be because he is unresponsive and apathetic towards her, she too must be towards him. Similarly, Big Daddy thinks that his wife is preparing to take control of the plantation, and as he does not care for her, he inflicts his lack of care onto her.
Another element that Williams uses in order to explore the themes of illusion and reality is sexuality of Brick. As Williams notes, homosexuality is an ‘inadmissible thing’. The very room in which the action unfolds was once inhabited by Peter Ochello and Jack Straw, who themselves were homosexuals. Ironically, Big Daddy, a character whose no-nonsense philosophy so strongly reverberates around the stage, seems to be tolerant regarding this matter.
He speaks with genuine warmth when discussing the opportunities that the pair offered to him. In contrast, Brick is disgusted when his father thinks he may indeed be gay. This is because he is strongly pressured by how homosexuality is regarded. Brick insultingly refers to homosexuals as “fairies,” “dirty old men” and “queers,” he insists that his relationship with Skipper was nothing more than “deep, deep friendship . . . clean and decent”. In stark contrast, we learn that Big Daddy’s tolerance stems from the fact that he has ‘lived with too much space around me to be infected by ideas of other people’.
In actual fact, it is difficult, perhaps impossible to determine Bricks sexuality. But undoubtedly, it is clear that the themes of illusion and reality have played a central role in building his negative perception of homosexuals. Williams purposely leaves the subject fraught with uncertainty, perhaps in order for the audience to decide how much of a psychological burden it has been on Brick life.
By way of conclusion, Williams explores the themes of illusion and reality through a variety of techniques, including a number of other themes which seamlessly synchronize with the basics of the main storyline. These ideas are relayed to the audience through the troubled character of Brick, who highlights the perception of illusion and reality in 1950s America.
