How form changes meaning in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Amy Hale 12th Grade

At the crux of the complex ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’ is the relations that characters have with one another, most saliently how Skipper’s death corrodes the way Brick interacts with Maggie and Big Daddy. However, although this mention of Brick and Skipper’s latent homosexuality is overt in the text, it is peripherally referred to in the film, wholly changing our view of not only Brick, but Maggie too. Moreover, the set in the play is utterly transformed in the movie; redirecting our attention from a single room that “evoke[s] some ghosts,” and is “gently and poetically haunted by a relationship,” to a plethora of different environments that evoke an entirely different mood altogether. Additionally, the conclusion to the film is notably different from the text; reflecting an important plot alteration. Instead of leaving the audience with lingering questions; all is neatly resolved, thereby transforming the entire contention of the play; which is to convey the extremities of human emotion, through relationships and characters’ interactions.

The Maggie we see in the film is depicted as a self-interested, vain, disloyal and obsessed with a man who doesn’t love her back; instead of liberal, loving and although, short-tempered at...