University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

A Descriptive Study Of The Value Commitments Of The Principal Characters In Four Recent American Plays: 'Picnic,' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,' 'Long Day'S Journey Into Night,' And 'Look Homeward, Angel'

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A Descriptive Study Of The Value Commitments Of The Principal Characters In Four Recent American Plays: 'Picnic,' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,' 'Long Day'S Journey Into Night,' And 'Look Homeward, Angel'

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Content Copyright by
ELEANOR ALVERTA GOBRECHT
1963
A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF THE VALUE COMMITMENTS OF THE
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS IN FOUR RECENT AMERICAN PLAYS:
PICNIC, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.
AND LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL
by
Eleanor Alverta Gobrecht
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Communication- -Drama)
January 1963
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES 7, CALIFORNIA
This dissertation, written by
EleanarAlverta.Gobrecht.....
under the direction of hex....Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
c r . .......
Dean
Date... January.. .1 9. 63...........
DISSERTATION c o m m i t t e e
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PROBLEM ......................... 1
Introduction .............................. 1
Statement of the problem................... 3
Definitions of terms....................... 4
Methodology and procedures ................. 15
II. PICNIC...................................... 24
Introduction .............................. 24
Value commitments of the characters......... 26
III. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF....................... 59
Introduction.............................. 59
Value commitments of the characters......... 62
IV. LONG DAY1 S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT.................. 103
Introduction ......................... 103
Value commitments of the characters........... 115
V. LOOK HOMEWARD. ANGEL............................134
Introduction .............................. 134
Value commitments of the characters........... 144
ii
iii
CHAPTER PAGE
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS....................... 170
Summary.................................... 170
Conclusions.................................184
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ 188
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
I. INTRODUCTION
Much historical research is based on the assumption
that the literature of a period both reflects and moulds
the values of the society that supports it. Dramatic
literature is generally thought to provide unusually clear
insights into the society contemporaneous with it, since if
the playwright is to gain the popular support of his audi
ence, he must communicate to them within a frame of refer
ence which is immediately comprehensible to them. How
less clear, for example, would our picture of Elizabethan
England be without the plays of Shakespeare and his con
temporaries.
It is with greater reservation that critics within
a period look to their own literature in order to interpret
more clearly the society of which they themselves are a
part. The tendency is to wait for history to offer its
perspective, to reserve the critical task for a later
1
historian, one who can be less biased by personal involve
ment. Yet modem society needs its interpreters, and
writers from all fields are attempting to define man in his
twentieth-century milieu. There is an urgency pervading
much of the literature--a conviction that the revolutionary
forces of modem technology have forced a re-examination of
man himself, the conditions of his existence, and his
relationship to his fellow man.
With his unlimited faith in his power to conmand
nature, man has constructed a technology which, in addition
to dispelling many of his fears of the unknown, has en
larged his sphere of influence, intensifying his responsi
bility for his own actions. World-wide improvements in
transportation and communication have converted his world
into a neighborhood, in turn separating him from his
immediate community. Advances in medicine have brought him
the promise of a longer life, in turn intensifying the
threat of population Increases. Harnessing of nuclear
power has enabled him to explore the universe, in turn
re-awakening the threat of annihilation. Man senses that,
to a great extent, his survival and self-fulfillment are
contingent upon the behavior of himself and his fellow man.
3
Literary criticism has been employed to this end— to
the explication of the nature of man in society. While
dramatic criticism has produced no description of the image
of man as reflected in the plays presented in the past
decade, it is conceivable that such a description, con
sidered along with those derived comparably from the study
of other literary forms, might well provide significant
insights into the nature of man in contemporary society.
II. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The present study was undertaken in an attempt to
answer the general question: In considering the principal
characters in four recent American plays, what are the
values to which these characters are committed? Specific
questions were structured to be answered concerning each of
the characters analyzed.^ The answers to these questions
provided the data from which the conclusions were derived.
The hypothesis upon which the study was predicated was:
Plays which are indigenous to a given culture, and which
receive the popular and critical acclaim of their con
temporaries— these plays provide, through their characters,
1Infra, pp. 17-22.
4
a rich source for the study of the values articulated by
the people of that culture.
III. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Value commitments. A problem fundamental to the
study was the choice of a term which would designate the
framework of values through which the character was ob
served to interpret himself and the world about him. The
term first considered, "ethical motivations," was discarded
because it implied two unwarranted qualifications: (1) a
restriction to the field of ethics, and (2) a primary em
phasis on psychological motivation. Additionally, the term
"motivation" connotes, in the field of drama, a particular
concern of the actor in approaching characterization.
Another term considered, "value orientations," while per-
haps clear to the social scientist, was considered ambigu
ous from the point-of-view of the general reader. The term
\
ultimately adopted, "value commitments," is a product of
recent research in human values, research conducted
primarily within the academic discipline of philosophy.
o
See Florence Rockwood Kluckhohn and Fred L. Strodt-
beck, Variations in Value Orientations (Elmsford, New York:
Row, Peterson and Company, 1961).
5
Nevertheless, it was felt that the term would Immediately
convey to the reader the nature of the phenomena comprising
the data of the Investigation, I.e., the characters'
pledges of loyalty to whatever they might consider worthy
of allegiance. The term "value commitments" was deemed
to be less restrictive than "ethical motivations," less
ambiguous than "value orientations."
The human condition. The assertion that man commits
himself to discernible values presupposed certain assump
tions which require explication.
(1) That man has become aware, by virtue of his
consciousness, of a conflict between his actual (exlsten*
tial) being and his potential (essential) being. Weisskopf
states that:
The basic source of the split in human existence is
consciousness, Man can transcend any given situation
because he is aware of it. Man "is" and, at the same
time, he is conscious of his being. This establishes
a cleavage between himself as conscious subject and the
objective situation of which he is conscious.3
Also referring to the dichotomy revealed to man through his
consciousness, Tillich asserts:
3
Walter A. Weisskopf, "Existence and Values," New
Knowledge in Human Values. Abraham H. Maslow, editor
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 108.
6
Value Is man's essential being, put as an imperative
against him. The moral imperatives are not arbitrary
ordinances of a transcendent tyrant; neither are they
determined by utilitarian calculations or group con
ventions. They are determined by what man essentially
is. The moral law is man's own essential nature
appearing as a commanding authority. If man were
united with himself and his essential being there would
be no command. But man is estranged from himself, and
the values he experiences appear as laws, natural and
positive laws, demanding, threatening, promising.
In his interpretation of the conditions of human existence,
Erich Fromm observes:
The problem of man's existence, then, is unique in the
whole of nature; he has fallen out of nature, as it
were, and is still in it; he is partly divine, partly
animal; partly infinite, partly finite. The necessity
to find ever-new solutions'for the contradictions in
his existence, to find ever-higher forms of unity with
nature, his fellowmen and himself, is the source of all
psychic forces which motivate man, of all his passions,
affects and anxieties.5
This basic dichotomy may be variously interpreted by the
individual. Among the contradictions which he may perceive
are: essence vs. existence, potentiality vs. actuality,
self vs. world, being vs. doing, individual vs. community,
individualism vs. collectivism.
4
Paul Tillich, "Is a Science of Human Values Pos
sible?" New Knowledge in Human Values, p. 195.
^Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York: Rinehart
and Company, Inc., 1955), p. 25.
7
(2) That the individual may resolve his human
predicament in numerous ways, among which are the follow
ing:6
(a) If he can resist consciousness, he may re
main unaware of his separation from the
world and from others, protected by ’ ’ clouds
of glory" from ever becoming aware of the
contradictions intrinsic to his existence.
(b) He may withdraw from the perceived dichotomy
by regressing into a pre-conscious state
such as the one described above, blotting
out his awareness of contradiction by
escaping, for example, into insanity or the
euphoria of alcoholism.
(c) He may adopt a code which justifies his
repressing one side of the dichotomy.
(d) He may attempt to enlarge his view of
reality in order to transcend and integrate
the perceived dichotomy.
6Weisskopf, op. cit.. pp. 107-118.
8
(e) He may accept the dichotomy as inevitable,
resigned to live with the anxiety accompany
ing alienation from himself and from his
world.
(3) That in his awareness of his human condition
lies man's freedom.
Transcendence through consciousness is the basis of
human freedom. By transcending the given situation
through his consciousness man frees himself within
certain limits from the necessities of this situation.
This opens up alternatives; the dimension of actuality
is left behind and the realm of potentiality is en
tered, creating the possibility of choice and the
necessity of decision based on guiding values. The
entire sequence of transcendence through consciousness,
grasping of potential alternatives and the exercise of
choice based on values, constitutes man's freedom.7
Man's self-awareness and ability to understand relation
ships, particularly his insight into cause-and-effect rela
tionships, provide a rational basis for the guidance and
control of all drives. He is free, therefore, not in the
negative sense of being free from all determining factors,
but in the positive sense of being able to act in accord
ance with his insights into relationships and laws.®
7Ibid., pp. 108-109.
®W. H. Werkmeister, Outlines of a Value Theory; Six
Lectures Delivered at the University of Istanbul (Istanbul;
A. Turan Oflazoglu, 1959), p. 81.
9
. . . Man’s relation to the universe is exceedingly
complex, for not only is his bodied existence depen
dent upon, and conditioned by, his material environment
and biological ancestry, but, at the level of self-
awareness, he interprets that world and acts in con
formity with his interpretations, modifying some of the
very conditions upon which his existence depends.9
(4) That man strives toward self-fulfillment, toward
the realization of his potential, toward an ideal self-
image.
What is involved here is the fact that in every
"normal" develcQpent of an individual as a person, and
in intricate connection with his biologically condi
tioned needs and potentialities, there takes place a
half conscious, half unconscious "self-moulding" in
accordance with some more or less clearly conceived
"ideal self-image."10
Man has at least a dim perception of the contradiction
between "... what he could realize and what he actually
does realize."11
(5) That in and through man's striving for self-
fulfillment, a valuational framework becomes manifest which,
more than any other phenomenon, differentiates him essen
tially from others. As Werkmeister observes, this valu
ational framework is characterized
9Ibid., pp. 83-84. X0Ibid., pp. 77-78.
llErich Fromm, Man for Himself (New York: Rinehart
and Company, Inc., 1960), p. 42.
10
. . . not as a derivative phenomenon, a kind of subli
mation, but as an essential expression of man's inte
grative and self-developing existence itself. This is
so because some aspects of man's diversified strivings
are but tangential to bis being, whereas others— the
drive for self-realization in particular— are of the
very essence of his existence as a person.^
(6) That man reveals himself to others as well as to
himself through his habitual behavior and through the value
preferences which he expresses in assuming one commitment
rather than others, particularly when confronted with a
"boundary situation,a situation which threatens the
total valuational framework upon which his life has been
built.
The dramatic character. Certain qualities of the
dramatic character set him apart from the humanity from
which he derives as well as from his prototypes in non-
dramatic literature. He is, first of all, a product of the
playwright's imagination, rooted in the playwright's view
of reality.^ He is, however, only one of the many
*^Werkmeister, op. cit., p. 80.
Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 195 ff.
14
Lawrence Langner, The Play's the Thing (New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1960), pp. 58-80.
11
characters which the playwright sees in their inter
relationships with one another. Because of this, he must
be differentiated from the others, given his own will and
desires.
Dramatic character implies some self-assertive energy.
It is not a rounded or perfect whole; it realises it
self within a limited sphere, and presses forward
passionately in a single direction. It has generally
a touch of egoism, by which it exercises a controlling
influence over circumstances or over the wills of minor
characters that are grouped around it.
Dramatic action entails conflict, and if each character
were merely a projection of the central view of its creator,
neither conflict nor dramatic action would be possible.
Unlike the graphic artist, who can re-shape the
human form in order to express essential values directly
and symbolically, the dramatic artist cannot fundamentally
distort the human form which his medium, the stage, im
poses— the living actor. As seen by an audience, the
dramatic character appears to be human, and his essential
values must be revealed through his appearance, his words,
See John Howard Lawson, Theory and Technique of
Playwriting and Screenwriting (New York: G. P. Putnam*s
Sons, 1949).
16S. H. Butcher, Aristotle*s Theory of Poetry and
the Fine Arts (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951),
p. 310.
12
his actions, and his relationships with the other charac
ters. Unlike the novelist or the poet, the dramatist, at
least within a realistic style of production, cannot break
the form to appeal directly to the sensibilities of the
audience, using description to convey impressions directly,
communicating through a symbolic language which no man would
ever use. Between the dramatist and his audience, the form
of the living actor intervenes, and all expression must be
made through him. While this is a limitation, it is also
an advantage. Perhaps, as Kernodle observes,
. . . the theater, more than poetry or the novel,
expresses and shapes the central fears, tensions, and
wishes of an age. Because it is a public institution
rather than a private expression, the public partici
pates in a group sanction of the ritual action on the
stage. Because characters are often simpler and
clearer than in the novel, the visible actor on the
stage is a far better projection of the dream images
of the public than most of the complex characters on
the printed page of the novel.*7
If a dramatic character is to be understood by an
audience, his traits must necessarily be selected and
17
George Kernodle, "Patterns of Belief in Contempo
rary Drama," Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature.
Stanley Romalne Hopper, editor (New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1952), pp. 188-189. See also Eric Bentley,
In Search of Theatre (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1953), pp. 36-37; Elmer Rice, The Living Theatre (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1959), p. 295.
13
exaggerated. If he Is to reveal himself to an audience
within the brief time of the play's performance, he must
further be shown in situations which force him to choose
between alternate goals, to modify or confirm his habitual
pattern of behavior, to re-evaluate his relationships with
others. In all of these situations, the character ex
presses value judgments which point to value commitments
and which relate to his life's goal.
Four recent American plays. The dramas considered
in the study were selected from the plays, exclusive of
revivals and musical comedies, which were presented on
Broadway during the past decade, 1950-60. Of the numerous
plays thus described, only the following six have been dis
tinguished as recipients of both the Pulitzer Prize and the
New York Critics Circle Award: William Inge's Picnic
(1952-53), John Patrick's The Teahouse of the August Moon
(1953-54), Tennessee Williams* Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1954-55), Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett's The Diary
of Anne Frank (1955-56), Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's
18
Fred B. Millet, Reading Drama (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1950), p. 19.
Journey Into Night (1956-57), and Ketti Frlogs’ Look Home
ward, Angel (1957-58). The appeal of these plays, at least
to the Nev York public, has been attested to by the number
of performances given them, ranging from 390 performances
In the case of Long Day’s Journey Into Wight to 1,027 per
formances in the case of The Teahouse of the August Moon.^
It mas felt that the concurrence of critical acclaim and
popular support provided a sufficiently strong case for the
importance of these plays to the American public of the
decade 1950-60.
Of these six plays, the tvo Which do not purport to
describe an American scene were excluded: The Diary of Anne
Frank, the dramatization of the young girl's account of the
two years during which she, her family, and several other
Jews avoided the scourge of Nazi persecutions by hiding in
an attic in Amsterdam; and The Teahouse of the August Moon,
the dramatization of Vem Sneider's novel concerning the
escapades of the occupation forces of the United States
Array in Okinawa.
The remaining four plays— Picnic. Cat on a Hot
19John Chapman, Broadway's Best. 1960 (New York:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960), pp. 150-157.
15
Tin Roof. Long Pay’s Journey Into Night, and Look Homeward,
Angel— were considered to be valid sources for a study of
the value8 which contemporary Americans see reflected In
dramatic characterization. All four plays are set In the
United States— one In New England, one In the mid-West, and
two In the South; all four are set In the twentieth cen
tury— two in the pre-World War I period, two in the post-
World War II period. All four of them focus, to a certain
extent, on the unit of the family, and all of them concern
themselves with the efforts of the individual to discover
his own identity in an environment which is, for one reason
or another, hostile to him.
The analyses were based primarily on the acting edi
tions of the plays, since only these editions are authorized
for stage production. Readers' editions, critical com
mentaries, and production reviews were consulted from the
point of view of a director seeking to increase his under
standing and refine his interpretation.
IV. METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURES
General character of the study. The present study
16
utilized primarily the descriptive method of research.^®
The character descriptions were derived from internal
analysis of the plays selected. The major objective of the
investigation was to describe the characters observed in
terms of their value commitments. The data thus derived
were reported and interpreted in order to provide a
generalized description of the value commitments most com
monly shared by the characters in the four plays considered.
At no time was the research concerned with judging
the characters according to a personal, preconceived moral
standard, i.e., with concluding that certain characters are
good, certain others bad. The intention throughout was to
observe the characters carefully, to describe their be
havior as objectively as possible, and to relate their
behavior to underlying value commitments.
Preliminary reading. Prior to the Investigation of
the plays themselves, reading was done in the areas of
dramatic and literary criticism, philosophy and religion,
20
Carter V. Good and Douglas E. Scates, Methods
of Research (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.,
1954), pp. 255-492; Frederick Lamson Whitney, The Elements
of Research (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1954), pp. 153-
192.
17
and the social sciences In order to provide:
1. A general comprehension and appreciation of the
current writings In these areas as they bear
upon the nature of man and the attributes of the
human condition.
2. Familiarity with the terminology used in these
discrete areas to describe human values.
3. A conceptual framework for the present study
which would be understandable to researchers in
these areas.
4. A list of questions to apply to the various
characters in an attempt to standardize the
critical approach to the characters.
Of the sources consulted, those most pertinent to
the present study were acknowledged as they contributed to
the definitions of terms and to the construction of ques
tions to assist in reporting and interpreting the data.
The approach to the characters. On the basis of
(1) the attributes of the human condition as these relate
to the dramatic character and (2) internal analysis of the
plays selected, questions were constructed to standardize
the critical approach to each character. Statements
18
pertaining to the character's value commitments were
derived from answers to questions such as the following:
1. What is his self-image?
a. What does he view himself to be or to be
capable of becoming?
b. To what extent does his self-image corre
spond with the views which others have of
him?
2. Which of the following activities engage most of
his energies, and which of them prescribe the
areas within which he defines "self-fulfillment":
economic, occupational, intellectual, aesthetic,
91
spiritual, social, familial, recreational?
E.g., while the character spends most of his
time at home, sharing in the activities of his
family, he feels that he is destined to become
a great writer, and he is determined to find
a way to get an education.
3. Within the prescribed areas, what does he
value?
21
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, op. cit., pp. 28-29.
19
E.g., the character defines "self-
fulfillment" In terms of economic security.
While he values both property and money, he
places the higher value on property, since he
feels that property has the greater permanence.
a. Does he pursue these values as existential
(required for his survival) or essential
(integral to his self-image)?
E.g., if he is starving to death, his
need for money to purchase food is existen
tial; however, if he has sufficient money to
insure his survival and still considers
money to be the supreme value, his need for
it is essential--basic to his drive for
self-fulfillment, necessary to the realiza
tion of what he considers to be his proper
potential, his self-image.
b. Does he view these values as ends in them
selves or as means to achieving other values?
E.g., does he value property per se or
as something to pass on to his children, as
a means to a kind of immortality on earth?
20
4. When he is confronted with a situation requiring
him to choose between alternate patterns of
action, what does he choose to do, what does he
choose to avoid?
a. What values does his choice preserve?
b. What values does his choice destroy?
5. How do his present value commitments relate to
those which determined his actions in the past?
a. How does he evaluate his rational and
irrational actions and choices of the past?
b. To what extent does he assume responsibility
for his past actions?
6. How does he relate to his fellows?
a. Does he value submission to others, domina
tion over others, or attainment of a harmony
22
with others?
b. Does he value people in themselves or as
means to achieving his own ends?
22
Erich Fromm, "Values, Psychology, and Human
Existence," New Knowledge in Human Values, Abraham H.
Maslow, editor (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959),
pp. 152-154.
c. What attitudes does he hold toward the
values of his family and community?
7. How does he relate to his environment?
a. Does he consider himself a victim of it,
23
a master of it, or an ally of it?
b. How do his values help him to cope with his
perceived relationship to his environment?
8. If he has perceived a contradiction between
life-as-it-is and life-as-it-should-be, how has
he adjusted to this dichotomy?2^
a. Has he accepted the dichotomy as inevitable,
resigning himself to living with the anxiety
accompanying alienation from himself and
from his world?
b. Has he adopted a code which justifies his
repressing one side of the dichotomy?
c. Has he chosen to escape into a less-
complicated, pre-conscious state, drowning
his consciousness by following his
23
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, op. cit., pp. 10-49.
24
Cf. supra, pp. 5 ff.
22
"death-drive"^ into suicide, alcohol-
or drug-induced euphoria, or compulsive
indulgence?
d. Has he attempted to enlarge his view of
reality to transcend and integrate the per
ceived dichotomy?
9. If he is attempting to transcend the human con
dition, does he employ primarily his creative
powers or his destructive powers? Is his life
2
essentially productive or non-productive?
The organization of materials. A chapter was de
voted to each of the plays analyzed: Picnic. Cat on a Hot
Tin Roof. Lone Day's Journey Into Night, and Look Homeward.
Angel. The order of presentation followed the chrono
logical sequence in which these plays had appeared on the
New York stage.
Each chapter was introduced by a play synopsis
designed to describe the play as a totality, as the spe
cific frame of reference within which the characters were
25
Welsskopf, op. cit., p. 111. While using this
term derivative of Freud, Weisskopf interprets it as a
drive not toward death but toward the restoration of
a previous, less-complicated state of life.
2fi
Fromm, "Values, Psychology, and Human Existence,"
pp. 152-154.
23
to be considered. To the extent to Which they contributed
to the understanding of the characters, the plot and themes
of the play were also discussed in this introduction. The
characters were introduced in relation to (1) the other
characters and (2) the sequence of events comprising the
dramatic action. The major portion of each chapter was
devoted to epitomizing and discussing the value commitments
of the characters.
