No-Neck Monsters: An Examination of Style in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1870 words)

Essay on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams examining theatrical style.

Works Cited

Cluck, Nancy Anne. "Showing or Telling: Narrators in the Drama of Tennessee Williams."
American Literature (1979): 84-93

Williams, Tennessee. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in Jacobus, Lee A. The Bedford Introduction
to Drama. Boston, Mass. [u.a: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. pp 1055-1094. Print.

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“No-Neck Monsters”: An Examination of Style
in Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Cat On A Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams is an American play first performed on March 24, 1955. The play is about the Pollitt family, and how they all converge on the family plantation -- each with their own ambitions and intentions. The central theme of the play is “mendacity” -- how lies and truth get warped and we as humans believe what we want to believe. The play’s style conveys meaning through images, wordplay, and metaphor in a subtle, yet complicated study of lies masquerading as truth in a Southern family. The argument of this essay is that the style contributes to the theme of lies and deception, especially as it relates to children in the play. First, the phrase “no-neck monsters” will be used to support the unique style in which the play’s dialogue and action is conveyed, and second, the use of this phrase is integral to the way in which the characters use and abuse each other in an endless series of lies and power struggles....