A final chapter was devoted to a summary of the data
and to conclusions drawn. Particular consideration was
given to a discussion of the value commitments reflected in
the characters of two or more plays.
CHAPTER II
PICNIC
I. INTRODUCTION
William Inge's Picnic, the first play since Street"
car Named Desire to receive both the Critics Circle Award
and the Pulitzer Prize, enjoyed popular as well as critical
acclaim. In addition to its Broadway run of nearly five
hundred performances, it was successfully produced as a
motion picture. The play is set in a small Kansas town,
the time is the present, and the action extends from Labor
Day morning through the morning of the following day. All
of the principal characters with the exception of the in**
truder, Hal Carter, are residents of the town or its en
virons, well known to one another.
The small Kansas town wherein the action transpires
is characterized as peaceful, unsophisticated, and rela
tively stable. Its inhabitants are committed to a middle-
class economy and a Puritan moralism. As the shabby houses
are kept tidy to maintain appearances, so any unaccepted
24
25
human traits are either repressed or kept covert to main*
tain a facade of propriety. Most of the characters In the
play represent types created by a repressive moral code,
and the plot discloses the behavior of such characters when
their complacent acceptance of the code Is shaken. Hal
Carter's entry Into the community not only disturbs the
complacency but also threatens the code Itself.
Hal Carter, the Intruder, represents Individualism,
non-conformity, and unrestrained passion. In a town where
a Labor Day picnic Is to be the high point of the season's
excitement, the arrival of such a person as Hal could not
fail to evoke emotional explosions of various kinds and
degrees, particularly among the women. Most affected is
Madge Owens, the beautiful young girl who dreams of being
loved rather than admired. Madge comes to know Hal as the
man who can make her dream a reality. Also affected Is
Millie Owens, Madge's tom-boyish sister. Millie chooses to
compete with boys rather than to attract them, but under
Hal's influence she begins to suspect that femininity
offers some advantages. Rosemary Sydney, the old-maid
schoolteacher, is sparked by Hal's indifference to wage a
full-scale attack to win her boyfriend's hand in marriage.
26
The boyfriend, Howard Bevans, is a reluctant conquest. The
young Alan Seymour, Madge's boyfriend, confronts his first
real test of character, the challenge of retaining his
exclusive right to Madge. The older women, Mrs. Potts and
Mrs. Owens, find many of their forgotten emotions reviving
under the influence of Hal's masculinity.
Hal enters the town as a penniless wanderer hoping
to settle down. His friend, Alan, not only helps him to
meet people but also arranges to get him a job. However,
when Alan realizes that Hal has appropriated his own girl,
Madge, he enlists the aid of the police to get Hal out of
town. Hal leaves, falsely accused of theft. The com
munity, after its brief but violent exposure to Hal, regains
its composure. Madge has run off with Hal, willing to ex
change respectability for the challenge of womanhood.
Rosemary has succeeded in marrying Howard, thus achieving
respectability by means which she would not care to admit.
The town, no longer faced with the threat of freedom,
reassumes its facade of propriety.
II. VALUE COMMITMENTS OF THE CHARACTERS
Among the major characters in Picnic, Hal Carter and
Madge Owens are given both the most sympathetic portrayal
and the most individualistic characterization. Addition
ally, each follows a definite line of action which points
to distinct value commitments. For these reasons, the
descriptions of these two characters initiate the discus
sion of Picnic. The other characters are approached in
this order: Rosemary Sydney, Millie Owens, Alan Seymour,
and Howard Bevans. Two other characters, Mrs. Potts and
Mrs. Flo Owens, are considered only briefly, while the
minor characters, Bomber, Irma Kronkite, and Christine
Schoenwalder, are not discussed.
Hal Carter. One reviewer's description of Hal as
"a brawny young man . . . exuding the sort of animal
vitality calculated to stir a few firesexpresses suc
cinctly the townspeople's dominant impression of the new
comer, the young man who is first seen doing yard work for
Mrs. Potts in exchange for his breakfast. He is not a
young man to be overlooked; his strength, his virility, and
his apparent independence distinguish him immediately.
Barnard Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.. 1668 to 1957 (New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959), pp. 459-460,
citing Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune. February 20,
1953.
As he has always done In the past, he somewhat startles
everyone who meets him, becoming an object either of hero
worship or of scorn. It Is this dominant Impression which
underlies both Hal's success and his failure. Realizing
this, Hal has come to the town where his one friend lives,
Intent on revising this Impression, wanting to settle down
and to gain for himself, If possible, a place in the
society which has always looked on him as an outsider. In
college he was simultaneously the athletic hero and the
intellectual dunce. The acquaintances who admired him also
envied and distrusted him; the women who desired him were
too intensely drawn to him sexually to recognize him as a
person. It has been his experience to be recognized as one
of several types, rarely as an ordinary human being. In
college, Alan Seymour was the one person who came the
closest to treating Hal as an equal, and Hal has come to
Alan's town to look for a new start.
Hal: Then I got thinking of you, Seymour, at
school--how you always had things under control.
Alan: He?
Hal: Yah. Never cut classes . . . understood the
lectures . . . took notes! What's so funny?
Alan: The one authentic hero the University had,
and he envied me!
29
Hal: Yah! Big hero, but just between the goal
posts. Seymour, you're the only guy In the whole
fraternity ever treated me like a human being.
Alan: I know. ^
Hal wants to be treated "like a human being," and he
realizes that he must learn to modify his own behavior If
he Is to merit such treatment.
Having lived as an alien In society, Hal defines
self-fulfillment as belonging to society. Particularly In
his conversations with Alan and Madge, he reveals an acute
awareness of his own social Inadequacies. He feels, for
example, that he lacks the education to be respected and
that he lacks the manner, the restraint, and the language
to be accepted in society. In talking with Alan, he refers
to his other classmates at college as "those other phonies
always watchin' to see if I used the singular instead of
the plural." His most comfortable exclamation is "what
the hell,"4 and his command of slang far exceeds his com
mand of standard English. His proposal to Madge provides
one clear example of his language limitation: "Look, Baby,
o
William Inge, Picnic (New York: Dramatists Play
Service, Inc., 1955), p. 24.
3Ibid. 4Ibid.. pp. 31, 40, and 49.
30
I’m a poor bastard, and I gotta claim what's mine! And
you’re mine, Baby! You’re the only real thing I ever had—
ever! Baby, kiss me good-bye."'* He is ashamed of his lack
of propriety, and he admits to Alan that he is afraid to go
on the Labor Day picnic:
Hal: Look, Seymour, I ... I never been on a
picnic.
Alan: Not even when you were a kid?
Hal: No.
Alan: Why, that’s impossible! Everybody’s been on
a picnic.
Hal: Not me. I wouldn't go on picnics. I was too
busy shooting craps or stealing milk bottles.
Alan: You went on the steak fries in the fraternity,
didn't you?
Hal: Yeah, and you know what they turned out to be.
Alan: Well, Mrs. Potts’ picnic won't be quite as
primitive.
Hal: That's what I mean. I wouldn't know how to
behave in front of all these . . . women.
Alan: Sure you would.
Hal: But, Seymour, these are . . . nice women.
What if I say the wrong word or what if my stomach
growls— or— ®
5Ibid., p. 71.
6Ibid., pp. 31-32.
31
Hal considers himself a social failure. As he states to
Madge, "I'm a bum. There's just no place in the world for
a guy like me."7 He wants to belong, he realizes he has a
great deal to learn, and while he is willing to learn, he
knows that he must have help.
Since his childhood, Hal has had to assume one pose
or another in order to gain any recognition. Having deter
mined to discard the poses in order to be recognized for
himself, he is in the process of discovering what that
self is. "I'm me," he asserts to Madge, "But what's
g
that?" His bewilderment is captured symbolically during
the scene in which he models for Millie's drawing. When
Millie objects to the pose he strikes, he says, "That's
okay. I got plenty more." Millie responds, "Why don't you
just try to look natural?" "Gee," he replies, "that's
9
hard." In describing Hal's reputation in college, Alan
says to Mrs. Owens: "When he came around, every man on that
campus seemed to bristle. When I first met him I couldn't
stand the way he bragged and swaggered and posed all over
the place. . . ."^° Early in the play, Hal tells Alan
7Ibid.. pp. 54-55. 8Ibid., p. 55.
9Ibid., p. 44. 10Ibid., p. 30.
32
the type of job he would like:
Hal; Oh, something in a nice office where I can
wear a tie . . . and have a sweet little secretary
. . . and talk over the telephone about enterprises
and . . . things. I've always had the feeling, if I
just had the chance, I could set the whole world on
fire.
Alan: Maybe you could, Hal. But for the time being
you've got to be content to work hard and be patient.
Hal: Yah' That's something I gotta learn.
Patience I
Later on, in love with Madge and encouraged by the fact
that she does not object to his working on the pipeline, he
makes this statement: "I'm really happier with a job like
that, one I can really handle, than I would be pretendin'
to be a big shot."*’ 2
Hal feels that he must be frank with Madge about his
past life if he is to create a new one. With the other
characters he alludes occasionally to his past experiences,
mentioning to Alan that his father was a drunkard who died
in jail, telling Rosemary and Mrs. Potts that his father
left him only the pair of boots which he wears so proudly
and the advice to wear the boots to let people know that
11Ibid.. p. 25.
12Ibid.. p. 61.
33
he is a man capable o£ kicking. ^3 However, it is to the
sympathetic Madge that he relates the details of his past.
At the conclusion of Act II, Hal and Madge are left alone.
Howard and the distraught Rosemary have driven away , 1 into
the sunset," and the others have gone to the picnic. Hal
has been thoroughly humiliated by Rosemary, and Madge
tries to restore his ego, telling him to pay no attention
to what Rosemary has said. Madge assures him that he is
not bad, no matter what he says. He is unable to accept
her encouragement without relating some of the events of
his past. He tells her of his spending a year in a reform
school for stealing a bicycle and of his mother's eagerness
to send him away. "And the old lady's real happy 'cause my
Dad's always loaded and she's got a new boy friend and I'm
in the way." He concludes his story by announcing: "Well,
there you are. ... So if you want to get sick or run
inside and lock your door or faint ... go ahead. I ain't
gonna stop you. ..." He has been moved by her under
standing, and he does not want to have his relationship
with her built upon pretenses.^
13Ibid., pp. 25, 41-42. 14Infra, pp. 41-42.
15Inge, op. cit.. pp. 54-56.
34
Having lived in society as an outsider, Hal wants to
belong; having lived as a poser, he wants to find himself.
Never having experienced familial love, he is searching for
emotional ties. The life which the Kansas community
promises him seems to be just what he desires; the love
which he finds with Madge is the emotional involvement
which he seeks. Unfortunately, however, Madge is Alan's
girl. Alan forces him to leave town, and Madge leaves to
join him. Perhaps with the help of the emotional security
provided by Madge's love— perhaps with that additional
help, Hal may succeed in the next town. Perhaps the
obstacles are too many and too great.
Madge Owens. Not unlike Hal, Madge has been iso
lated from society by virtue of her physical attractiveness.
She is the stereotype of the beautiful girl, appreciated
more as a beautiful object than as a human being. Because
of this, Madge is committed to finding and proving her
individuality and to earning a place in society as an indi
vidual. Not until she falls in love with Hal does she have
any concrete idea of what her place in society might be.
Madge resents being catalogued according to her
appearance, and in like fashion she defends others who are
so judged. When her mother speaks disparagingly of Hal,
whom they have barely seen, Madge responds, "I knew you
wouldn't like him when I first saw him." When Mrs. Owens
asks if Madge likes him, Madge replies, "I don't like him
or dislike him. I just wonder what he's like."*-8
Madge's physical attractiveness is no more matched
by her intellect than is Hal's. This fact has been im
pressed upon her many times, and she is not credited with
being sensitive to criticism. In a particularly jealous
state of mind, Millie flaunts Madge in this way: "La-de-da!
Madge is the pretty one— but she's so dumb they almost had
17
to burn the schoolhouse down to get her out of it!"
Later, defending her own cruelty, Millie observes, "It
doesn't hurt what names I call her! She's pretty, names
18
don't bother her at all." Hal, like Madge, is supposed
to be immune to insult; yet, as Howard reminds Rosemary,
"You gotta remember, men have got feelings, too, same as
IQ
women." 7 Both Madge and Hal are often viewed as too self-
sufficient to be affected by insult.
16Ibid.. p. 15.
18Ibid.. p. 14.
17Ibid.. p. 13.
19Ibid.. p. 54.
Madge is given to believe that she is only something
to look at, not a real person at all. "It just seems," she
tells her mother, "that when I'm looking in the mirror
that's the only way I can prove to myself I'm alive. . . .
Lots of the time I wonder if I really exist."20 She asks
her mother, "What good is it to be pretty?" Her mother
answers that pretty things are rare, that pretty things
like flowers and sunsets and pretty girls are like bill
boards signalling that life is good. To this Madge re
sponds: "But where do I come in? Maybe I get tired being
21
looked at." Even Alan, with whom she is going steady,
approaches her as an object of beauty rather than as a real
person: "I don't care if you're real or not. You're the
most beautiful thing I ever saw."22
Hal, unlike the others, understands Madge's desire
to be a human being rather than just a pretty girl, and the
two find an immediate sympathy for one another. In the
scene in which Madge tries to restore Hal's ego after
Rosemary has completely deflated it, Hal tells Madge about
2QIbid.. p. 36.
22Ibid.. p. 32.
21Ibid.. pp. 14-15.
37
the humiliating events of his own life.2- * Madge is touched
that he has confided in her, that he has credited her with
sympathy and understanding as well as with physical beauty.
She kisses him. "Gee, baby," he observes, "you come out
here on the porch lookin' like a pretty little doll, but
you're a real woman, aren't you?" "I want to be,” she
responds. Hal affirms, "You are."2* *
Not until she meets Hal does it occur to Madge that
falling in love might lead the way to finding herself and
to earning a place in society. Her image of success,
brought to mind by the sound of the train whistle, is far
removed from concerns of popularity or romance. It sug-
gests more a need to create, to contribute in some way to
society:
I always wonder, maybe some wonderful person is
getting off here, just by accident, and he'll come
into the dime store for something and see me behind
the counter, and he'll study me very strangely and
then decide I'm just the person they're looking for
in Washington to carry on an important job in the
Espionage Department. Or maybe he wants me for some
great medical experiment!2^
2^Supra, p. 33.
2**Inge, op. cit.. p. 56.
25Ibid.. p. 11.
While she is attractive to men, she is emotionally in
different to them, even to Alan. When she is asked about
the possibility of marriage to Alan, she observes, "I'm
26
only eighteen." Yet when she becomes emotionally in
volved with Hal, it is as though the total range of her
desires can be met simply by living with him.
While Madge is often described as conceited and
vain, she is actually unaffected by the idea of status.
Like Hal, Madge fells ill-at-ease among the social set:
"Mom, I don't feel right with those people. . . . All of
Alan'8 friends talk about colleges and trips to Europe.
I feel left out."^7 She is neither impressed by status nor
repelled by the lack of it. She is not offended by the
things Hal has done, nor do Hal's limitations discourage
her. She is content to be going with a man who does manual
work— if that man is Hal. When Hal is forced out of town,
she is^ willing to follow him, knowing he will be working as
a bellhop in a Tulsa hotel, barely able to support her.
In her love relationship with Hal she has found her indi
viduality. She has found a person who needs her, and she
26Ibid.. p. 12. 27Ibid.
39
welcomes the promise of a passionate and creative love.
She Is willing to give up everything else in exchange for
this promise.
Rosemary Sydney. Rosemary Sydney, the stereotype of
the spinster schoolteacher, is ostensibly committed to
respectability. In addition to being both unmarried and
unattractive, she is sexually frustrated. However, she
makes a pretense of emotional independence, the only
rationalization which the repressive code of the community
permits. While she is eager to show that she is inde
pendent of men, she reveals by her suggestive behavior that
she is repressing a fundamental desire for men. While she
pretends to shy away from male dominance, she actually
desires to submit to such dominance. She wants marriage,
and she wants to be fulfilled sexually. She wants to
belong to the community, and she wants to be respected more
for her womanhood than for the independence of which she
boasts.
Rosemary is a confirmed gossip and a prude. She is
savagely interested in knowing what boys are going with
what girls, and she is ready to pass a moral judgment
40
on anything from books to manners, from dating to drink-
28
ing. She reads a sexual motive in Howard's offering her
a drink of liquor: "I guess I know why you want me to take
OQ
a drink." 7 Rosemary's prudishness causes her to attribute
sexual motives to the most innocent behavior, even to the
detail of girls wearing nail polish. Her objection to
Hal's not wearing a shirt is a mild example of the behavior
which Madge describes to Hal:
Don't feel bad. Women like Miss Sydney make me
disgusted with the whole female sex. Last year she and
some of the other teachers made such a fuss about a
statue in the library. It was a gladiator and all he
had on was a shield on his arm. Those teachers kept
hollering about that statue, they said it was an insult
to them every time they walked into the library.
Finally, they made the principal— I don't know how to
say it, but one of the janitors got busy with a chisel
and then they weren't insulted any more. The next day
there was a sign hanging on the statue— "Miss Sydney
was here." I know you're not in the mood for funny
stories, but you just have to laugh at Miss S y d n e y . ^ 0
Hal's masculinity attracts and excites Rosemary.
She responds to Hal's presence with an outburst of re
pressed emotion which startles even her. As a result of
her encounter with him, she openly confronts her fear
28Ibid., pp. 20, 37-38. 29Ibid., p. 46.
30Ibid.. pp. 16-17, 54.
41
of remaining unmarried and admits that the independence of
which she has been so proud is merely a protective rational
ization.
In the Act II scene in which Hal dances first with
Millie, then with Madge, Rosemary is thoroughly captivated
by Hal. He is respectful to her as an older person and
indifferent to her as a woman, but she sees him only as an
irresistible male. She tells him suggestively of her own
escapades with men and tries in various ways to get him to
dance with her. She pulls him to her: "I may be an old
maid schoolteacher, but I can keep up with you. Come on,
31
cowboy!" Hal breaks loose from her desperate hold. Thus
rejected, she becomes violent and malicious, insulting him
in every way she can. The crux of her revenge is her claim
that Hal purposely got Millie drunk. She tells Mrs. Owens,
"Oh, he'd have fed her whiskey and taken his pleasure with
the child and then skidaddled!"32 she calls him "a piece
of Arkansas white trash," and she shouts at him, "You'll
end your life in a gutter and it'll serve you right, 'cause
the gutter's where you came from and the gutter's where
31Ibid.. p. 51. 32Ibid.. p. 53.
42
you belong.'"33 Only to Howard can Rosemary admit that she
has behaved badly: "Howard, what made me do it? What made
me act that way?"34
Bewildered, forced to come to grips with her own
desperation and fear, Rosemary is too badly shaken to con
sider going to the picnic. She and Howard drive away, and
when the two return in the early morning, it is apparent
that she has given herself to him sexually. She is con
sumed by guilt, and she feels that unless Howard marries
her, her life is ruined. Her first reaction is to take
marriage for granted; when Howard does not concur, she
reasons with him, accuses him of leading her on, desper
ately commands him to marry her, and finally begs him to
marry her. Only when he promises to return in the morning
will she let him go. Even then she is frightened and un
sure, merely suggesting to the others that Howard might
stop by, arranging her clothes and belongings on the
pretense of storing things for the winter.33 Only with
Howard's actual arrival does she announce that she is going
33Ibid. 34Ibid.. p. 54.
35Ibid.. pp. 54, 57-60, 63-69.
43
to be married, assuming that he has arrived to take her
away with him. It is probable that Howard actually came to
talk her out of her fears and to convince her that every
thing would be all right without a marriage, but in the
presence of so many women, stronger men than Howard would
have found it impossible to put that point across. As
Rosemary leads Howard away, it is as though marriage is the
only thing she has ever wanted, as though the independence
which she had professed to value had been a mere defense.
Millie Owens. Millie, Madge's sixteen-year-old
sister, has adjusted to adolescence by becoming a tomboy.
Since she has the intellect to compete in the male world
but not the beauty to be considered attractive, she assumes
any activity which might prove her to be independent of
boys. She is perfectly capable of swearing and fighting,
and when given the opportunity, she tries to become as much
at ease with liquor as she is with tobacco.She knows
most of the local young men as competitors— she swims with
Alan and races with Hal— but she is terrified of going on
a date with anyone. She accepts Hal for what he is until
36Ibid.. pp. 8, 9, 13, 46-52.
44
she learns that she is to be his date at the picnic.
Becoming sell-conscious about her clothes and behavior, she
asks Madge: "Madge, how do you talk to boys?" Madge Is
puzzled, reminding Millie that she had very successfully
talked with Hal all morning. Millie explains: "But now
I've got a date with him, and it’s different."^7
Millie is jealous of Madge's popularity with boys,
and she defends her pride by scorning everything feminine.
She makes fun of Madge's meticulous grooming and of her
skill in such domestic activities as cooking.3® She takes
a compensatory pride in her intellect and in her ability to
compete with boys on their own level. She has mastered the
mechanics of dancing, but she is too inhibited to follow
a man's lead.39 Her emotions, \rtiich she is careful not to
express socially, find their way into poems and drawings.4®
Millie's awareness of Hal's effect on Madge and on
the others serves to accelerate her growing appreciation of
the opposite sex. She is attracted to Hal as well as to
Alan, but she has not learned how to express her liking.
37Ibid.. pp. 28-34.
39ibid., pp. 48-50.
OQ
Ibid.. pp. 29, 43.
40Ibid.. pp. 43-45.
45
Her association with Hal helps her to relinquish her tom
boy ishness in favor of becoming a young lady. By the end
of the play, she is capable of telling Alan that she likes
him:
Millie: I ... I always liked you, Alan. Didn't
you know it?
Alan: Like me?
Millie: It's awfully hard to show someone you like
them, isn't it?
Alan: It's easy for some people. '
Millie: It makes you feel like such a sap.
I don't know why.^1
She is also able to resist the impulse to throw a stick at
the first boy who insults her.42 Her expressed intention
of finishing college to become a great novelist remains the
same, but she has gained some respect for womanhood. She
has learned, too, how to take the first steps toward be
coming a young lady.
Alan Seymour. Alan, Madge's wealthy young boy
friend, is committed to preserving the standards of his
class. Alan has been bom into class, money, and security;
41Ibid.. p. 64.
42Ibid.. pp. 72-73.
46
self-fulfillment has been defined for him, and all he must
do is follow its guide lines carefully and remain true to
what is expected of him. As Hal observes, Alan always
43
seems to have things under control. Uhlike the impulsive
Hal, Alan plans his actions carefully, anticipating their
consequences.
Alan is highly responsive to outside authority. He
is eager to behave in a manner befitting someone of his
status, and he is determined to maintain appearances. His
attending college was his father's idea; he became the good
student who always took notes and who never cut classes,
the student who even in the summer knows what books are on
the approved reading list.^ His choosing Madge as his
girl was no doubt influenced by her being the prettiest
girl in town; his choosing Hal as his friend may have been
influenced by Hal's importance as the outstanding college
athlete.
Particularly in his relationships with Madge and
with Hal, Alan reflects a commitment to behaving properly
43
Supra, p. 28.
44
Inge, op. clt.. pp. 20, 24.
47
and to maintaining appearances. Alan's affection for Madge
is carefully controlled. His attitude toward her is one of
aesthetic appreciation. While he feels a physical attrac
tion to her, he carefully constrains his passion. Alan
admires Hal's sexual escapades, and he listens to Hal's
stories with a vicarious pleasure. At the same time, it is
clear that he would never indulge such behavior even if he
had the opportunity to do so.4" * When Alan concludes that
Hal has taken advantage of Madge, he is deeply offended for
Madge and furious because Hal has violated his trust and
friendship. To save face for Madge and himself, he falsely
charges Hal of having stolen his car. He files a complaint
with the police, thus forcing Hal to leave town. When Hal
confronts him with his lie, he does not deny having made
a false charge. He tries physically to oust Hal, but Hal
overpowers him with such ease that he is left crying in
shame.4^ When Alan realizes that Madge prefers Hal to him,
he rationalizes by observing that Madge is no more than a
pretty girl anyway: "Madge is beautiful. Did I think I
could spend the rest of my life just looking at her?"47
45Ibid.. pp. 22-25.
47Ibid.. p. 72.
46lbid.. pp. 69-70.
48
And he further justifies himself by re-emphasizing Hal’s
charm: "Girls have always liked Hal. Months after he left
the fraternity, they still called. ’Is Hal there?* ’Does
anyone know where Hal’s gone?* Their voices always sounded
so forlorn."48
Howard Be vans. Howard, described by Rosemary early
in the play as ". . . a frlend-boy . . . not a boy-
49
friend," is a middle-aged bachelor who owns a shop in a
neighboring town. While he has an eye for beautiful women,
he is quite resigned to their being outside of his class
and beyond his reach. He is well adjusted to his life as
it is, modestly content to own a small business and to be
a bachelor, living dangerously on occasion by indulging his
taste for liquor, women, and good times.
Like Alan, Howard is committed to preserving the way
of life which he has established. He has settled into the
best way of life available to him. Since he has chosen
not to marry, and since he is not particularly attractive,
he has devised a systematic scheme for satisfying both his
sex drive and his need for love. Between the girls at
49Ibid.. p. 16.
49
the hotel and his spinster friend, Rosemary, he manages to
accommodate both of these needs, In the order named.
Unfortunately, he cannot keep the two needs discrete. When
he over-steps the standard which Rosemary has set, he be
comes an easy mark for matrimony.
Rosemary Is not the kind of woman Howard Is accus
tomed to seeking out for sexual satisfaction. He has
always been somewhat afraid of his own susceptibility to
matrimony. However, he Is taken off guard when the
emotionally-charged Rosemary invites him to take her for
a drive instead of to the picnic. Both of them are intoxi
cated, and both of them have had their passions aroused
during the Act II dancing scene.^ Under the influence of
these circumstances and a beautiful sunset, their habitual
restraints are broken down. Howard is pleased, but he is
also afraid of the consequences: "You were awful nice to me
tonight, Rosemary. ... Do you think Mrs. Owens suspects
anything? ... A business man's gotta be careful of talk.
And after all, you're a schoolteacher."^2 Rosemary insists
50Ibid.. p. 47.
52Ibid.. p. 57.
51Ibid.. pp. 48-56.
50
upon marriage*“first demanding, finally pleading and
begging. She easily discounts his objections“-his hesi
tancy to change his way of life, the question as to who
will look after his store, what Rosemary will do about her
53
job. On the following morning, Howard returns as he had
promised. His entrance suggests that he has come to talk
her out of marriage. But Rosemary assumes that he has come
to marry her, and she tells her girl friends that they are
leaving immediately on their honeymoon. Thus intimidated,
Howard begins his new way of life.
Mrs. Helen Potts and Mrs. Flo Owens. For both Helen
Potts and Flo Owens, Hal Carter represents romance. How
ever, the two women attribute vastly different values to
romance, and their respective attitudes toward Hal reflect
these values. Mrs. Potts admires Hal, and she views
romance as the missing ingredient in her otherwise happy
life. Mrs. Owens fears Hal, and she views romance as the
cause of her own unhappiness.
Mrs. Potts is the stereotype of the kindly middle-
aged woman, active in the service of others, radiating'
53Ibid.. pp. 57-60.
a personal warmth and charm. She errs, If at all, only by
virtue of being too sentimental. Millie, who seldom says
anything complimentary, elevates Mrs. Potts to the rank of
an angel: "I just love Mrs. Potts. When I go to heaven,
I expect everyone to be just like her.Introduced in
the play as the neighbor woman for whom Hal is working in
exchange for his breakfast, Helen Potts has gained for her*
self a reputation of taking in stray young men. Her per
sonal experience with romance has been uncommonly brief,
if colorful. When she was a girl, she ran away with the
Potts boy. The two were married, but Helen's mother caught
them on the same day and annulled the marriage. Since that
time, Helen has lived with her aging mother, retaining only
eg
the title of Mrs. along with her dream of romance. Helen
Potts has idealized young men, and she admires Hal as a
superior example of that ideal species. She asks her
neighbors, "Have you girls seen the handsome young man I've
57
got working for me?"-" She is impressed by Hal's strength,
she is delighted to discover that he is Alan's fraternity
5^Ibid., p. 44.
56Ibid.. p. 17.
55Ibid.. pp. 10, 16, 18-19.
37Ibid.. p. 18.
52
brother, and it is she who suggests that Hal be invited on
CO
the picnic as Millie's date. When she sees that Hal is
embarrassed because he has no good clothes of his own, she
comforts him with such statements as "I like to see a man
comfortable" and "Clothes don't make the man." She sug
gests to Alan that Hal might get a job working on the pipe
line, and she credits Hal with being material for the
Country Club and the young men's Bible class.^ It is she
who observes that Madge and Hal seem to have been "made to
dance together."6*
Mrs. Potts herself explains her affinity for young
men. Early in the play she explains to her neighbors:
An old lady like me, if she wants any attention from
the young men on a picnic, all she can do is bake a
cake! I feel sort of excited, Flo. I think we plan
picnics just to give ourselves an excuse ... to let
something thrilling and romantic happen to us— 6^
In the final scene of the play, after Madge has run off to
join Hal, Mrs. Owens, searching for some comfort, approaches
Mrs. Potts: "Helen, you liked the young man, didn't you?"
58Ibid., pp. 18-19, 28. 59Ibid.. pp. 39-41.
60IMd., pp. 25, 43. 61Ibid.. p. 50.
62Ibid.. p. 38.
53
To which Mrs. Potts replies:
With just Mama and me in the house I'd got so used
to things as they were**-occasionally a hairpin on the
floor . . . and the smell of Mama's medicines. Then
he walked through the door and clomped through the
tiny rooms as if he was still outdoors. There was a
man in the house, and it seemed good. . . • And that
reminded me, I'm a woman. And that seemed good, too.®-*
Living a happy but uneventful life, Mrs. Potts is senti
mental about romance. Having never lived with romance long
enough to be injured by it, she approaches it without fear.
In her relations with others, she is outgoing, unafraid,
and optimistic.
Mrs. Flo Owens, a widow slightly younger than
Mrs. Potts, is committed to rearing her two daughters,
Madge and Millie. Since she believes that economic
security rather than love is the basis of happiness, she is
eager to see that her daughters marry into wealth and
status. For her, Hal Carter represents the type of romance
which lured her into an unwise marriage. When she recog
nizes that Madge is attracted to Hal, she tries to convince
Madge of the long-term suffering which might well accompany
a marriage'-for-love.
63Ibid.. p. 73.
54
In one of her conversations with Madge, Mrs. Owens
describes her own experience with romantic love. She ex*
plains that her husband brought her as much pain as joy,
and that finally the pain completely supplanted the joy,
leaving her without either love or security. She describes
the later years of her marriage:
Flo: Your father wasn*t home much of the time then.
He'd found . . . other things. The night Millie was
bom he was with a bunch of his wild friends at the
road house.
Madge: Was he sorry?
Flo: Yes. He was always sorry. And I always for
gave him. Our life was a succession of fights and
endearments.
Madge: Anyway, you loved him.
Flo: What if I did? It takes a lot more than love
to keep people happy.64
At the conclusion of the play, as Flo tries to dissuade
Madge from following Hal to Tulsa, Mrs. Owens* own experi
ence with romantic love is reflected in her warning to
Madge:
Maybe you think you love him now, but in a few years
you*11 hate the day he set foot on our porch! ... He
needs you because he*s no good! He'll never be able
^Ibid.. p. 14.
55
to support you. And when he does have a job he'll
spend all his money on drink! And after a while
there'll be other women!
Mrs. Owens' fear of romantic love Implies a respect
for its power. She feels that once such a love is realized,
its passion will be irresistible. When she recognizes that
Madge is in love with Hal, she asks, "Why did this have to
happen to you?"^ In response to Madge's "I do love him!
I do!" she exclaims, "Madge, I hope that's not so!" But
she has no answer to Madge's question: "Oh, Mom, what can
you do with the love you feel? Where can you take it?"
Rather she confesses, "I . . . I never found out."**7
Later, as Madge leaves to follow Hal, Mrs. Owens knows that
she is asking the impossible when she pleads with Madge:
"Darling, even if you do love him, try to forget it!
68
Try!" She feels that once a passionate romantic love has
been experienced, there is no longer any defense against
it.
Because she so deeply fears the power of romance,
Mrs. Owens has taken great care to see that her daughters
65Ibid.. p. 73.
67Ibid.
66Ibid.. p. 71.
68Ibid.. p. 74.
56
associate only with young men of status. She believes that
if the girls know only respectable young men, they will
fall in love with men who can ultimately bring them hap
piness and security. When she first meets Hal, she recog
nizes him instantly as a young man who possesses a fatal
romantic charm and as a man who lacks the status and
respectability to make him an eligible suitor for one of
her daughters. She tries to condition her daughters
against his charm, calling him variously "riff-raff," a
"no-good," and a "tramp.Her instinctive distrust of
Hal motivates her to conclude, upon hearing an explosion in
the next yard, that Hal is carrying a gun.7®
Mrs. Owens is well aware that Madge is of marriage
able age. In addition to wanting to prevent Madge from
knowing undesirable young men, she wants to see Madge
married into wealth and prestige. To this end, she praises
Alan Seymour with the same persistence with which she
scorns Hal. She encourages Madge to try to get Alan to
marry her:
Flo: Now, Alan will be going back to school in a
few weeks. There won't be many more opportunities like
the picnic tonight. You better get busy.
69Ibid., pp. 10, 16, 18. 7QIbid.. . . p. 20.
57
Madge: Busy what?
Flo: Madge, a pretty girl doesn't have long— just
a few years when she's the equal of kings and can walk
out of a shanty like this and live In a palace with a
doting husband who* 11 spend his life making her
happy.?!
She emphasizes the financial and social benefits of being
married to Alan:
Madge, it'd be^awfully nice to be married to Alan.
You'd have charge accounts at all the stores— auto
mobiles— trips. You'd be Invited by all his friends to
parties in their homes and at the country club.'2
She makes an issue of the fact that Alan brings two cars to
take the girls to the picnic, and she is pleased to ask
Madge to have Alan use his father's influence to get them
the best accommodations at the picnic: "Tell him they're
expecting a big crowd . . . so he'd better use his father's
73
influence at the City Hall to reserve a table. . . ."
Having herself followed romantic love into a marriage which
ultimately denied her both financial security and prestige,
she is concerned to see that her daughters, immediately
Madge, are spared a similar disappointment.
71Ibid.. p. 12.
73Ibid.. pp. 10, 39.
58
Because of her own unhappy marriage and because pro
tecting her daughters is her most immediate concern, Flo
Owens is defensive and fearful in her relations with those
about her. She is especially pessimistic about romance,
viewing it as the irresistible facade which blinds the
young person to reality, as the mask which is later with
drawn to leave only deceit and unhappiness.
CHAPTER III
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
I. INTRODUCTION
Tennessee Williams* Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opened in
New York in March, 1955, and was the recipient of the
Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The stage
play was given 694 performances during its Broadway run,
and it was subsequently produced as a motion picture. The
play concerns the activities of the Pollitts, a wealthy
Mississippi-Delta family. Different interpretations of the
concept family comprise one of the play's issues; the names
given the central characters reflect this issue. The
senior Pollitts are referred to only as Big Daddy and Big
Mama. Since their favorite son, Brick, and his wife,
Maggie, are childless, the title of Little Mama has been
given to Mae, the prolific if unpopular wife of Gooper, the
Pollitts' older son.*
^Gooper and Mae are also referred to as Brother Man
and Sister Woman, family titles emphasizing the relation”
ships of these two to Brick, the favorite son. In the
59
60
The action, which transpires during an evening in
summer, is confined to the upstairs "bed-sitting room and
. . . gallery" shared by Brick and Maggie. The family are
gathered together, ostensibly to celebrate the sixty-fifth
birthday of Big Daddy, head of the household and owner of
the plantation. However, everyone except Big Daddy himself
knows that he is dying of cancer. Because of this, the
celebration is more of a premature wake than a birthday
party, and most of the birthday wishes are bids for a
larger share in the inheritance. The play has been labeled
3
"... a birthday party about death."
With a large inheritance at stake, the relatives
quarrel among themselves while trying to impress Big Daddy
of their love for him and for one another. Big Mama
original version of Act III, a version published but not
produced, Brick is given the title of Little Father when
it is known that Maggie is to bear his child. For the
original version of Act III, see the following: Tennessee
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (New York: New Directions,
1955). Also included in this edition is the playwright's
justification for writing a new Act III for production.
2
Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (New
York: Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 1958), p. 5. This is
the edition which will be referred to throughout this
chapter.
3
Kenneth Tynan, Curtains (New York: Atheneum, 1961),
p. 270.
refuses to believe that Big Daddy is dying, and she will
not consider Gooper's plans for managing the estate.
Gooper tries to discredit Brick and, at the same time, to
improve his own status in the family. He has enlisted the
aid of his wife, Mae, and his five children to promote him
self as the more capable son and the more rightful heir.
Brick, an alcoholic, remains aloof from the family contest,
but his wife, Maggie, schemes to thwart Gooper and to pro
tect Brick's interest in the estate.
However, Maggie is fighting for more than money: she
is fighting to reinstate herself as Brick's wife. As a
result of an episode which occurred antecedent to the
action of the play, Maggie has alienated Brick's affections.
As the play opens, Brick is devoid of any feeling for
Maggie. He neither loves nor hates her; rather, with the
aid of alcohol, he has virtually willed her out of exis
tence. This early episode which turned Brick away from
Maggie centered around his relationship with his best
friend, Skipper. Maggie, who had been jealous of that deep
friendship, had accused Skipper of having a sexual interest
in Brick. She had suggested to Skipper that, whether or
not he was aware of it, he was a homosexual, and that
62
he should make his motives known to Brick.^ Maggie had
made Skipper's relationship with Brick a self-conscious
one, setting off a chain of events which culminated in
Skipper's suicide and in Brick's rejection of Maggie and
withdrawal into alcoholism.
A major issue of the play is the central loneliness
of each individual, who, uncertain of his own dignity,
relies upon one illusion or another to protect him from
the unacceptable truths of his own existence.’ ’ Thus self
deceived, man must deceive others. And within the web of
hypocrisy and mendacity which he himself has woven, com
munication and communion with others is impossible. Within
the play, Big Daddy is forced to confront the truth of his
own imminent death, and Brick is forced to confront the
truth of his own accountability for Skipper's death.
11. VALUE COMMITMENTS OF THE CHARACTERS
The major characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are
delineated with sufficient clarity to be described in terms
^Infra, pp. 64-67.
^Tennessee Williams, "Tennessee Williams Presents
His POV," Span. VIII (June, 1961), 29-30.
63
of their value commitments. Initiating the following dis
cussions are the descriptions of Maggie and Big Daddy, the
two characters who most actively attempt to reach a given
goal. The two characters next considered, Brick and Big
Mama, are more clearly distinguished by their passivity.
Throughout the play, their value patterns emerge more
readily from their reactions to the behavior of other
characters than through their own direct behavior. The
remaining two principal characters, Gooper and Mae, are too
highly typed to merit intensive study.
Maggie. Alluded to as the cat of the title, Maggie
prefers to suffer through an intolerable marital relation
ship with Brick rather than solve her present frustration
by taking a lover. The self-fulfillment toward which
Maggie aspires is a successful marriage with Brick. The
manner in which she defines successful reveals the values
she ascribes to the components of the ideal marriage which
she envisages.
Maggiefs most inclusive demand is for a love rela
tionship with Brick. This relationship is not to be con
fined to sexual completion, although sexual completion is
essential to it. In the past, Maggie enjoyed the sexual
64
completion which she now desires. Prior to the culmination
of the Skipper-Brick episode, Maggie's relationship with
Brick included, according to Brick's statements as well as
her own, a satisfactory sexual relationship. From that
relationship, however, something she considered basic to
love was excluded.
Alluding to her sexual compatibility with Brick in
the past, Maggie makes this statement:
. . . You know, if I thought you would never, never,
never make love to me again— 1 would go downstairs to
the kitchen and pick out the longest and sharpest knife
I could find and stick it straight into my heart, I
swear that I would! But one thing I don't have is the
charm of the defeated, my hat is still in the ring, and
1 am determined to win.6
Brick himself, in his conversation with his father, refers
to the success of his early sexual relationship with
Maggie. He observes also that his friendship with Skipper
had made Maggie jealous, leaving her with a feeling that
her marriage was incomplete.
. . . Y'know I think that Maggie had always felt sort
of left out, so she took this time to work on poor
dumb Skipper! Poured in his mind the dirty, false idea
that what we were, him an' me was a frustrated case of
that ole pair of sisters that lived in this room, Jack
Straw an' Peter Ochello!'
^Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, p. 14.
7Ibid., pp. 57-58.
65
Had Maggie been satisfied with the mere sexual act, she
would not have interfered with the Skipper-Brick relation
ship.
Throughout the action of the play Maggie is charac
terized as domineering. Again and again she forces Brick
into a position of dependency or submission. While this
trait should not be overlooked, it may be considered as one
which she has exaggerated far beyond its basic proportion
because of her continued frustration. Maggie is refused
any distinct response from Brick except the neutral one of
indifference. Because a successful relation with Brick is
the goal which directs and integrates her behavior, Maggie
continues to participate in her present relationship with
Brick. She is left, however, with little more than her own
aggressiveness and domination as possible means of par
ticipation. Since the participation is to be one-sided,
she must exaggerate her behavior if any relationship at all
is to exist.
It might be anticipated that the Maggie-Brick rela
tionship, even in the idealized form which Maggie is seek
ing, would still represent less of a balanced union than of
a necessary interdependence between the more submissive
1
66
Brick and the more domineering Maggie. However, Maggie not
only realizes this but also insists that Brick realize it.
Maggie's interpretation of love cannot include illusions.
Her insistence that Brick also face himself and his mar
riage prompted her to expose the Brick-Skipper relation
ship. She is still confident that she can influence Brick
to confront and accept the realities of his own life and to
welcome a straightforward relationship with her.
The dialogue of Maggie and Brick in the following
episode not only initiates a critical discussion but also
symbolizes the impasse of their relationship:
Brick: I've dropped my crutch.
Maggie: Lean on me.
Brick: No, just give me my crutch.
Maggie: Lean on my shoulder.
Brick: I don't want to lean on your shoulder.
I want my crutch! Are you going to give me my crutch
or do I have to get down on my knees on the floor
and--
Maggie: Here, here, take it. take it!
Brick: Thanks. . . .®
8Ibid.. pp. 14-15.
67
Whether the crutch be interpreted as the Skipper-Brick
relationship of the past or as Brick's alcoholism in the
present, this brief scene focuses on the basis of Brick's
and Maggie'8 incompatibility. Brick is and has been
unusually dependent upon resources outside himself; Maggie
is and has been desirous of being depended upon.
In the pre-play episode, Brick was dependent upon
Skipper, not upon her; that she could not tolerate. In all
probability she assumed that Brick would transfer his
loyalty from Skipper to her when she became his wife. How
ever, such a transfer never took place. There is little in
Maggie's behavior to invalidate Brick's statement that she
had always felt left out.^ It was Maggie's desire to
possess more of Brick's personality and to force Brick to
realize his own dependence that compelled her to make the
Skipper-Brick relationship a self-conscious one. As she
herself states, she confronted Skipper finally with this
challenge: "Skipper? Stop loving my husband or tell him
he'8 got to let you admit it to him."10 Her gamble did not
succeed. While her competitor, Skipper, was defeated,
q
7Supra, p. 64.
10Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, p. 27.
68
Brick turned to alcohol as his source of strength, again
by-passing Maggie with his characteristic indifference to
her.
Maggie is not as concerned that Brick give up liquor
as she is that he learn to rely upon her. If he must have
liquor, she will provide it. The knowledge that Brick will
have to rely increasingly upon her is certainly one of the
prospects which keeps her with him.
A second demand of Maggie's self-image is her demand
to create— to bear children, to shape a valuable life for
herself and her husband, and to help control the destiny of
a family. The fulfillment of this demand is contingent
upon Brick's response. Brick's continued rejection of
Maggie inhibits both her sex drive and her desire to par
ticipate in a successful marriage. Beyond this, however,
it also stifles her most strongly creative urge--the urge
to bear children. Her resentment of this particular
barrier is expressed again and again throughout the play,
perhaps most clearly in her allusions to Gooper's children.
Maggie'8 main point of contention with Gooper and Mae
n ibid.. pp. 25, 80-81.
69
concerns their five "no-neck monsters." She criticizes
them repeatedly on the basis of their looks, their be
havior, and, more facetiously, their names. Many of her
references to the children appear in context with her ad
mission that she is being driven to malice by her own
frustration at having no children and her envy of those who
have. When Maggie admonishes Mae that the children "ought
t’be taught to keep their hands off things that don’t
belong to them," Mae responds: ". . . if you had children
of your own you'd know how funny that is." Maggie counters
by asking Mae why she has given her children dogs’ names:
"Dixie, Trixie, Buster, Sonny, Polly!— Sounds like four
dogs and a parrot . . . animal act in a circus.When
Mae leaves, Brick comnents that being catty does not help
things. Maggie replies, "I know! Why— am I so catty?—
Cause I'm consumed with envy and eaten up with longing?"13
Other members of the family, even the usually solicitous
Big Mama, take issue with Maggie's reprimanding of the
children and show their awareness of Maggie's underlying
jealousy. Big Mama states, "Well, why don't you have
12Ibid.. p. 17.
13Ibid., p. 18.
70
some children and bring them up well, then, instead of all
the time pickin' on Gooper's and Mae's?"*4 At the close of
Act I, when Maggie screams at the child Dixie and takes
away her cap pistol, Dixie echoes the adult opinion in this
line: "You're jealous!— You're just jealous because you
can't have babies!"*^
It is apparent that Maggie, unable to fulfill her
fundamentally creative instinct, has temporarily redirected
her creative energies toward destroying, at least verbally,
those who have been able to create. She is aware of this
redirection, however, and it is reasonable to assume that
once she is able to fulfill herself creatively, her
destructive tendencies will be reduced.*** She is deter
mined to create a valuable life for herself and her husband
and to have children. While her own interim behavior dis
turbs her, she is willing to accept it as inevitable until
the time when she can persuade Brick, by whatever means, to
help her establish a union permitting her an expression
14Ibid.. p. 20. 15Ibid., p. 29.
***Erich Fromm, "Values, Psychology, and Human Exis
tence, " New Knowledge in Human Values. Abraham H. Maslow,
editor (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), pp. 153-154.
71
of her more fundamental urges.
A third component of Maggie's ultimate goal is
security. Again her situation is complicated since she has
chosen Brick as the one with whom she may find an active
sense of belonging to life— a home characterized by love,
financial and material security, and a sense of permanence
in a transitory world. It is apparent, too, that she
desires to be given the right to provide such security for
her husband and her children.
It may be argued that Maggie's principal goal in
remaining with Brick is security— more specifically,
financial security. While she certainly is determined that
Brick will receive his share of the Pollitt estate and that
she will be on hand to benefit from the fortune also, it
does not seem defensible that this is her primary motive.
There is no evidence that she values the estate over Brick.
On the contrary, there is evidence that she would remain
with Brick regardless of the financial situation.*-7
Maggie is acutely conscious of being poor and of
having had to play up to others all of her life in order
17Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 62, 65.
72
to have money. She expresses her resentment of poverty in
connection with two earlier situations— the poverty of her
own family and her disappointment at the inheritance left
her by her Aunt Cornelia. ’ ’ Always had to suck up to people
1 couldn’t stand because they had money and I was poor as
18
Job's turkey.” While there is little reason to doubt
that she would follow the same pattern with the Pollitts
if it were necessary, the situation is not quite the same
as the earlier ones described. Maggie's liking for Big
Daddy is quite believable in terms of her own attitudes,
some of which are reflected in the following statement to
Brick:
Big Daddy dotes on you, honey. And he can't stand
Brother Man and Brother Man's wife, that monster of
fertility, Mae— she's downright odious to him! . . .
Big Daddy shares my attitude toward those two! As for
me, well--I give him a laugh now and then and he
tolerates me. In fact— I sometimes suspect that Big
Daddy harbors a little unconscious "lech" for me.*9
Besides, Maggie and Big Daddy have in common the tendency
to pursue honesty to the point of rudeness in personal
20
relations.
18Ibid.. p. 25.
20Ibid.. pp. 17, 28.
19Ibid.. p. 9.
Maggie doe8 not hesitate to make clear that she is
interested in the estate. Both she and Mae are openly in
competition for Big Daddy's money. Early in Act I, Maggie
sums up the critical features of the competition: Big Daddy
approves of Brick as a person, but the fact that Brick is
both Irresponsible and childless negates this approval;
Big Daddy approves of Gooper's having fathered five chil
dren, but the fact that Big Daddy personally dislikes both
Gooper and Mae negates this approval.The contest
remains evenly balanced until Maggie announces that she is
to have a child. This prospect sways Big Daddy's choice
in favor of Brick and Maggie.
For Maggie, financial security is desirable not only
in itself but also as a means to her most inclusive goal,
a successful marriage with Brick. She knows that Brick, at
least for some time, will not be able to support her or
himself. Nor could she consider working for a wage or a
salary. Neither her background, her training, or her own
self-image would permit her to work at anything except
being a wife and mother. If her marriage is to continue
21Ibid.. pp. 8-9.
74
at all, It must depend upon some kind of financial subsidy.
Within her marriage, Maggie ascribes great value to
honesty. But within the larger family and social group of
which she is a member, she prefers surface respectability
to honesty. At the expense of various kinds of deceit, she
will establish and maintain this respectability for Brick
and herself, with or without Brick's cooperation. While
such conformity may be explained in part as a conscious
technique for winning Big Daddy's approval, this explana
tion seems to be incomplete. Some of the fictions which
she tries to establish are singularly unimportant to Big
Daddy. One such fabrication is her attempt to establish
that Brick has purchased a gift for Big Daddy. Maggie has
not expected Brick to remember Big Daddy's birthday. She
has remembered: she has bought a card and a gift for Brick
to give, and she wants him simply to sign the card.22 At
the party, she hopes he will go along with her statement
that he has purchased the gift. Other fictions which she
tries to establish are that Brick is not really an alco
holic, that he is still capable of holding his job, that
22Ibid.. pp. 15-16.
75
he and she are sexually compatible, and, finally, that she
Is pregnant with his child.2^ Brick neither supports nor
denies these fabrications until, In the final scene, he
confirms, at least by Implication, her statement that she
is to have his child.2^
With regard to her personal reputation, Maggie is
equally eager to establish a certain respectability. She
is careful to show herself of better lineage than Mae, for
example, and to prove herself above the common woman repre
sented by Mae. The image which she wants Brick to have of
her is that of a woman who is sufficiently beautiful to be
desired by other men, yet unique in her fidelity to her
25
husband.
In her striving toward self-fulfillment, Maggie
maintains certain values, most of which she defines in
terms of a successful marriage. These values include:
sexual fulfillment, honesty, financial security, and social
respectability. She is committed to fulfilling herself as
a woman, enjoying her husband's love and bearing him chil
dren. She is committed to living in terms of reality
23Ibid.. pp. 22, 71, 78 ff.
2/*Ibid., pp. 79-80. 25Ibid., pp. 9-10, 23.
76
rather than illusion, and she feels that the individual,
within his limitations, is empowered to control his own
destiny.
Big Daddy. The senior Pollitt, Big Daddy, is intro
duced at a time in his life when his preoccupation is with
death. During the three years prior to the play's action,
he has been increasingly aware of the threat of death, and
that awareness has affected his view of reality and his
value system. Early in Act I, both he and Big Mama are
assured that his fear of death from cancer is unfounded.
As the other members of the family know, this assurance is
false, and his death is imminent. However, during the
period of time in which Big Daddy believes he is to have a
new lease on life, he engages life with renewed interest
and courage, determined to set straight some of the things
to which his fear of death had blinded him. Thinking him
self to have escaped death, Big Daddy does not hesitate to
evaluate his past life and to plan for a vastly different
future. In the process of doing so, he states clearly his
views on life and death, on the purpose and conditions of
life, and on the capacity of power and property to help man
transcend the finality of death.
77
Having lived with the threat of death, Big Daddy
considers life per se to be the supreme value. It is in
comprehensible to him that anyone would willingly throw
away his own life. It is even less credible to him that
his own son Brick would value life so little:
. . . Life is important. There's nothin' else to hold
onto. A man that drinks is throwin' his life away.
Don't do it. Hold onto your life, there's nothin' else
to hold onto.26
Again and again he attacks Brick for holding his own life
in such disdain: "Why do you drink? Why are you throwin'
your life away, boy, like somethin' disgustin' you picked
up on the street?"^
Underlying Big Daddy's high valuation of life is his
belief that there is no life beyond temporal death, that
the unique property of man is his awareness of death, and
that man's only immortality rests in what he leaves behind
him on earth. He considers man's struggle for wealth to be
part of his frantic scramble for life everlasting:
. . . The human animal is a beast that dies an' if
he's got money he buys an* buys an* buys an* I think
the reason he buys everything he can buy is that in
the back of his mind he has the crazy hope that one
26Ibid.. p. 41. ^Ibid., p. 50
78
o£ his purchases will be life everlastIn'— which it
never can be. . . .2®
Big Daddy frequently alludes to man as an animal, unique
only in his awareness of mortality. Thus aware of the con
tingency of his own life, man is the most fearful and the
most selfish of animals.2^ Big Daddy describes his per
sonal experience with the fact of death, concluding with
a restatement of his view of man's uniqueness among
animals:
Big Daddy: Have you ever been scared? I mean have
you ever felt downright terror of somethin'? Son, I
thought I had it. I thought the old man made out of
bones had laid his cold an' heavy hand on my shoulder!
Brick: Well, Big Daddy, you kept a tight mouth
about it.
Big Daddy: A pig squeals. A man keeps a tight
mouth about it, in spite of a man not havin' a pig's
advantage.
Brick: What advantage is that?
Big Daddy: Ignorance of mortality is a comfort.
A man don't have that comfort, he's the only living
thing that conceives of death, that knows what it is,
the others go without knowing. A pig squeals, but a
man, sometimes he can keep a tight mouth about
it. . . .30
28Ibid.. p. 43.
30Ibid.. p. 44.
2^Ibid., pp. 42-43.
79
Having been given the hope of a long life, Big Daddy
is determined to effect certain changes. With regard to
his family, he intends to re-assume the responsibilities
he has let slip into the hands of Big Mama and Gooper. 3^
Furthermore, he intends to force Brick to accept responsi
bility. He is confident that he can effect this change in
Brick by forceful and threatening means:
Big Daddy: If you ain't careful you're goin' to
crawl off this plantation an' then, by Jesus, you'll
have to hustle your drinks along Skid Row!
Brick: That'll come, Big Daddy.
Big Daddy; No, it won't! You're my son an* I'm
goin' to straighten you out, now that I'm straightened
out, I'm goin' to straighten you out!32
With regard to his own personal life, Big Daddy pro
poses to enjoy life, to approach it gently in order to
enjoy some of the subtle pleasures he has missed:
. . . All my life I been like a doubled up fist—
poundin', smashin', drivin'.' Now I'm goin' to
loosen these doubled up hands an' touch things easy
with 'em.33
However, an easy touch seems highly incompatible with the
T- ' '
31Ibid.. pp. 37-38, 40, 52.
32Ibid., p. 48. 33Ibid.. p. 45.
80
words he chooses to describe his approach to such pleasure,
i.e., smother, choke:
. . . You know what I'm contemplatin'? . . . Pleasure!
Pleasure with women. . . • I'm goin' to pick me a
choice one, I don't care how much she costs. I'll
smother her in minks! I'll strip her naked an' smother
her in minks an' choke her with diamonds! I'll strip
her naked an' choke her with diamonds an' smother her
with minks an' run her from Jackson to Memphis--non-
stopffi
It is doubtful that Big Daddy's approach to the choice one
would be any less violent than the above-quoted approach
to the one person whom he professes to love, his son
35
Brick. He appears to be totally incapable of assuming
any non-coercive methods in his relations with people.
Throughout his lifetime, Big Daddy has worked hard
to achieve power, property, and wealth. He has raised him
self from poverty to become a successful planter and a
wealthy and powerful land owner.3* * In the process, he has
been habitually firm in his self-discipline, habitually
strong-willed, demanding, and coercive in his dealings with
others.
34Ibid.. pp. 45-57.
36Ibid.. p. 38.
35Ibid.. p. 52.
81
Big Daddy regards his estate both as the result of
his own life's work and as the tool by which he can achieve
for himself a sort of immortality. He wants to see his
family line continued through Brick, the son whom he loves.
He dislikes Gooper and his family intensely; at the same
time, he does not want to throw away his life's work to a
man who rejects life, who is an alcoholic, and who is
childless:
... I hate Gooper an' those five screamin' monkeys
like parrots in a jungle an' that bitch, Mae! Why
should I turn over 28,000 acres of the richest land
this side of the Valley Nile to not my kind? But why
in hell on the other hand, Brick, should I subsidize
a dam' fool on the bottle? Liked or not liked, well,
maybe even— loved! Why should I do that? Subsidize
worthless behavior? Rot? Corruption?3'
He has written no will; nor does the knowledge that he is
to die prompt him to do so. Only Maggie's announcement
that she is pregnant with Brick's child offers him suf
ficient reason to write his will.38
Big Daddy confronts life actively, with a self-
confidence approaching arrogance. Outspoken about his own
personal likes and dislikes, he is nonetheless indulgent
with Brick. He asks only that Brick engage life rather
37Ibid., p. 52. 38Ibid., p. 78.
82
than withdraw from It. The details of that engagement are
not important to him. His solution to an unhappy marriage
is to dissolve it: ’ 'If you don't like Maggie, get rid of
Maggie.His solution to the deceit which characterizes
human relations, the mendacity which Brick credits as the
reason for his withdrawal, is to live with it and to enjoy
life in spite of it.
. . . What do you know about this mendacity thing?
... I could write a book on it an' still not cover
the subject! . . . Pretenses! Ain't that mendacity?
Havin' to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or
have any idea of? Havin' for instance to act like I
care for Big Mama! I haven't been able to stand the
sight, sound or smell of that woman for forty years!
Church! It bores the bejesus out of me, but I go!
Clubs! Elks! Masons! Rotary! . . . I've lived with
mendacity! Why can't you live with it? Hell, you
got to live with it, there's nothin' else to live with
except mendacity, is there?4^
To Brick's response that liquor is the other thing to live
with, Big Daddy retorts, "That's not livin’, that's dodgin'
away from life." Brick's reply that he wants to dodge life
evokes this question: "Then why don't you kill yourself,
man?ti41 Big D^dy could more easily understand suicide
than alcoholism, since the former would at least entail
39Ibid.. p. 41. 40Ibid.. pp. 51-52.
83
an act of will.
For Big Daddy, life Is to be met head-on; Its prob
lems are to be recognized for what they are and acted upon.
He believes that Brick Is using the term mendacity to con
ceal a very specific problem which has brought about
Brick's disdain for his own life:
Yep, you're passln' the buck, you're passln' the
buck to things like time an' disgust with mendacity,
an'--crap! If you got to use that kind of language
about a thing it's 90-proof bull an' I'm not buyin'
any. ^
Big Daddy feels, as does Maggie, that Brick should be made
to face the cause of his breakdown. He should be made to
build his life on the truth of the past, no matter what
that truth might be. The possibility of Brick and Skipper
having had an unnatural relationship does not disturb him;
the fact of Brick's not facing this possibility does. He
scoffs at Brick's shock and disgust at the idea of homo
sexuality:
... I just now returned from . . . death's country,
son, an' I'm not easy to shock by anything here.
Always, anyhow, lived with too much space around me
to be infected by th' ideas of other people. One
thing you can grow on a big place more important than
cotton--is tolerance! I grown it.^^
^Ibid. t p. 54. 43Ibid.. p. 56.
84
Big Daddy can accept the fact that Brick, in re
fusing to hear Skipper's confession, was perhaps instru
mental in Skipper's committing suicide. However, he cannot
accept Brick's refusing to recognize self-disgust, not
mendacity, as the root of his disintegration.
Big Daddy: Anyhow now we have tracked down the lie
with which you're disgusted an' which you are drinkin'
to kill your disgust with. It wasn't Maggie. Maggie,
nothin' I It was you! You been passin' the buck. This
disgust with mendacity is disgust with yourself! You
dug the grave of your friend an' kicked him in it!—
before you'd face ttruth with him!
Brick: His truth, not mine!
Big Daddy: His truth, okay, but you wouldn't face
it with him!
Brick: Who can face truth? Can you?
Big Daddy: Now don't start passin* th' rotten
buck again, boy!44
It is at this point that Brick counters by giving his
father the truth that he must face, the truth of his inmi-
nent death:
Brick: How about these birthday congratulations,
these many, many happy returns of th* day, when ev'ry-
body but you knows there won' t be any! 4^
Act II is concluded with this exchange of truths.
Brick's apology does little to alleviate Big Daddy's
44Ibid.. p. 58. 45Ibid.. p. 59.
85
revulsion and bitterness.
Brick: I'm sorry, Big Daddy. My head don't work
any more. Maybe it's bein' alive that makes people
lie, an' bein' almost not alive makes me sort of
accidentally truthful. I don't know, but anyway,
we've been friends— an* being friends is tellin' each
other th* truth. You told me! I told you?^6
Big Daddy does not accept his truth in silence; nor does
he accept it gently. His reaction is a striking out, a
malediction. His rage at the prescience of death is not
unlike the rage of a beast who is dying. ^
Brick. Brick is introduced as a young man for whom
self’ ‘fulfillment is an ideal of the past. He has seen his
ideal materialize, but he has also seen it disintegrate.
He feels that the values comprising that ideal have been
irreparably destroyed. His central motivation throughout
the play is to escape reality. Alcoholism is his principal
means of escape, and the only actions which he considers
worthy of effort are those necessary to protect his right
to drink. The click which he awaits marks the success of
his attempt to escape through drinking. His present
negation of life can be understood only in relation to
^Ibid., pp. 59-60. ^Supra, pp. 77-78.
86
his destroyed ideal and to the events bringing about its
destruction.
The ideal life which Brick built for himself was
based on values diametrically opposed to those held by his
father, Big Daddy.It is unlikely that he had ever been
able to accept his father's harsh realism. Wealth and
property were less important to him than was his personal
integrity. He defined success as well-being rather than
as power. His occupation was not the object of his work;
rather it was a by-product of his recreation. As a ball
player, he was working with others to achieve a goal
desired by everyone involved, not overcoming others to
achieve his own personal goal. Success depended upon team
work, sensitivity, grace, harmony, not upon one person's
using others, forcing them into a submissive position.
While he felt a certain loyalty to his family, he reserved
his true affection for his friends. The life which he had
built was rewarding in every way. Professionally, he had
enjoyed the status of a successful athlete. Socially, he
had enjoyed the respect and admiration of his friends.
48
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 9-19, 53, 62.
87
Personally, he had known the satisfaction which comes from
living up to one’s own ideal. Emotionally, he had known
the love of his family, his wife, Maggie, and his friend,
Skipper.
Both the fulfillment of Brick*s ideal life and its
destruction are events of the past, events which belong to
a time antecedent to the action of the play. Brick identi
fies Skipper with the fulfillment, Maggie with the destruc
tion. By the end of the play, Brick seems to have realized
the inadequacy of his explanations: "I didn't lie to Big
Daddy. I've lied to nobody, nobody but myself, just lied
to myself. . . .
It may be assumed that the life which Brick had
hoped to sustain, created as a reaction to Big Daddy's
harsh realism, was too idealistic to be sustained through
out a lifetime. While Brick's betrayal of his own values
precipitated its destruction, it is likely that time it
self, even without this betrayal, would have destroyed it.
Physically, Brick could not have continued indefinitely
to be a good athlete. Without assuming an interest in work
^Ibid., p. 62.
88
or in other activities, he could not have continued in
definitely to enjoy either the respect of his friends or
his own self-respect. Brick himself suggests this in try
ing to explain to Big Daddy his reasons for not wanting to
work as a sports announcer:
Sit in a glass box watchin' games I can't play?
Describin' what 1 can't do while players do it?
Sweatin' out their disgust an' confusion in contests
I'm not fit for? Drinkin' a coke, half bourbon, so
I can stand it? That's no dam* good any more— time
just outran me, Big Daddy--got there first.50
Time would have destroyed the illusion. However, it was
Brick's betrayal of his own ideal that hastened this
destruction. In refusing to hear Skipper's confession,^
Brick violated his own code of friendship, withdrawing his
loyalty and, as a consequence, destroying another person.
Skipper's confession precipitated Brick's boundary situ-
52
ation, threatening, in one instant, to cast into an ugly
light all of the values upon which Brick had built his
life. Giving audience to Skipper threatened to reveal
Brick's own self-fulfillment to be a misconception, an
illusion. Rather than face this threat, Brick chose
50Ibid., p. 53. Supra, p. 84.
52Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 195 ff.
89
to reject Skipper, to avert the situation, and to preserve
his illusion as a reality which had been destroyed by
external conditions. Just as he prefers the memory of
having lumped hurdles to the actuality of being able to
perform some lesser feat,^ so he prefers the memory of
having lived to the actuality of living a lesser life.
Realizing his own inadequacy in pursuing this preference,
Brick looks to alcoholism to obscure this realization and
to make tolerable his negation of life in the present.
Whether or not the painful events culminating in the
death of Skipper are at the root of Brick*s collapse, they
at least have provided Brick with a plausible excuse for
withdrawing from life. His bitterness focuses upon Maggie,
whom he credits for having destroyed the life he had en
joyed. In his rationalization, it was marriage to her
which cut short his athletic career, and it was her
meddling as an over-possessive wife which had destroyed his
friendship with Skipper. He cannot admit that his own
revulsion at the thought of homosexuality had destroyed
Skipper. Rather he projects his own feelings, crediting
Maggie with this revulsion:
53Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 29, 37.
90
Brick: One man has one great good true thing In
his life. One great good thing which Is true! I had
friendship with Skipper, and you are namln' it dirty!
Maggie: I'm not namln' it dirty. I am namln' it
clean!
Brick: Not love with you, Maggie, but friendship
with Skipper, and you are namln* it dirty.
Maggie: Then you haven't been listenin', not under
stood what I'm sayln'! I'm namln' it so damn clean
that it killed poor Skipper! You two had somethin'
that had to be kept on ice, yes, Incorruptible, yes!
and death was the only icebox where you could keep
it. 54
She has described the relationship as "one of those beauti
ful ideal things they tell about in Greek legends,"55
whereas he, in his talk with Big Daddy, shows his inability
to regard a homosexual relationship as anything but dis
gusting. 56
Brick has not consciously admitted his own depen
dence on others.5^ This dependence seems, however, to be
the logical outcome of Brick's rejection of his father's
high valuation of power. Lacking respect both for power
and for its antithesis as valued by Big Mama, i.e., sub
mission, Brick has assumed himself to be living in an ideal
54Ibid.. p. 27.
56Ibid.. pp. 54-58.
55Ibid.. p. 26.
57Supra. pp. 66-67.
91
harmony with his friends and family. He has considered
himself to be self-sufficient, not needing other people
either to submit to him or to dominate him. Perhaps It was
his faith In his self-sufficiency which attracted Big
Daddy's love and respect, and which gave Brick the quality
of detachment described by Maggie in the following:
. . . You always had that detached quality as if you
were playing a game without much concern over whether
you won or lost, and now you've lost the game, not lost
but just quit playing, you have that rare sort of charm
that usually only happens in very old or hopelessly
sick people, the charm of the defeated. You look so
cool, so cool, so enviably c o o l .58
Perhaps the truth which Brick is most unwilling to accept
is that his assumption of self-sufficiency is unfounded,
that he is and has been unknowingly dependent upon other
people.
Throughout the play, Brick avoids living as care
fully as he seeks out drinking. His only significant
actions are those into which he is intimidated by others.
Those who demand action from him are his parents and his
wife. They succeed, when rarely they do, by withholding
Brick's liquor until he has given them some satisfaction.
58Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, p. 13.
92
Brick's parents, who love him to the extent o£ con
sidering him their only son, try in various ways to get him
to grasp life, somehow to justify their leaving to him Big
Daddy's estate. They want him to maintain at least a
polite marriage, to have children, to assume some responsi
bility, and to permit them to help him quit drinking. Of
the two, only Big Daddy is able to get through to Brick to
find out the cause of his drinking. Brick provides satis
faction here only when his liquor and his crutch are with
held. 59 Having been intimidated into revealing his truth,
Brick counters by telling Big Daddy the truth which he
cannot endure.6® Big Mama is less demanding of Brick than
is her husband, attributing much of his dissolution to the
influence of Maggie. The affection which she shows Brick
is rebuffed; her pleading that he stop drinking is in
effectual. In her own moment of crisis, Big Mama cries out
to Brick, her only son, for comfort; Brick withdraws from
the situation entirely.61 In her dealings with Brick, Big
Mama threatens nothing, and she accomplishes nothing. Her
love for him is unconditional, and it is not returned.
Ibid., pp. 48-56. 6®Supra. p. 84.
^Hfilliams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 63 ff.
93
Maggie seems uniquely capable of living out her term
as a cat on a hot tin roof. She is determined that Brick
will one day accept the past and make some efforts toward
the present and the future. In the meantime, she will do
her best to keep up appearances and to wait, in spite of
her discomfort and insecurity. Maggie tries, to less
effect than does Big Daddy, to break through Brick's escape
mechanism and to force him to re-evaluate past events.
Despite Brick's passive opposition, she makes every effort
to present to Brick's family the image of him as they want
62
him to be. For the most part, Maggie's efforts fail, and
since these efforts partake of mendacity, they further
antagonize Brick. The extension of the play permits the
possibility that Maggie, not too proud to use any available
advantage, may still effect a successful marriage. Having
announced that she is pregnant, Maggie prepares to make
that lie come true. She approaches Brick in this manner:
. . . Echo Spring has gone dry, and no one but me could
drive you to town for more. ... I told a lie to Big
Daddy, but we can make that lie come true. And then
I'll bring you liquor, and we'll get drunk together,
^2Supra, pp. 74-75.
94
here, tonight, in this place that death has come into!
What do you say? What do you say, baby?”*
Brick answers, "I admire you, Maggie,"6^ and the implica
tion of the scene is that Maggie will succeed.
Throughout most of the play's action, Brick continues
to regard self-fulfillment as an ideal of the past. Com
mitted to living a life based on highly unrealistic
values,^ Brick values alcoholism as a means to avoiding
the antithetical realities of his present life. Brick's
encounter with Big Daddy noticeably weakens his commitment
to the past, and it is implied that he may yet adopt a com
mitment which will permit him to engage life in the present
and the future.
Big Mama. For Big Mama, such goals as security and
happiness receive their definition and value from a prior
commitment to the family as an institution. She defines
herself as part of a family: as Big Daddy's wife, as
Brick's mother and the children's grandmother, as the wife
of a landowner, and as the matron of a vast estate.
63
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, p. 81.
6^Ibid. 65supra, pp. 87-89.
95
Her individuality has been absorbed by this concept of
family, and her security lies in her identification with a
family and with the land which has permitted it to prosper.
In her love relationship with Big Daddy she is sub
missive and insecure, lacking pride or initiative; in her
relationship with Brick she behaves similarly, giving
everything, demanding nothing. Her disregard for Gooper
presents itself as a mild reflection of Big Daddy's active
disdain for Gooper.^
Having very early identified herself with the larger
units of family and land, Big Mama has probably never con
sidered her existence to be a thing needing justification.
Since her life would be meaningless without Big Daddy's
love, she rationalizes his denial of ever having loved her
as an indication of his failing health. The threat of Big
Daddy's impending death, rather than forcing her to inquire
into her own being, motivates her to urge Brick into the
focal position held by Big Daddy, the position of father
and land owner.
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 40, 52, 68.
67Infra. pp. 97-98.
96
In her personal appearance and social behavior, Big
Mama appears to be attempting to gain attention for her
self. Her family judges her movements, her voice, even her
language to be in bad taste, more befitting a younger, more
attractive woman. Her coy giggles in Big Daddy's direction
are inappropriate to the point of being grotesque; the
sentimental attentions she pays Brick are embarrassing to
those present. Her joking with the Reverend Tooker does
Aft
not amuse the others as she intends it to. °
One of the ironies of Big Mama's relationship with
her husband lies in her belief that she shares in and is
identified with his success. Big Daddy makes clear, how
ever, that he considers the accomplishments to be his
alone. He feels that she has been trying to take advantage
of that which he has earned.
. . . For three years now you been gradually takin'
over. Bossin', talkin', sashayin' your ole butt aroun'
this place I made! I made this place! ... I quit
school at ten years old an' went to work like a nigger
in th* fields. An' I rose to be overseer of th’ Straw
an' Ochello plantation. An' ole Straw died an' I was
Ochello's partner an' the place got bigger an' bigger
an' bigger! I did all that myself with no goddam help
from you. . . .
68
Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, pp. 21, 31-32.
69Ibid., p. 38.
97
Such assertions of Big Daddy's pose a serious threat to Big
Mama. Her sense of completeness lies in her identification
with him and his enterprises. By denying her a part in his
own life, he threatens to destroy the value of hers.
Rather than permit this destruction, Big Mama convinces
herself that he is not serious.
. . . Big Daddy, Big Daddy, oh, Big Daddy! You didn't
mean those things you said to me, did you? Sweetheart,
sweetheart! Big Daddy, you didn't mean those awful
things you said to me? I know you didn't. I know you
didn't mean those things in your heart.
Later, while talking with the family, Big Mama continues to
rationalize this one serious threat:
. . . When old couples have been together as long as
me an' Big Daddy they, they get irritable with each
other just from too much-"devotion! ... I think Big
Daddy was just worn out. He loves his fam'ly. He
loves to have 'em around him, but it's a strain on his
nerves. He wasn't himself tonight, ... I could tell
he was all worked up.^1
When Big Mama is told that her husband is dying, she
refuses to believe it: "It's all a mistake, I know it's
just a bad dream."7^ When she is finally convinced of the
truth, her focus goes immediately to Brick: "Margaret,
7^Ibid., p. 46.
7^Ibid.. p. 69.
71Ibid.. p. 63.
98
you’ve got to cooperate with me an’ Big Daddy to straighten
Brick out now . . . because it’ll break Big Daddy’s heart
if Brick don't pull himself together an' take hold of
73
things here." It is as though she must immediately find
a replacement for the one on whom she has depended, Big
Daddy. And the one to fill this role must be the one Big
Daddy respects, Brick. Big Mama has never developed the
self-reliance which would permit her to assume Big Daddy's
responsibilities or, for that matter, the responsibility of
her own existence. Her energies go into preparing Brick
to play Big Daddy's role in the family.
. . . Oh, Brick, son of Big Daddy, Big Daddy does so
love you. Y'know what would be his fondest dream come
true? If before he passed on, if Big Daddy has to
pass on . . . you give him a child of yours, a grandson
as much like his son as his son is like Big Daddy.
The family must be assured. Only the family, in her valu
ation, is powerful enough to conquer time and transcend
death.
Gooper and Mae. Gooper and Mae indeed have their
own individual characteristics. However, representing
a family unit, they join forces to present a truly
73Ibid.. p. 70.
7^Ibid., pp. 75-76.
99
mediocre pair, striving toward the same goals with slightly
different approaches, echoing one another's values with
slightly different innuendoes. Along with their children,
Gooper and Mae furnish the prosaic background against which
the mqre colorful characters are clearly projected.
As characters, both Gooper and Mae are so clearly
typed that little is left to the imagination. Coupled with
the disdain afforded them by the other members of the
family, this predictability leaves them with little
dramatic interest. The neutrality of their characters does
provide, however, the necessary balance for the other
characters of the play. Gooper and Mae are defeated by
their very mediocrity. Their marriage is depicted more as
a collaboration than a union, i.e., a cooperative dedicated
to the rearing of children, the maintenance of respecta
bility, and the acquisition of funds to secure both.
Gooper is practical and orderly, a person whose
individuality has become lost in the rules he so patiently
follows. He considers himself an exemplary son, a profes
sional man, a good husband and father. His chief interest
is the material welfare of himself and his family. He has
married into money, he has maintained his position as
100
a corporation lawyer, and he Is now dedicated to gaining
control over the Pollitt estate. He has spent much time
and effort in planning for this latter move, and his im
mediate problem is to present his plans subtly. He does
not want the family to recognize how thoroughly he is
prepared for his father's death. Neither he nor Mae is
capable of this subtlety, and both his father and mother
take steps to see that his plans will not be put into
effect.
Gooper's resentment of Brick's position as the
favored son is evident throughout the play, motivating many
of his minor as well as major responses. Early in the
play, for example, when Big Daddy is urged to open the
birthday gift from Brick, Gooper remarks, "I get 500 to 50
Brick doesn't know what it is."7" * When Brick reacts to his
mother’s request to put down his drink by quickly drinking
it, Gooper calls attention to this act in his remark, "Look
at ole Brick put it down!"7* * In reference to Brick’s
failure to take responsibility for his parents' welfare,
Gooper describes him as "still a football player at 27."77
75Ibid., p. 34. 76Ibid.. p. 31.
77Ibid.. p. 71.
101
When he Is driven to be explicit in his resentment, Gooper
states to Brick:
. . . I've resented Big Daddy's partiality to Brick
ever since th' goddam day you were bom, son, an' th'
way I've been treated, like I was just barely good
enough to spit oxtf an' sometimes not even good enough
for that.7°
Nor is there any reason to believe that the favoritism
Gooper resents does not exist. Big Mama, in her despair at
learning her husband's real condition, calls: "I want
Brick! Where's Brick! Where's my only son?"^ Throughout
the play, Big Daddy is quite explicit about his dislike for
Gooper.8®
Having enjoyed so little love from his parents,
Gooper does not view a family relationship in terms of love
or affection. A family is a business unit within \tfiich all
members should be given fair treatment.
... I don't give a goddam if Big Daddy likes me or
don't like me or did or never did or will or will
never! I'm just appealin' to a sense of common decency
an' fair play! . . . I'm askin' for a square deal an'
by God, I expect to get one. But if I don't get one,
if there's any peculiar shenanigans goin' on around
here behind my back, well, I'm not a corporation lawyer
for nothin'! I know how to protect my own interests.®^
78Ibid.. p. 72.
80Ibid.. pp. 40, 52.
7^lbid., p. 68.
81Ibid.. p. 72.
102
Both Gooper and Mae sincerely feel that they are the
ones deserving the estate, since they are a responsible
couple having managed well and having reared five children.
Material gain is their one important goal in the immediate
situation, and they will endure any insult so long as this
is assured.
CHAPTER IV
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
I. INTRODUCTION
Long Day's Journey Into Night, Eugene O'Neill’s
autobiographical drama^ which was withheld from production
until three years after the playwright's death, had its
premiere in November of 1956. The play enjoyed a Broadway
run of nearly four hundred performances, and the approval
of the critics was attested to by the fact that the play
won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Critics Circle Award
for the 1956-57 season. Furthermore, the play was chosen
to represent the United States in the International Theatre
Festival in Paris in 1957.
Long Day's Journey Into Night is autobiographical
in that the Tyrone family portrayed in it reflects one
image of the O'Neills, a darkened image distorted toward
the pathological. Perhaps a true picture of the O'Neills
lies somewhere between the severely drawn figures of the
Tyrones and the sentimentally drawn figures of the Hillers,
the warm and genial family of Ah. Wilderness. * (1934).
103
104
Set in the year 1912, the play concerns the inter
action of the isolated and despairing Tyrones--father,
mother, and two sons— between morning and midnight of an
August day. In the bright sunlight of the morning, the
Tyrones appear to have control of their lives and to be
capable of living in harmony with one another. However, as
fog and darkness progressively overcome the sunlight, the
Tyrones reveal themselves to be controlled by their indi
vidual passions and fears, incapable of living peacefully
even within themselves, let alone with one another. Each
character pursues his own dissolution, relentlessly and
inevitably; each drives the others more deeply into their
own despair. The uncompromising torment of the situation
evoked from one reviewer the following description:
"Long Day's Journey" is not a play. It is a lacer
ating round-robin of recrimination, self-dramatization,
lies that deceive no one, confessions that never expi
ate the crime. Around the whiskey bottles and the
tattered leather chairs and the dangling light cords
that infest the decaying summer home of the Tyrones
(read O'Neills), a family of ghosts sit in a perpetual
game of four-handed solitaire, stir to their feet in a
danse macabre that outlines the geography of Hell,
place themselves finally on an operating table that
allows for no anesthetic. When the light fails, they
are still--but not saved.2
2Bamard W. Hewitt, Theatre U.S.A.. 1668 to 1957
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959), p. 481,
citing Walter Kerr, New York Herald Tribune, November 7,
1956.
105
The action of the play takes place in the summer
home of James Tyrone, a wealthy but miserly actor sixty-
five years of age. The shabbily-constructed and poorly-
furnished cottage, located on the North Atlantic seacoast,
is as much of a home as the family has ever known. Except
during the summer, Tyrone and Mary, to whom he has been
married for thirty-five years, live in one New York hotel
after another, following the circuit of Tyrone's acting
engagements. Ever since the birth of their younger son,
Edmund, twenty-three years earlier, Mary has been tinder-
going intermittent treatment for drug addiction. Having
just undergone one of these cures, Mary has gone without
drugs for the past two months. Beginning to be certain
that she is fully recovered, the family is experiencing an
unusually happy summer.
However, the long August day witnesses the journey
of the Tyrones into despair, a process which culminates in
their isolation from one another and in their negation of
life. By the end of the day, Mary has retreated into the
illusory world of her girlhood, protected by morphine from
the harsh realities surrounding her; Tyrone and his two
sons, Jamie and Edmund, have escaped, less completely, into
alcoholism.
The congeniality of the family as Act I opens proves
to be tenuously founded. Tyrone and his sons try to over
come their suspicions, that Mary has once again begun to
take narcotics. Mary attributes her sleeplessness of the
night before to Tyrone's snoring, to the disturbance of the
sounding foghorn, and to her worrying about Edmund's fail-
ing health, but her nervousness and her distraction sug
gest that she might have relapsed into using morphine. The
family's after-breakfast conversation establishes the elder
Tyrone as a wealthy but miserly Irishman; his outstanding
virtue seems to be his continuing love for Mary. Jamie,
the elder son, is depicted as an embittered cynic and a
confirmed drunkard; still in his early thirties, he works
as little as possible; he buys his drinks with his father's
money, at the same time blaming his father's miserliness
not only for his mother's drug addiction but also for his
and Edmund's alcoholism.4 Tyrone, on the other hand,
attributes Edmund's illness to the way of life which Jamie
has influenced him to lead. After Tyrone and Jamie
3
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), pp. 17, 47.
4Ibid., pp. 30-31, 39. 5Ibid., p. 34.
107
have left the house to work outside, Mary takes Edmund Into
her confidence, telling him of her loneliness and Isolation,
her shame at living In a house which Is not a home, and her
despair of having no friends of her own. She claims, too,
that she Is depressed by her family's constant suspicion
of her. As Act I closes, she challenges Edmund's trust by
suggesting that she go upstairs, by herself, to take a nap.
"Or," she says, "are you afraid to trust me alone?"** Want
ing to prove that he does not doubt her fidelity in keeping
a promise, Edmund encourages her to go.
The opening scene of Act II, occurring shortly be
fore one o'clock in the afternoon, discloses Edmund alone
in the living room. He is half-heartedly trying to read,
preoccupied with apprehension over his mother's activities.
He takes a drink of the bourbon brought in by the second
girl, Cathleen, after he learns that his mother has been
"lying down in the spare room with her eyes wide open."7
When Jamie enters, he also takes a drink, carefully re
filling the bourbon bottle with water. Upon learning that
Edmund has permitted his mother to be alone all morning,
6Ibid.. p. 49. 7Ibid.. p. 53.
108
Jamie becomes angry, convinced that she has again taken
drugs. Despite his own doubts, Edmund defends her. Their
arguing is cut short by Mary's entrance; she appears as
before except that "she appears to be less nervous . . .
her eyes are brighter, and there is a peculiar detachment
O
in her voice and manner. . . .” As the scene progresses,
Jamie, then Edmund, and finally Tyrone realize that she has
taken drugs. The scene closes on the disillusionment of
the three men and on Mary's stubborn denial that she has
broken her promise.
The second scene, occurring some thirty minutes
after the first, shows the family retiring from lunch.
Mary is detached and indifferent, Tyrone is weary and
resigned, Jamie is bitter and cynical, and Edmund is weak
with his physical illness and his emotional despair. Their
feeble attempt to mask their unhappiness is relieved by the
ringing of the phone: Dr. Hardy has called to arrange an
appointment for Edmund. The mention of Dr. Hardy sets off
one of Mary's tirades against cheap doctors; she reminds
herself, ”. . . it was exactly the same type of cheap quack
®Ibid., p. 58.
109
who first gave you the medicine— and you never knew what
it was until too late!"^ Mary’s retiring upstairs is fol
lowed by Jamie's cynical conclusion, "Another shot in the
arm!"*'® Within an instant the two boys are quarreling
bitterly; Tyrone furiously attacks them both, accusing them
of living a useless and destructive life: "You've both
flouted the faith you were born and brought up in— the one
true faith of the Catholic Church— and your denial has
brought nothing but self-destruction."^ Motivated by this
outburst, the boys join together to accuse him of hypocrisy,
and the bitterness continues until Edmund leaves to dress
for his doctor's appointment. Tyrone and Jamie then dis
cuss Edmund's illness and the sanatoriums to which he might
be sent. "What I'm afraid of is," challenges Jamie, "with
your Irish bogtrotter idea that consumption is fatal,
you'll figure it would be a waste of money to spend any
more than you can help."*-2 upon Mary's re-entry, Jamie
leaves to prepare to accompany Edmund to town. With a
futile attempt to communicate, Tyrone and Mary talk about
9Ibid., p. 74. 10Ibid.. p. 75.
11Ibid., p. 77. 12Ibid.. p. 80.
110
their continuing love for one another, about Mary's lone
liness, about Tyrone's drinking and frugality. Mary's
talking leaves the present situation in favor of reminis
cences, and she relives her happy hours as a girl living in
a convent; she talks about her marriage to Tyrone, her loss
of friends, her misery at living in hotels, following
Tyrone's one-night stands, the death of her second child,
Eugene, and the painful circumstances surrounding the birth
11
of Edmund. J By the conclusion of Act II, the three men
have gone to town, leaving Mary alone and frightened,
vacillating between relief that the condemning faces have
gone away and despair at her own loneliness:
It's so lonely here. You're lying to yourself
again. You wanted to get rid of them. Their contempt
and disgust aren't pleasant company. You're glad
they're gone. Then Mother of God, why do I feel so
lonely.
The opening of Act III reveals Mary talking with the
maid, Cathleen, both awaiting and fearing the return of
the men. The time is about six-thirty, and the dusk is
deepened by an early fog. Mary is more deeply withdrawn
from reality than before, and her chattering is girlish
13Ibid.. pp. 81-89. 14Ibid., p. 95.
Ill
and frivolous. She gossips about the chauffeur, laughs
about her husband's snoring, tells Cathleen about her
convent schooling and about her girlhood success as a
pianist.^ She elaborates on the romantic situation of her
falling in love with the handsome and popular James Tyrone,
but when Cathleen leaves, her bitterness returns:
You're a sentimental fool. What is so wonderful
about that first meeting between a silly romantic
schoolgirl and a matinee idol? You were much happier
before you knew he existed, in the Convent when you
used to pray to the Blessed Virgin. If I could only
find the faith I lost, so I could pray again.'
She attempts to pray, then scorns her own attempt: "You
expect the Blessed Virgin to be fooled by a lying dope
fiend reciting words! ... I haven't taken enough. When
you start again you never know exactly how much you
need.Tyrone and Edmund return home to this situation.
They resume their drinking, and Mary continues reminiscing.
When Tyrone leaves the room to get more whiskey, Edmund,
in a final attempt to bring his mother back to reality,
tells her that he does have consumption and must go to a
18
sanatorium. She refuses to believe him or the doctor:
15Ibid., pp. 97-104. 16Ibid.. pp. 105-107.
^Ibid. ^Ibid.. pp. 118-120.
112
". . . I know it's nothing but Hardy's ignorant lies. . . .
If I gave you the slightest encouragement, you'd tell me
next you were going to die--"*9 Out of his own anguish,
Edmund condemns his mother for the first time: "It's pretty
hard to take at times, having a dope fiend for a mother!
Repelled by his own behavior, Edmund asks her forgiveness
and goes out into the fog, telling her that he does not
want any dinner. Tyrone returns and vainly tries to com
fort her. But as Cathleen announces dinner, Mary excuses
herself to go to bed. Tyrone recognizes her motive: "Up to
take more of the God-damned poison, is that it? You'll be
like a mad ghost before the night's over!" "I don't know
what you're talking about, James," Mary responds. "You say
such mean, bitter things when you've drunk too much.
You're as bad as Jamie or Edmund."2*
The conclusion of the play, Act IV, takes place
around midnight. Tyrone fumbles his way through a game of
solitaire. He is described as . . a sad, defeated old
man, possessed by hopeless resignation. . . . He is drunk
19Ibid., p. 120.
21Ibid.. p. 123.
113
. . . but despite all the whiskey In him, he has not
escaped. , . .1,22 Edmund, also drunk, returns from his
walk in the fog. The two resume their drinking, half
heartedly playing a game of Casino, waiting for Jamie's
return from town, hoping that Mary will soon stop her rest
less pacing upstairs and go to sleep. As they hope for
the time to pass, they variously condemn and forgive one
another. Tyrone upbraids Edmund for his ingratitude and
pessimism; Edmund accuses his father of being responsible
for his mother's drug addiction, condemning him, too, for
wanting to send him to a free state institution with a bad
reputation rather than to a good private sanatorium where
he would be well cared for. Tyrone reminisces about his
hard life as a boy, and Edmund shares with his father the
happy memories of his life on the sea.
When Jamie enters, also drunk, he confides in Edmund,
confessing that a part of him has always hated Edmund, that
a part of him has lured Edmund into a life of dissipation
not so much to teach him by experience as to destroy him.
Jamie mutters, "Never wanted you to succeed and make me
22Ibid.. p. 125.
114
look even worse by comparison. Wanted you to fall. Always
jealous of you. Mama's baby, Papa's pet." J He continues,
"The dead part of me hopes you won't get well. Maybe he's
even glad the game has got Mama again! He wants company,
he doesn't want to be the only corpse around the house!”24
Disregarding Edmund's protestations, Jamie tells him to
remember this truth when he returns from the sanatorium.
"I'll be waiting to welcome you with that 'my old pal'
stuff, and give you the glad hand, and at the first good
chance I get stab you in the b a c k . J a m i e falls into a
drunken sleep, regaining consciousness to voice again his
disgust at Tyrone's destructive miserliness and to antici
pate, with maudlin dramatics, the effect of his mother's
descent from upstairs: "The Mad Scene. Enter Ophelia."26
The play closes on the morphine-induced mutterings of Mary
as she relives experiences of her girlhood. She is com
pletely oblivious to the presence of her husband and sons,
and the futility of their drunken attempts to bring her
back to them and to reality is mocked by Jamie's recitations
23Ibid.t p. 165. 24Ibid.. p. 166.
25Ibid. 26Ibid.. p. 170.
115
from Swinburne*s "A Leave-taking.” Her search for her lost
faith moves in counterpoint with the lines of Jamie *s
bitter recital: ”... Yes, though we sang as angels in her
27
ear, she would not hear.” Each of the Tyrones is iso
lated in his own private hell, beyond communication with
any of the others.
II. VALUE COMMITMENTS OF THE CHARACTERS
The preceding discussion has introduced the Tyrones
as they relate to one another and has described the se
quence of events which reduces each member of the family to
a solitary and despairing fugitive from life. The purpose
of the following discussion is to describe each member in
the light of the value commitments which make possible such
a denial of life. The characters are approached in this
order: James Tyrone and his wife, Mary, and their two sons,
Jamie and Edmund. While three servants live with the
Tyrones, they are not considered in the following discus
sion since they serve little more than technical functions
27Ibid., p. 173.
116
in the play.2®
James Tyrone. Tyrone's strongest motive force is
the fear of poverty, and he is committed to averting
poverty by any means. His own attitude is reflected in his
description of his mother: "Her one fear was she'd get old
oq
and sick and have to die in the poorhouse." Committed
to averting poverty, Tyrone views land and money as the
highest values, regarding them as ends in themselves rather
than as means to sustaining his family. Of the two, land
and money, he places the highest premium on land. As he
confides to Edmund:
... It was at home I first learned the value of a
dollar and the fear of the poorhouse. I've never been
able to believe in my luck since. I've always feared
it would change and everything I had would be taken
away. But still, the more property you own, the safer
you think you are. That may not be logical, but it's
the way I have to feel. Banks fail, and your money's
gone, but you think you can keep land beneath your
feet.30
28
The chauffeur, Smythe, and the cook, Bridget, do
not appear in the play, although they are alluded to. The
second girl, Cathleen, appears briefly; in her most impor
tant scene, the initial scene of Act III, she comprises the
audience for Mary's reminiscences. As domestic servants,
the three are distinctly below average, attesting to
Tyrone's false economy in looking after his family.
290*Neill, op. cit.. p. 148.
30Ibid.. p. 146.
117
But Tyrone's hunger for land and wealth is insatiable.
Although he owns property valued at a quarter of a million
dollars,3^ he is still compelled to provide for his family
only grudgingly in order to keep money on hand for future
investments. Self-fulfillment is virtually unattainable
for Tyrone, since no amount of money or property can quite
dispel his driving fear of impending poverty.
In countless little ways, Tyrone's needless fru
gality has contributed to the insecurity of himself and his
family. And in too many cases the bargains for which he
has sacrificed have brought with them added troubles and
insecurities. The automobile which he has bought to please
Mary is too old to bring her anything but shame, too worn
to run without numerous, expensive repairs; the garageman
whom he has hired to drive the car is paid less than a
qualified chauffeur, but he makes up the difference by petty
thieving, and he contributes humiliation rather than pres-
0 9
tige to the family. The cheap hotels and the shabby
summer house, the only places where the family have lived,
have been resented by the family, since they have never
31Ibid.. p. 144 32Ibid.. pp. 84-86, 98.
118
33
represented more than make-shift imitations of a home.
The threadbare clothes, the bargain cigars, the constant
admonitions to save electricity and to "learn the value of
a y
a dollar"— these characterize Tyrone to his family. And
the man thus characterized is the one who has allowed his
miserliness to destroy himself as a professional actor,
to risk the physical and mental health of his wife, to
threaten the health of his son Edmund, and to undermine the
well-being of his family as a whole.
Tyrone is reluctant to admit that his frugality has
had any adverse effects on himself or his family. However,
at the time when he and Edmund are on particularly con
fidential terms,^ both having been weakened by alcohol and
emotional strain, he admits to Edmund that his over
valuation of money is responsible for his artistic failure
as an actor.
. . . Yes, maybe life overdid the lesson for me, and
made a dollar worth too much, and the time came when
that mistake ruined my career as a fine actor. I've
never admitted this to anyone before, lad, but tonight
33Ibid.. pp. 61, 67, 73, 84.
34Ibid., pp. 13, 15, 117, 126.
35Ibid., pp. 148 ff.
119
I'm so heartsick I feel at the end of everything, and
what's the use of fake pride and pretense. That God
damned play 1 bought for a song and made such a great
success in--a great money success--it ruined me with
its promise of an easy fortune. I didn't want to do
anything else, and by the time I woke up to the fact
I'd become a slave to the damned thing, . . . I'd lost
the great talent I once had through years of easy
repetition, never learning a new part, never really
working hard. . . . Yet before I bought the damned
thing I was considered one of the three or four young
actors with the greatest artistic promise in America.3°
He refers to the "thirty-five to forty thousand dollars net
37
profit a season" as "too great a temptation," but he
adds, "What the hell was it I wanted to buy, I wonder, that
was worth--Well, no matter. It's a late day for regrets."38
His compulsion to save money is far greater than his lament
at having sold his talent for money. Ironically, it is as
he is turning out all of the lights in the house but one
in order to save electricity that he makes this statement:
"I'd be willing to have no home but the poorhouse in my old
age if I could look back now on having been the fine artist
I might have become. "3^
Certainly, however, it is Mary's drug addiction
which has fatally undermined the well-being of the Tyrones;
36Ibid., pp. 149-150.
38Ibid.
3^Ibid., p. 150.
39Ibid., p. 140.
120
and Tyrone’s compulsive miserliness invited the situation
which made that addiction possible. Mary was first intro
duced to drugs by the doctor to whom Tyrone had taken her
when Edmund was born. She reminds Tyrone of the situation:
I was so healthy before Edmund was bom. You
remember, James. There wasn't a nerve in my body.
Even traveling with you season after season, with week
after week of one-night stands, in trains without Pull
mans, in dirty rooms of filthy hotels, eating bad food,
bearing children in hotel rooms, I still kept healthy.
But bearing Edmund was the last straw. I was so sick
afterwards, and that ignorant quack of a cheap hotel
doctor— All he knew was I was in pain. It was easy for
him to stop the pain.^0
Both Jamie and Edmund and, to a certain extent, Mary, blame
Tyrone for permitting such an incompetent to treat his
wife.4^ Edmund openly accuses his father of bringing about
his mother's addiction to morphine:
It never should have gotten a hold on her.* I know
damned well she's not to blame! And I know who is!
You are! Your damned stinginess! If you'd spent money
for a decent doctor when she was so sick after I was
bom, she'd never have known morphine existed! Instead
you put her in the hands of a hotel quack who wouldn't
admit his ignorance and took the easiest way out, not
giving a damn what happened to her afterwards! All
because his fee was cheap! Another one of your bar
gains 1^2
40Ibid., p. 87.
41Ibid., pp. 39, 87, 113, 140-144.
4^Ibid., p. 140.
121
While Tyrone denies this charge, his denial does not appear
to convince even himself. Nor can he well defend Edmund's
charge that in order to avert spending money he delayed
attempts to cure Mary until it was too late.43 Even now,
knowing full well that Edmund has tuberculosis, he is at
first willing to risk the boy's life by sending him to an
inexpensive and poorly-staffed state institution.44
Committed to averting poverty, Tyrone views land and
money as the highest values. However, he realizes that
self-fulfillment is beyond his reach, and he is aware that
his fear of poverty has helped to create the desperate
situation in which he now finds himself. Like the others
in his family, he tries to escape the unpleasant realities
surrounding him. In accordance with his religious faith,
he views life as a value, and he views as sinful and in
admissible escaping from life by suicide.43 His means of
partial escape is alcoholism; but even alcohol cannot dis
place his guilt and fear.
Mary Tyrone. Mary Tyrone's life stands as a mockery
of the ideals to which she was committed as a girl. Nor,
43Ibid., p. 141. ^Ibid., pp. 80, 143-146.
45Ibid.. p. 147.
122
as she views it, can her life ever become anything more.
She has irretrievably lost the components of the life she
once envisioned for herself. Because of this total, if
unintentional, betrayal of her own self-image, she sees no
recourse but to withdraw from the bitter reality which
surrounds her. When she is under the influence or morphine,
she believes herself to be once again the young girl of her
youthful self-image.
Among the values which the youthful Mary held were:
religious faith, social respectability, physical health and
strength, beauty and talent, and self-respect. She knew
the love of her family and friends, and she enjoyed the
warmth of a home. Mary cannot accept the fact that now, at
fifty-four years of age, she is Mary Tyrone, an incapable
mother virtually destroyed by drug addiction; that faith
has been supplanted by guilt, respectability by disgrace,
health and strength by pain and addiction, beauty and
talent by ugliness and artistic failure, self-respect by
self-contempt. The love which her family gives her is
intermingled with distrust, contempt, and pity, and she is
totally without friends. Since her marriage, she has never
known the warmth of a home.
123
Of the values which Mary has seen disintegrate, the
most critical is religious faith. It is her awareness of
her lost faith which intrudes upon even her strongest
hallucinations, disturbing even the beatitude of her
morphine-induced stupors. Early in the day, when Mary is
just beginning to show the effects of using drugs, she
observes in a detached, impersonal tone:
. . . None of us can help the things life has done to
us. They're done before you realize it, and once
they're done they make you do other things until at
last everything comes between you and what you'd like
to be, and you've lost your true self forever.
Somewhat later she tries to explain to Edmund how she has
become a liar, even to herself:
. . . One day long ago I found I could no longer call
my soul my own. But some day, dear, I will find it
again--some day when you’re all well, and I see you
healthy and happy and successful, and I don't have to
feel guilty any more--some day when the Blessed Virgin
Mary forgives me and gives me back the faith in Her
love and pity I used to have in my convent days, and
I can pray to Her again— when She sees no one in the
world can believe in me even for a moment any more,
then She will believe in me, and with Her help it will
be so easy. I will hear myself scream with agony, and
at the same time I will laugh because I will be so
sure of myself. '
In the early evening, when Mary is well under the influence
46Ibid., p. 61.
47Ibid.. p. 94.
124
of drugs, her happy reminiscence is Interrupted by her
recognition of her lost faith: "If I could only find the
when Mary is completely drugged, her lost faith is some-
thing she looks for as though it were some tangible object
she had mislaid:
. . . Let me see. What did I come here to find? ItTs
terrible how absent-minded I've become. . . . What is
it I*m looking for? I know it's something I lost.
^ C b l l C X JLl/Ok. . . .
She continues her vain search, unaware that her husband and
her sons are watching her and calling to her. "Something
I need terribly," she continues. "I remember when I had it
I was never lonely nor afraid. I can't have lost it
forever, I would die if I thought that. Because then there
would be no hope."'*® Her narrative shifts to her wanting
to become a nun, and to Mother Elizabeth's telling her to
test her decision by living for a while in the world, and
she continues:
. . . I felt all mixed up, so I went to the shrine
and prayed to the Blessed Virgin and found peace again
faith I lost, so I could pray again!"48 And by midnight
It can't be alto
48Ibid., p. 108.
50Ibid.. p. 173.
49Ibid., pp. 171-173.
125
because I knew she heard my prayer and would always
love me and see no harm ever came to me so long as
I never lost my faith in her.
Her manner becomes uneasy and increasingly vague as she
concludes: "That was in the winter of senior year. Then in
the spring something happened to me. Yes, I remember.
I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a
time."52
Mary's oppressive guilt stems from her blaming her
self for the death of her second son, Eugene. Much as she
tries to place the blame elsewhere, she cannot free herself
of it:
. . . I swore after Eugene died I would never have
another baby. I was to blame for his death. If I
hadn't left him with my mother to join you on the road,
because you wrote telling me you missed me and were so
lonely, Jamie would never have been allowed, when he
still had measles, to go in the baby's room. I've
always believed Jamie did it on purpose. He was jeal
ous of the baby. He hated him.33
In one breath she blames both Tyrone and Jamie, yet it is
she who actually assumes the guilt. She feels that in
breaking her vow to bear another child, Edmund, she was
51Ibid.. pp. 175-176.
53Ibid., p. 87.
126
invoking God’s punishment. She interprets as the punish
ment of God her pain in bearing Edmund, her subsequent drug
addiction, and Eugene's ill health:
... I was afraid all the time I carried Edmund.
I knew something terrible would happen. I knew I'd
proved by the way I'd left Eugene that I wasn't worthy
to have another baby, and that God would punish me if
I did. I never should have borne Edmund. ... He has
never been happy. He never will be. Nor healthy.
He was born nervous and too sensitive, and that's my
fault.54
When she learns that Edmund is suffering not from a "summer
cold" but from tuberculosis, her theory of God's punishment
is confirmed, since that disease was the cause of her
father's death.^ Mary cannot live with such an irre
vocable guilt, and she uses morphine to effect her escape
from reality. Her guilt cannot be absolved; as a wife and
mother, she has failed. And, as she herself laments:
"That's what makes it so hard--for all of us. We can't
56
forget." She observes, too, that "... the past is the
present, isn't it? It's the future, too. We all try to
lie out of that but life won't let us."^
54Ibid.t p. 88 55Ibid.. pp. 67-68.
56Ibid., p. 48.
57
Ibid., p. 87.
While Mary’s loss of faith and her oppressive guilt
are the crux of her descent into self-contempt, her aware
ness of other lost values has given impetus to her flight
from reality. She is without friends, ashamed of herself
and her family, with the exception of Edmund.She is
lonely for the friends "whose families lived in lovely
50
homes"; and she longs for the kind of respect which some
of her neighbors have:
. . . the Chatfields and people like them stand for
something. 1 mean they have decent, presentable homes
they don’t have to be ashamed of. They have friends
who entertain them and whom they entertain. They're
not cut off from everyone.®®
While Mary’s social isolation is enforced by her drug
addiction, it was created years before by Tyrone's miser
liness and intensified later by his excessive drinking.^
It is indeed conceivable that had Mary been given the
security of a home, she would now be a woman of health and
self-respect. It Is doubtful that her youthful dreams of
becoming a concert pianist would ever have materialized;^^
58Ibid.. p. 44. 59Ibid.. p. 86.
60Ibid., p. 44. 61Supra, pp. 117-118.
620*Neill, op. cit.. pp. 103-104, 137-138.
128
yet, within the environment of a home, she might have been
able to contribute her talent to the enjoyment of her
friends and family. But as none of her youthful Ideals
have been met, she returns to them In her reminiscence,
exaggerating her early happiness.63 Reality is too far
removed from her ideal for her to accept, even in part; and
she rejects it totally to move as "a ghost haunting the
64
past." Using morphine, she escapes beyond the reach of
pain, where "only the past when you were happy is real."63
Jamie Tyrone. Jamie, thirty-three years old, is
described as "showing signs of premature disintegration."66
He is an alcoholic and a cynic, "hunted by himself and
fi7
whiskey. . . . On the rare occasions when his cynicism
is lifted, he reveals the charm of the "beguiling ne'er-
do-well, with a strain of the sentimentally poetic. . . ."68
He has been unhappy since childhood, early embittered by
his father's instability and miserliness and his mother's
loneliness and discontent. When he was only seven, he was
63Ibid. 64Ibid., p. 137.
65Ibid., p. 104. 66Ibid.. p. 19.
67Ibid., p. 134. 68Ibid.. p. 19.
instrumental in causing the death of his brother Eugene;
and from that time on, he suffered from his mother's un
conscious blaming of him. Also, he was affected by her
growing guilt. When Jamie was ten years old, Edmund was
born, and his mother began using morphine. Jamie blamed
his father, and to an extent Edmund, for his mother's ill
ness. He entered manhood without hopes or aspirations of
his own, committed only to escaping the disillusionment and
despair to which his experience had been limited. As he
had anticipated, he failed in his various attempts, failing
as an actor, as a student, as a son, and as a brother.
Afraid of being alone in his failure, Jamie has
encouraged Edmund to follow in his path of dissolution and
to remain his one friend in failure and misery.Jamie's
self-image has always reflected despair; he has never
visualized himself as being capable of a creative or pro
ductive life. He is committed not to a passive escape from
life but to an active self-destruction. He engages alco
holism, whoring, and fatalistic poetry to hasten his
69Ibid.. pp. 39, 166, 109-111.
70lbid.. pp. 164-167.
130
self-destruction. It is as though only by destroying the
potential of Tyrone's two sons can he avenge the injustices
which Tyrone and life have inflicted upon his mother, his
brother, and himself.
Both Tyrone and Mary sense that Jamie is destroying
Edmund along with himself. Tyrone openly accuses Jamie:
. . . You made him old before his time, pumping him
full of what you consider worldly wisdom, when he was
too young to see that your mind was so poisoned by
your own failure in life, you wanted to believe every
man was a knave with his soul for sale, and every
woman who wasn't a whore was a fool!71
Mary, discussing Edmund's drinking with Edmund and Tyrone,
observes:
. . . I'm afraid Jamie has been lost to us for a long
time, dear. But we musn't allow him to drag Edmund
down with him, as he'd like to do. He's jealous be
cause Edmund has always been the baby— just as he used
to be of Eugene. He'll never be content until he makes
Edmund as hopeless a failure as he is.72
Edmund, however, denies that Jamie's influence has been
harmful to him. He is deeply hurt by Jamie's confession
that, in a sense, he has always hated Edmund and worked
for his destruction.7^ It is doubtful, however, that even
71Ibid., p. 34. 72Ibid., p. 109.
73
Supra, pp. 113-114.
131
Jamie recognizes his destruction of life to be an act of
revenge.
Edmund Tyrone. Jamie, in one of his drunken
moments, asserts to Edmund: "You reflect credit on me. . . .
Hell, you're more than my brother. I made you.' You're my
Frankenstein!"7^ As far as his temperament has allowed,
Edmund has followed his brother's example. But while
Edmund is physically weaker than his brother, he is also
more capable, more sensitive, and more hopeful. He does
not share Jamie's destructive motives. He has not feared
nor experienced failure as has Jamie. He views himself as
being aloof from existence, and he feels that life is
neither creative nor destructive. Life, he feels, is
meaningless; man is adrift in a purposeless universe.7^
Human relationships bear the scars of greed and fear; only
in his isolation can man hope to experience meaning and
76
freedom. He tries to explain to his father his sense of
alienation: "... I will always be a stranger who never
^O'Neill, op. cit.. p. 164.
75Ibid., pp. 78, 153-154.
76Ibid.. pp. 131, 153-154.
132
feels at home, who does not really want and Is not really
wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little
in love with death."77
Edmund is, indeed, "a little in love with death,"
and he withdraws from life in one of several ways— by walk
ing in the fog, or by losing himself in morbid poetry or in
78
alcoholism. But his escape is motivated by a need to
find meaning, whereas Jamie's is motivated by a drive to
avenge himself on his father and on life. Nor, for that
matter, has Edmund been as deeply affected by his family's
despair; his isolation has always offered him some protec
tion against hurt. Jamie is well aware of Edmund's rela
tive independence: "His quietness fools people into
thinking they can do what they like with him. But he's
stubborn as hell inside and what he does is what he wants
to do, and to hell with anyone else.'"79 The dreadful
repercussions of Tyrone's early failures as a husband and
a father have left Edmund physically ill and more inclined
77Ibid.
78Ibid.. pp. 130-134, 147, 175.
79Ibid.. p. 35.
133
than ever to escape life. Unlike Jamie, however, much of
his grief has been on a philosophical level; he has never
known the personal despair which has driven Jamie to strike
back at life.
Edmund's rare moments of self-fulfillment have
occurred when he was physically isolated in the universe,
yet spiritually attuned to it— moments when he lost himself
in the sea, in the sun, in the sand, becoming identified
with something greater than himself:
. . . I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and
flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moon
light and the ship and the high dim-starred sky!
I belonged, without past or future, within peace and
unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my
own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God,
if you want to put it that way.®®
Losing his own life in something greater, he drowns his
sober awareness of the incompatibility of life-as-it-is
and life-as-it-should-be. He follows his death-drive into
a pre-conscious state where jLs and should-be appear as
80Ibid.. p. 153.
81
Walter A. Weisskopf, "Existence and Values," New
Knowledge in Human Values. Abraham H. Maslow, editor
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), pp. 110-111.
CHAPTER V
LOOK HOMEWARD. ANGEL
I. INTRODUCTION
Look Homeward, Angel,* Ketti Frings* play based on
2
Thomas Wolfe's novel of the same name, received the
Pulitzer Prize and the Critics Circle Award for the 1957-58
season. The play was also a popular success, running well
over five-hundred performances on Broadway. In the three-
act play, Ketti Frings has telescoped into a three-week
period the most important events which the Eugene Gant of
Wolfe's novel experiences between the ages of fourteen and
twenty. The antagonist of the play, as well as of the
novel, is the spirit of greed which transforms a quiet town
into a city of money-crazy speculators, which destroys the
instinctive love of the individual for his family and
^Retti Frings, Look Homeward, Angel (New York:
Samuel French, Inc., 1958).
2
Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929).
134
135
friends, and which threatens to sell out the essential
American freedom: the right of every man ". . . to live, to
work, to be himself, to become whatever thing his manhood
3
and his vision can combine to make him. ..." Eugene
Gant is the sensitive adolescent who works his way out of
a hostile environment, trying to define his own self-image,
seeking a world which is worthy of his life’s commitment.
The action of the play occurs in the fall of 1916, and the
setting is Altamont, North Carolina.^ Except for the open
ing scene of Act II, which is set in Mr. Gant's marble yard
and shop, all of the scenes take place at The Dixieland
Boarding House, the large frame building which houses,
along with a diverse group of boarders, most of the Gant
family— Mr. W. 0. Gant and his wife, Eliza; two of their
sons, Ben and Eugene; and a daughter, Helen Gant Barton,
and her husband, Hugh Barton.
The opening scene of Act I establishes Eugene as the
youngest son. At seventeen, he is living at home, wearing
3
Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1940), p. 508.
4
Just as Eugene Gant is a fictional version of
Thomas Wolfe himself, so Altamont is a fictional version
of Wolfe's home town, Asheville, North Carolina.
136
hand-me-downs, and earning his board by helping his mother
advertise the Dixieland. He is a self-taught writer, a
lover of literature, and a potential wanderer who has been
confined. He has a deep love and admiration for his
brother Ben, but he cannot understand why Ben has remained
at home so long or how he can love the comic Mrs. Marie
"Fatty’ ' Pert. Eugene feels that Ben should look for more
than the quiet intimacy he has found with Fatty. Ben’s
attempt to break into the world by joining the Army is
thwarted by his ill health. Helen and her husband, Hugh,
are shown waiting on the tenants of the Dixieland, marking
time until Hugh can find a better job or they can acquire
enough money to make a home of their own.
Mrs. Eliza Gant and her brother, Will Pentland, come
in from scouting for real-estate bargains. Eliza is pre
paring to talk Mr. Gant into selling his marble yard and
shop in order to get the money for her latest investment.
Eliza sends Eugene to the train depot to give Dixieland
advertising-cards to the town's newcomers. As usual,
Eugene objects: "I hate drumming up trade," he asserts.
It's deceptive and it's begging."5 Also as usual, Eliza
5Frings, op. cit.. p. 12.
137
admonishes Eugene to recognize the world £or what it is:
Oh my— my! Dreamer Eugene Gant, what do you think
the world is all about? We are all— all of us— selling
something. Now you get over to the depot right this
minute. And for heaven's sake, boy, spruce up,
shoulders back! And smile! Look pleasant!”
Watching the boy leave, Ben notices that he is limping; he
upbraids his mother for forcing the boy to wear shoes that
are too small for him, shoes which Ben himself has thrown
out because they are too small. He observes, too, that
Eugene should be on the train on his way to college, not
soliciting its passengers.
Shortly after Eugene leaves, Miss Laura James
appears. She has just arrived in Altamont, and she is
holding one of the advertising-cards of the Dixieland.
Ironically, she was not handed the card; rather she found
it on the sidewalk near the station. While Eliza is
arranging a room for Laura, Gant, raging drunk, is led into
the house. Gant, at sixty years of age, is a drunkard and
a libertine, but through his raging he still projects a
need for love and "a monstrous fumbling for life."7
Glaring at the bleak walls of the Dixieland, he roars,
7Ibid., p. 19.
138
Q
"Isn’t anybody going to take me home?" And he carefully
spells out the address of the house in vrtiich the family had
lived years before, the house which Gant had built, and
which Eliza had sold in order to acquire the Dixieland.
The second scene of Act I illuminates the relation
ships of Ben and Fatty, Gant and Eliza. The quiet com
munion of Ben and Fatty is in vivid contrast to the con
firmed incompatibility of Gant and Eliza. Set off between
the two relationships is the shy beginning of a romance
between Eugene and Laura. After leaving Gant's room, Eliza
intrudes upon Ben's conversation, attacking Fatty for her
drinking, putting her in her place as ". . . just a paying
boarder . . . not a member of my family."^ Ben counters by
condemning his mother for selling her family along with
their home, for being so "penny-mad" that she now views her
family as investments, not as loved ones.*® The scene ends
on this note of bitterness. As the family retires, both
Ben and Eugene fail to turn off the electric boarding-house
sign, thus defying their mother's urging to save electricity
and learn "the value of a dollar."**
8Ibid., p. 21. 9Ibid.. p. 41.
*°Ibid., p. 42. **Ibid.. p. 41.
I
139
The opening scene of Act II, occurring one week
later, is set in Mr. Gant's marble yard and shop. Eugene
is now working for his father, trying to earn the money for
some new clothes. His love affair with Laura has made him
even more self-conscious than before, even more determined
to get out on his own. Eliza appears, wearing her "dealing
12
and bargaining costume," carrying the check in exchange
for which Gant is to sign over the title to his property.
Gant is not at the shop; nor does he return until he sees
Eliza leave. When he returns, he takes Eugene into his
confidence, telling the boy about his first wife and
1 1
elaborating on his opinion of Eliza. J Laura stops by for
Eugene, and Gant tells them both the story of the beautiful
marble angel which dominates the statuary of his shop. At
length embarrassed by his own sentimentality, Gant retires
to his office, leaving Eugene and Laura alone. The appear
ance of a client, the local madame, interrupts the young
people's conversation. Madame Elizabeth has come to pur
chase the angel for the tomb of one of her girls; Gant
refuses to sell it, and Eugene explains to the madame
12Ibid.. p. 47.
13Ibid.. pp. 49-50.
140
that his father is saving the angel for his own grave.
Madame Elizabeth leaves, satisfied with the statue of a
lamb and with the verse which Eugene has supplied for its
engraving.
When Eliza returns, she asks Laura to leave so that
the family may discuss a personal matter. The matter is
the sale of the marble yard. Eliza's brother Will is with
her, and they have got Ben to join them, not noticing that
he is ill. After much deliberation, Gant signs the release
on his property, taking the check and endorsing it. To the
amazement of all of them, he then announces that he is
going to keep the money, and with it go away, taking Eugene
with him. He plans to put the boy in college, then travel
with him. Eliza, infuriated by this turn of events, seizes
the check and tears it up. Gant responds to this action:
Gant: All the things you've said about me are true,
Eliza. I've only brought you pain. Why don't you let
me go?
Eliza: Because you're my husband, Mr. Gant! You're
my husband. Thirty-one years together and we'll go
on— A house divided against itself cannot stand. We
must try to understand and love each other. . . .^
14Ibid.. p. 64.
Eliza and Will leave, and Gant follows shortly. Ben and
Eugene are left alone, and Eugene soon realizes how ill Ben
actually is. Eugene calls the doctor, but it is too late.
During the second scene of Act II, occurring at the Dixie
land on the following night, Ben dies of pneumonia. He is
attended by his family, including his brother Luke, and his
one real friend, Fatty. Earlier, when Ben and Eugene had
been discussing their father's discontent, Ben had ex
plained his remaining with the family in this way: "You
stupid little fool, it's like being caught in a photograph.
Your face is there, and no matter how hard you try, how are
1C
you going to step out of a photograph?" J Now, in dying,
Ben observes, "It's one way— to step out of--the photo
graph— isn't it, Fatty?"^ With the death of Ben, Eugene
is left without anyone in his family who really tinderstands
him.
Act III reveals Eugene and Laura planning to get
married. Eugene has found love, and he will give up any
plans of travel or college to protect himself from ever
again being lonely. Eliza overhears the plans, but when
15Ibid.. p. 25 16Ibid., p. 74.
142
she approaches Laura to talk her out of the marriage, she
finds that Laura had not intended to go through with it.
Laura feels that Eugene, whom she loves, is too young and
ambitious to settle down, and that he should go to college
and find his place in the world. She, on the other hand,
is ready for a home and a family, and she is returning home
to marry the young man to whom she is engaged. "Someday,”
she reminds Eliza in reference to Eugene, "you’re going to
have to let him go, too."*7
Eliza, relieved, yet offended that her boy has been
rejected, tries to console Eugene, and promises him he can
go to college the following year. But Eugene is desperate
to leave:
. . . Mama, now! Now! I've wasted enough time! . . .
Do you want to strangle and drown me completely? Do
you want more string? Do you want me to collect more
bottles? Tell me what you want! Do you want more
property? Do you want the town? Is that it?*®
Eliza advises him that without her industry he would not
have had even a roof to call his own. To this Eugene
retorts:
17Ibid., p. 81. 18Ibid., p. 84.
143
... A roof to call our own? Good God, I never had
a bed to call my own.' 1 never had a room to call my
own! I never had a quilt to call my own that wasn’t
taken from me to warm the mob that rocks on that porch
and grumbles. . . . Mama, making us wait until they've
eaten, all these years— feeding us on their leftovers—
do you know what it does to us?— when it's you we
wanted for us, you we needed for us. Why? Why?
Over his mother's crying, Eugene continues: "I've done as
much work for my wages as you deserve. I've given you fair
20
value for your money, I thank you for nothing." In his
moment of anger, he is grateful only for his freedom:
. . . The first move I ever made after the cradle was
to crawl for the door. And every move I ever made
since has been an effort to escape. And now, at last
I am free from all of you.21
As Eugene leaves to prepare for his journey, Gant
enters, enraged at the inconveniences of living in a board
ing house, threatening to bum the house down. Eliza, half
crazy with Eugene's insults, encourages him, and the two of
them throw furniture, flowers, and whatever they can find
until all of the boarders have evacuated in fear. Only
when Helen enters does Eliza regain her composure. Then
she blames Gant for the damage. When Gant hears of
19
Ibid., p. 84.
21
Ibid.
20
Ibid.. p. 85.
144
Eugene's plans to go off to school, he gives the boy money
to help him.
Eugene does leave, but not before throwing his arms
around his mother, trying to let her know of the love he
feels for her. As Eugene moves from her, Eliza repeats:
. . . Now for Heaven's sake, spruce up, boy spruce up'
Throw your shoulders back! And smile, look pleasant!
Let them know up there that you are somebody!22
Only the Epilogue remains, and that reveals Eugene alone,
talking in response to the voice which he hears, the voice
of his dead brother, Ben. Eugene asks Ben, "Where is the
OO
world?"^J And Ben's voice answers: "The world is nowhere,
no one, Gene. You are your world.The boy is alone,
free from his past, and free to become what he will.
II. VALUE COMMITMENTS OF THE CHARACTERS
Of the nineteen characters portrayed in Look Home
ward, Angel, the most clearly developed are the senior
Gants, Eliza and W. 0., and two of their sons, Ben and
Eugene. Each of these is described below in terms of his
22Ibid., p. 90.
23Ibid., p. 91.
145
value commitments. The other major characters are dis
cussed briefly along with the characters to whom they most
immediately relate: i.e., Laura James along with Eugene,
Mrs. Marie "Fatty" Pert along with Ben, Will Pentland along
with Eliza. Discussed briefly in a concluding section are
Luke Gant and his sister Helen, along with Helen's husband,
Hugh. The remaining characters are not considered in this
discussion; among them are the doctor, one of W. 0.'s
drinking cronies, the local madame, and various residents
of The Dixieland Boarding House.
Eliza Gant. Little can be said about W. 0. *Gant or
his children without reference to Eliza, the powerful woman
whose energy and pride have won her the resentment as well
as the love of her family. Everyone in this matriarchal
household has been deeply influenced by her. The play
wright has introduced her in this way: "Eliza, 57, is of
Scotch descent, with all the acquisitiveness and fancied
premonitions of the Scotch. She is mercurial, with daunt
less energy, greed and love. . . . "25 Eliza is character
ized as needlessly frugal and unpleasantly greedy.
^Ibid., p. 9.
146
Eliza is predominantly a woman of property; only second-
arily is she a wife or a mother. She has little love or
respect for her husband, the enigmatic dreamer whom she has
never understood. Gant, now embittered by his confinement
in Eliza’s world of practicality, is little more to her
than a stubborn old man, the least productive of her many
possessions. While a flicker of love illuminates Eliza's
relationships with her children, it is too weak to negate
their feelings that they, too, are valuable to her pri
marily as business investments. Nevertheless, they realize
that Eliza's practicality is an over-compensation for
Gant's complete impracticality. Eliza is mercenary, but
not without reason; because of this, she is both resented
and respected, both hated and loved. This paradox is
illustrated by the monologue which Helen delivers to the
inattentive Ben and Hugh as the play opens. Helen is
serving dinner to the boarders, complaining because Eliza
has not come home to help her:
I bet she's off somewhere with Uncle Will, and I'm
left in the kitchen to slave for a crowd of old cheap
boarders! That's her tactic! . . . And do I ever
^For clarification of the changing relationship
between Eliza and Gant, see Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel.
pp. 16-19, 61-69.
147
hear her say a word of thanks? Do I get— do I get as
much as a go-to-hell for it? No. "Why, pshaw, child,"
she*11 say, "I work more than anybody!" And most
times, damn her, she does.27
In the business world, Eliza has never failed; and in that
28
world, she has unlimited faith in herself. However, in
her relationships with her husband and children, she has
known countless failures, and she lacks confidence in her
self. She is incapable of articulating the love which she
feels, and whenever she is called upon to do so, she averts
the responsibility by retreating into the world of business
affairs.29
Eliza is acutely aware of the lack of understanding
between herself and her family. She is deeply hurt by this
situation, she tries verbally to change it, but she has
little faith that such a change could take place. She
refers to her family as "a house divided,"30 and she makes
this remark to Ben regarding her children: "Seems as if
every one of you's at the end of something, dissatisfied,
27Frings, op. cit., pp. 7-8.
28Ibid.. pp. 9-10, 43-44.
29Ibid.. pp. 39, 43, 89-90.
30Ibid.. pp. 13, 64.
148
O l
and wants something else." Aware that her daughter Helen
has a rapport with Gant that she herself has never had, she
admits to her husband, "Mr. Gant, I guess I never will
32
understand you." She is disturbed that the members of
her family will not look directly at her when they talk
with her, somehow attributing to this physical fact the
lack of communication which she feels.^ While she de
plores the lack of understanding between herself and her
family, Eliza is not able to effect a change. She can only
conclude hopelessly, "We must try to understand and love
each other.
Viewing marital and family love as ideals which have
somehow slipped out of her reach, Eliza is committed to
becoming a success in the world as she views it--a world
in which personal relationships are fleeting while money
o c
and property are permanent. Additionally, she is deter
mined to see that her children, too, succeed in such
31Ibid.. p. 13. 32Ibid.. p. 40.
33Ibid., pp. 10, 38, 67, 75.
3^Ibid., pp. 64, 90.
35
Richard Walser, Thomas Wolfe: An Introduction and
Interpretation (New York: Bams and Noble, Inc., 1961),
p. 59.
149
a world. She defines success as economic independence, and
she places the highest value on money and property. Once
viewed as means to an end, i.e., a happy family, money and
property have become for Eliza ends in themselves. This
shift in values occurred gradually during the course of her
marriage to W. 0. Gant.
Eliza Pentland had been bom into the poverty of the
post-Civil War South, and she had been drawn to the lusty
and magnanimous Oliver Gant, the wanderer. Gant had
brought to Eliza the sense of freedom, expansiveness, and
abundance which reflected his own heritage in the rich
hills of Pennsylvania.3* * As Eliza Gant recalls, "I'll vow
you looked as big as one of your tombstones— and as dusty—
with a wild and dangerous look in your eye. You were
romantic in those days. . . .”37 But their love had not
lasted, and Gant's passions and wanderlust were not to be
confined. Within a few short years, Gant was maintaining
a home only nominally. Having become a drunkard and a
libertine, he left Eliza to support the growing family.
In her need to preserve her family economically, Eliza
a
Frings, on. cit.ro. 38. 37Ibid.
turned for financial help to her brother Will. Under his
influence, she again settled into the characteristic
frugality of the Pentlands. She spent very little for the
comforts of her family, saving money to invest in property.
Wishing her children to become self-reliant, she arranged
for them to work for wages while still very young.38 One
of Eliza's attempts to gain financial security for her
family was her selling the house \rtiich Gant had built in
order to acquire the Dixieland Boarding House. With that
move, she permitted her family to become servants to
boarders rather than a family in their own right.3^
Involved with running a boarding house and with in
vesting in real estate, Eliza Gant has failed to give her
children the love and security which they have needed.^0
All of them have reacted, in varying degrees, by devalu
ating the financial concerns which she values so highly.
Self-fulfillment, as Eliza now defines it, entails the
acquisition of more property, the attainment of a higher
38Ibid., pp. 11-13, 42, 72.
39Ibid., pp. 8-11, 19, 20, 40-43, 84-86.
40
Ibid., pp. 13, 21, 39, 42, 49, 66-68, 85.
151
standard of living, and the gaining of prestige for herself
and her family.
W. 0. Gant. Eliza's husband, W. 0. Gant, represents
the creative spirit suppressed by a world which does not
understand it, by the world of affairs in which Eliza is so
much at home. Gant, with his creativity confined, has been
destroyed by his own failures and indulgences. At sixty
years of age, he has sunken into ill health, self-pity, and
degradation. He is a man of extremes, knowing no modera
tion, as ecstatic in his praise as he is violent in his
abuses. He is committed to fulfill the promise of his
youth— the promise to travel and know the world, to create,
and to share the love of a family. Time and disappointment
have shown him that this promise will not be fulfilled, and
his few moments of grandeur come to him when he is drunk.
For Gant, The Dixieland Boarding House represents all of
the evils which have stood between him and his self-
fulfillment.
Gant no longer expects Eliza to understand him, but
in one rare moment, he reaches out to her:
Do you ever forgive me, Eliza? If I could make you
understand something. I was such a strong man. I was
dozing just now, dreaming of the past. The far past.
152
The people and the place 1 came from. Those great
barns of Pennsylvania. The order, the thrift, the
plenty. It all started out so right, there. There
1 was a man who set out to get order and position In
life. And what have I come to? Only rioting and con
fusion, searching and wandering. There was so much
before, so much. Now It's all closing In. My God,
Eliza, where has It all gone? Why am I here, now, at
the rag end of my life? The years are all blotted and
blurred— my youth a red waste--I 've gotten old, an old
man. But why here? Why here?^*
Gant Is well aware of his failure, as an artist, as a hus
band, and as a father. ^ However, those who love him still
think of him as he was years before. Ben, after mentioning
to Fatty that his father is losing his strength as a result
of his drinking, makes this statement:
... Do you know, though, I still think of him as I
thought of him as a little boy— a Titan! The house on
Woodson Street that he built for Mama with his own
hands, the great armloads of food he carried home—
the giant fires he used to build. The women he loved
at Madame Elizabeth’s. Two and three a night,
I heard.^
Gant is well liked, particularly when he is sober, and he
retains vestiges of his earlier gallantry and humor.^
Eliza has little love or respect for Gant, but his children
are devoted to him.
41
Ibid., pp. 38-39.
^2Ibid.. pp. 40, 64.
^Ibid., pp. 25, 54, 55.
43
Ibid., p. 30.
153
One of Gant's dreams has been to become a traveler.
And when the opportunity to travel presents itself* in the
form of a check for twenty thousand dollars in exchange for
his marble yard and shop,^ he takes advantage of it:
Miss Eliza* I've been wanting to get away from here
for a long time. I'm taking Gene with me. I'm going
to put him in that college there at Chapel Hill. . . .
And then I'm going to travel— and when Gene's free in
the summer, we'll travel together. . .
Eliza tears up the check* making it impossible for him to
carry out this plan. Gant reacts to this frustration in
his characteristic way, by getting drunk. Later on, how
ever, his wanderlust is given some release when he learns
that Eugene is going to go away to college:
Eugene: I'm going to school at Chapel Hill* Papa.
Gant: You are?
Eugene: Mama promised me the money. She sold her
Stumptown property.
Gant: Oh? By God* maybe it isn't going to be such
a goddamned miserable day, after all! Got any money*
son?
Eugene: I've got Ben's money. Thanks, Papa.
45
Supra, p. 140.
46
Frings, op. cit.. p. 63.
154
Gant: Well, go, Gene. Go for both of us. Keep
right on going.
Eugene: I will, Papa. Good-bye.
Gant: Good-bye, Gene. You're going to bust loose,
*re going to bust loose, all over this dreary
At least his son will succeed in making his escape.
Another of Gant's dreams has been to create--to be
come a stonecutter capable of creating a masterpiece com
parable to the Carrara angel which had fired his imagina
tion as a youth:
. . . When I was a boy Gene's age, I happened to pass
a shop something like this. And this very angel was
there. She's Carrara marble--from Italy. And as I
looked at her smiling face, I felt, more than anything
in the world, I wanted to carve delicately with a
chisel. It was as though, if I could do that, I could
bring something of me out onto a piece of marble. . . .
I bet I've started twenty pieces of marble, but I've
never been able to capture her. ... I guess there's
no use trying any more--4®
Eliza has not cared for his work as art; she has seen it
only as a means of earning a livelihood, and a very poor
means, at that.49 Nor can she appreciate his quiet, con
templative moods or the range of his poetic imagination.50
4^Ibid.. pp. 88-89.
49Ibid.. pp. 38, 47.
48Ibid.. p. 51.
5°Ibid.. pp. 21, 37, 39.
155
Gant Is speaking tTruthfully, If over-dramatically, when he
pleads with Eliza to leave him his shop and to protect him
from having to live out his life as one of the less privi
leged tenants of the Dixieland Boarding House:
. . . Woman, have mercy! That shop is ray last refuge
on earth. I beg you— let me die in peace! You won't
have long to wait. You can do what you please with it
after I'm gone. But give me a little comfort now.
And leave me my work. ' ”
Gant views the Dixieland Boarding House as the evil
which has separated him from the one dream which he
actually fulfilled during the early years of his marriage—
the dream of a home and the love of a family. "This is not
52
where I live," he cries when drunk; and throughout, he
refuses to accept as home the boarding house— the "murder
ous and bloody bam," the "travesty on nature," the
53
"murderous trap." He and Eliza come the closest to
understanding one another at the moment when Eliza, mad
dened by Eugene's rejection of her,joins forces with
Gant to tear down the house and drive out the boarders.
31Ibid.. p. 40. 52Ibid.. p. 20.
53Ibid.. pp. 20, 86, 87.
5^Supra, pp. 142-143.
53Frings, op. cit.. p. 86.
156
When Gant threatens to burn up the house and all the
"wooden-heaued people" in it, Eliza shakes the pillars and
screams, "I'll do it myself— I'll tear you down! I'll kill
you, house, kill you! I'll shake you to pieces."5* * To
gether, armed with hatchets and furniture, they attack the
house. As the boarders leave in terror, Gant turns to
embrace Eliza: "Oh, Miss Eliza, what a woman you are!"5^
Gant's joy is short lived, for at that instant Eliza re
gains her senses. She blames Gant for the damage done, and
she sends Hugh and Helen to bring back the boarders.
Only with his daughter Helen does Gant share the
kind of familial love and trust which he had shared with
all of his family years before. And even Helen is on
occasion alienated from him by his selfishness and self-
58
pity. He blames The Dixieland for the destruction of his
family, and he blames Eliza for having sold out his home.59
An old man with little hope of seeing his dreams fulfilled,
Gant finds some pleasure in considering himself a tragic
figure.
56
58
Ibid.
Ibid.. pp. 21, 63.
57
59
Ibid.. p. 88.
Ibid., pp. 38, 49, 60.
157
Ben Gant. Ben is described by the playwright as
". . . delicate and sensitive, the most refined of the
Gants, and forever a stranger among them, . . . the hero
protector of those he loves. . . ,"60 j j e £S Eugene*s
champion, urging him to free himself from Eliza's posses
sive and strangling hold;^ and he is Gant's champion,
defending his right to work, defending even his right to
endanger his own life by drinking, so long as he does not
force his children to assist in his self-destruction.62
Ben's deepest kinship is with Eugene, with whom he shares
a hunger for a world other than the practical one which
Eliza has structured. Like his father, Ben regrets his own
inability to escape from Eliza's world, and he feels that
Eugene's escape would somehow mediate his own failure. Of
all the children living at home, Ben holds the least sym
pathy for Eliza. He feels that she has destroyed her
family, and he cannot bear to have any close contact with
go
her. His dearest friend is the amiable Mrs. Marie
"Fatty" Pert, the only person other than Eugene who
60Ibid., pp. 5-6. 61Ibid.. p. 27.
62Ibid., pp. 13, 61-65.
63Ibid., pp. 10-12, 41-42.
158
6 U
understands him as he really is. H
The play opens with Eugene's reading aloud from his
latest writing— a description of Ben:
"Ben" by Eugene Gant: . . .
My brother Ben's face is like a piece of slightly
yellow ivory.
His high, white forehead is knotted fiercely by an
old man's scowl.
His mouth is like a knife.
His smile the flicker of light across the blade.
His face is like a blade, and a knife, and a flicker
of light.
And when he fastens his hard white fingers
And his scowling eyes upon a thing he wants to fix,
He sniffs with sharp and private concentration.
Thus women looking, feel a well of tenderness
For his pointed, bumpy, always scowling face. . . .^
As Eugene reads, the scene discloses Ben, seated on the
front steps reading, and Fatty, seated near Ben in her
rocking chair. Ben is thirty, Fatty is forty-three; their
relationship is free of strain or pretense, perhaps best
described in Ben's own words as "comfortable."66 Ben
announces to Fatty his intention of enlisting in the Ameri
can flying corps in Canada. "All my life in this one
little burg, Fatty! Besides getting away, I'd be doing
64Ibid.. pp. 30-32, 67-74.
65Ibid., pp. 5-6. 66Ibid.. p. 32.
159
my bit."87 To Fatty’s inquiry as to how his family would
feel if he leaves, he responds:
What family? The batty boarders? Apologies, Fatty.
I never associate you with them. Except for Gene,
nobody'd know I was gone. To fly up there in the won
derful world of the sky. Up with the angels.®”
As the opening scene of Act I comes to an end, Ben
speaks to Dr. Maquire about his enlisting, asking the
doctor to recommend him. After a brief examination, the
doctor tells Ben to wait until the war reaches America, to
take deep breaths of the Altamont air, and to expand his
diet to include more than cigarettes and coffee.^ Ben,
realizing that he is too run-down physically to enlist,
senses that his last avenue of escape has been closed.
Suddenly, almost fiercely, he turns on Eugene:
You listen to me. Listen to me. You go to college,
understand? Don't settle for anyone or anything— learn
your lesson from me! I'm a hack on a hick paper— I'll
never be anything else. You can be. Get money out of
them, any way you can! Beg it, take it, steal it, but
get it from them somehow. Get it and get away from
them. To hell with them all! Neither Luke, nor
Stevie, nor I made it. But you can, Gene. I let her
hold on and hold on until it was too late. Don't let
that happen to you. And Gene, don't try to please
everyone--please yourself.70
67Ibid.. p. 6.
69Ibid.. p. 26.
68Ibid.. p. 7.
70Ibid., p. 27.
160
Ben, himself unable to escape to the unknown world of which
he dreams, is committed to making possible Eugene's escape.
A week after the scene described above, the family
become aware that Ben, in his weakened condition, has con
tracted pneumonia. Both lungs are affected, and he is
dying. Even in dying, Ben turns his back on Eliza, insist
ing that Fatty stay with him.7* - It is to her that he con
fides that he is finally escaping.72 But for Eliza, death
does not loosen her hold. Although Ben is dead, she con
tinues to hold his hand, saying, "He doesn't turn away from
me any more.”7^ She is oblivious to Eugene's gentle in
sistence, "Mama, you've got to let go. You've got to
let go."7* Finally Eugene, bewildered and alone, prays to
his unknown God:
. . . Whoever You are, be good to Ben tonight. Who
ever you are, be good to Ben tonight. . . . Whoever
You are ... be good to Ben tonight ... be good to
Ben tonight. . . .75
More than ever before in his life, Eugene is alone.
71Ibid.. pp. 67-68. 72Ibid., p. 74.
73Ibid., p. 75. 7*Ibid.
75Ibid.
161
Eugene Gant. Eugene, the youngest of the Gants, is
committed to defining his own self-image. He values knowl
edge, love, peace, and freedom, and he is anxious to dis
cover a purpose in his own life.78 He is the family
peacemaker, trying to keep his family from hurting one
another,77 yet he himself is torn by ambivalence, par-
78
ticularly toward his mother. During the period of Ben's
illness and death, Eugene is made painfully aware of his
family's lack of sensitivity and understanding. He is
overwhelmed by disgust and pity, bewildered by the ambiva
lence of his own feelings about his family:
Within Eugene, as he paced restlessly up and down
the hall or prowled through the house a-search for some
entrance he had never found ... he felt that he could
never again escape from this smothering flood of pain
and ugliness, from the eclipsing horror and pity of it
all. ... He felt that he might be clean and free if
he could only escape into a single burning passion—
hard, and hot, and glittering— of love, hatred, terror,
or disgust. But he was caught, he was strangling, in
the web of futility— there was no moment of hate that
was not touched by a dozen shafts of pity: impotently,
he wanted to seize them, cuff them, shake them, as one
might a trying brat, and at the same time to caress
them, love them, comfort them. 79
76Ibid.. pp. 17-19, 42, 53, 79, 83-88.
77Ibid., pp. 12, 19, 42.
78Ibid.. pp. 43, 56, 84-85.
79
^Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, p. 549.
162
Even as he is taking leave of his mother to go away to
college, finally having made his break from home, Eugene
suffers most from his own mixed emotions toward his
mother.8® Of the many effects which his family has had
upon him, the most difficult for him to understand or
accept is the emotional ambivalence which they have nur
tured in him.
Before he falls in love with Laura, Eugene is pri
marily concerned with finding a way to get to attend
81
college. He has a deep love of knowledge, and he has
read everything available to him. He feels that just as
the trains which he loves can free him physically from his
mountain-imprisoned town, so the education which he seeks
can liberate him spiritually from his grief-bound family.82
Practically, too, he wants to find a profession for him
self. Early in the play, his mother admonishes him: "Now,
you're too young to worry about my business. You tend
83
to yours." To which Eugene responds, "What business
80
Frings, op. cit., pp. 89-90.
81Ibid., p. 47. 82Ibid.. pp. 35-36, 77.
83Ibid.. p. 13.
163
do X have to attend to, Mama?”®^ He clearly does not want
to be either a stonecutter like his father or a realtor
like his Uncle Will. He wants to travel, to experience the
world, and to write. Above all, he wants to be free to
Q C
choose his own way of life. J
During the play, the three events which most seri
ously affect Eugene are his falling in love with Laura, the
death of his brother Ben, and his discovery that Laura had
never intended to marry him. In Laura's love he finds, for
the first time, a sense of belonging which supplants his
great loneliness: "You are my world, Iaura. You always
will be. Don't let anything destroy us. Don't leave me
alone. I've always been alone.”®® With the death of the
only other person who understands him, his brother Ben, the
lonely Eugene becomes completely dependent upon Laura's
love. To retain that love, he is willing to relinquish any
or all of his ambitions. As he explains to his mother, it
is too late now for him to go to college; he wants only
84Ibid.
85Ibid., pp. 13, 44, 77-84.
86Ibid.. p. 53.
164
to marry Laura and make a home for her, even if this en-
87
tails his working for his Uncle Will. However, Laura is
88
not willing for him to make this sacrifice. Broken by
the realization that Laura has never intended to share his
life with him, Eugene recalls not only her defection but
also his earlier years of loneliness, and he blames his
mother's indifference for that loneliness:
I said I thank you for nothing, but I take that
back. Yes, 1 have a great deal to be thankful for.
I give thanks for every hour of loneliness I've had
here, for every dirty cell you ever gave me to sleep
in, for the ten million hours of indifference, and
for these two minutes of cheap advice. ... I shall
spend the rest of my life getting my heart back, heal
ing and forgetting every scar you put upon me when I
was a child. The first move I ever made after the
cradle was to crawl for the door. And every move I
ever made since has been an effort to escape. And
now, at last I am free from all of you. And I shall
get me some order out of this chaos. I shall find my
way out of it yet, though it takes me twenty years
more— alone.
His earlier ambitions come again to the fore, with an even
greater urgency. He must leave at once: he must go to
college, he must explore the world, and he must find him
self.
®^Ibid., pp. 76-79. ^ Supra, pp. 141-142.
8Q
7Frings, op. cit.. p. 85.
165
Helen Gant Barton. More than any of the other chil
dren, Helen mediates the extremes represented by her par
ents: she accepts both Gant, the aging artist, and Eliza,
the woman of property. She has her mother's capacity for
hard work, but unlike Eliza, she does not feel that hard
work and self-sacrifice can substitute for love. She has
a selfless understanding of her father, and she gives him
the sympathy which Eliza withholds from him. Unlike the
other Gants, Helen is neither lost, defeated, nor search
ing.
Helen is described by the playwright as follows:
. . . Helen is gaunt, raw-boned, in her middle twen
ties, often nervous, intense, irritable and abusive,
though basically generous, the hysteria of excitement
constantly lurking in her. It is a spiritual and
physical necessity for her to exhaust herself in
service to others, though her grievances, especially
in her service to her mother, are many.90
In the novel, a similar description of the girl is followed
by a clarification of Gant's affection for her:
The bond between the girl and her father grew
stronger every day. . . . She adored him. He had begun
to suspect that this devotion, and his own response to
it, was a cause more and more of annoyance to Eliza,
and he was inclined to exaggerate and emphasize it,
90-.., ,
Ibid., p. 7.
166
particularly when he was drunk, when his furious dis
taste for his wife, his obscene complaint against her,
was crudely balanced by his maudlin docility to the
girl.^
Since her childhood, Helen has been the only one capable of
quieting Gant after a drinking spree:
. . . Helen, aged ten, even then his delight, would
master him, feeding spoonfuls of scalding soup into his
mouth, and slapping him sharply with her small hand
when he became recalcitrant.
"You drink this! You better!"
He was enormously pleased: they were both strung on the
same wires.92
Helen loves her father, yet she does not hesitate to
criticize his excesses and his excursions into maudlin
self-pity. When she is infuriated by his indulgence in
self-pity at the threat of Ben's death, she silences him:
You shut your mouth this minute, you damned old man!
I've spent my life taking care of you! Everything's
been done for you— everything— and you'll be here when
we're all gone--so don't let us hear anything about
your sickness, you selfish old man--it makes me
furious.^3
Yet moments later, seeing his despair at Ben's death, she
once again takes care of him: "Come on, Papa, there's
91Wolfe, Look Homeward. Angel, p. 67.
92
y Ibid.. p. 25.
93
Frings, op. cit.. p. 69.
167
nothing more to sit up for. Let me put you to bed. Come
qa
along." Helen can tell her father what to wear and how
to behave, but she can also quiet him and sympathize with
him. 9^
Helen is the one daughter who. though married, has
been content to stay with her family, primarily to be of
service. She looks after the boarding house, complaining
all the while, knowing that without her assistance, her
mother would be physically destroyed by overwork.^ Addi
tionally, she tries to protect Eliza's feelings, not want
ing her to know how little affection her children have for
her. 97
Hugh Barton and Luke Gant. Hugh Barton, Helen's
husband, is characterized as "simple, sweet, extremely
warm-hearted."9® His desires are fundamental: a good job,
a home of his own, and peace and quiet. Destined, by
virtue of his marriage to Helen, to be the head servant
94Ibid., p. 75. 95Ibid., pp. 21, 82.
96Supra. pp. 146-147.
97Frings, op. cit.. pp. 67-68.
98Ibid.. p. 7.
168
at The Dixieland Boarding House, he Is privately resentful,
but overtly useful and obliging.^ He regrets the loss of
his reputation as "Dapper Hugh Barton," and he avidly fol
lows the classified ads In the hope of finding a job better
than his current one as a cash-register salesman.How
ever, he is neither unhappy nor overly ambitious. He has
no serious problems, he is reasonably content, and there is
little reason to believe that he would ever add to Helen's
difficulties by compelling her to leave the Gants.
Luke Gant is . . the son who got away early, but
he still carries the marks of a distressing childhood; he
sometimes stutters.Called home from the Navy because
of Ben's critical condition, he appears in the play only
briefly, and he is portrayed less vividly than the other
Gants. He remains on the fringe of the household activi
ties, bringing ice cream to cheer up the family, teasing
his mother about the destructive environment of the board
ing house, talking superficially about his early remem
brances of Ben. Although he tries not to become involved,
" ibid.. pp. 8-23, 86-88.
100Ibid., pp. 8, 82. 101Ibid., p. 71.
169
Luke cannot Ignore the fact that even his brother*s death"
bed is a battleground for his parents. He Is particularly
repelled by his father’s self-pitying dramatics. "For
God's sake, Papa/' he cries out, "try to behave decently,
1 A O
for Ben's sake." Despite his defenses, even Luke cannot
remain aloof.
102Ibid.. p. 73.
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
I. SUMMARY
The data presented in the foregoing chapters have
provided descriptions of the value commitments of the
characters in four recent American plays. The characters
were considered in context with the plays in which they
were observed: Chapter II, the characters in Picnic; Chap
ter III, the characters in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Chap
ter IV, the characters in Long Day*s Journey Into Night;
and Chapter V, the characters in Look Homeward, Angel.
The data were derived in accordance with the definitions,
delimitations, methods, and procedures outlined in
Chapter I.
The purpose of the following discussion is to sum
marize the data, considering the characters in three cate
gories which break through the confines of the individual
plays.
170
171
(1) Seven characters are introduced as having failed
to meet their earlier commitments. Their be
havior during the action of the play reflects
their adjustments to that failure.
(2) Fourteen characters are introduced as adhering
to value commitments which they have held for
some time.
(3) Four characters are introduced as seeking to
define self-fulfillment, assuming commitments
which they have not as yet tested.
Within each of these groups, certain characters assume new
commitments during the course of the action, certain others
do not.
The characters who have failed to meet their earlier
commitments are Mrs. Flo Owens, Maggie and Brick Pollitt,
James and Mary Tyrone, and Eliza and W. 0. Gant. Prior to
the dissolution of her own marriage, Flo Owens had been
committed to marriage for love, and she had valued romantic
love.* She has adjusted to her own disappointment by view
ing romantic love as evil, and by assuming a commitment
*Supra, pp. 53-58.
172
to rearing her two daughters. Now determined to protect
them from similar disappointments, she values social status
and, as means to that end, social respectability and money.
Prior to the breakdown of his relationship with
Skipper, Brick Pollitt had been committed to personal self-
sufficiency, and he had valued friendship and a harmonious
2
relationship with his environment. Unable to accept the
fact that he has both violated his code of friendship and
proved his self-sufficiency to be an illusion, he has ad
justed to failure by denying it— by projecting his guilt to
Maggie, his wife, and by escaping into alcoholism. While
it is possible that he may yet assume a new commitment, as
a result of his facing the truth with Big Daddy, he does
not actually assume another commitment during the action
of the play. Maggie’s commitment to a successful marriage
has not changed, but her values have changed as a result of
her alienation from Brick.3 Prior to Brick’s rejection of
her, she had valued marital honesty, wanting Brick to
understand his dependence upon Skipper and to transfer that
dependence to her. Now she is more concerned that he
2Supra, pp. 85-94. 3Supra, pp. 63-76.
173
return to her sexually, that he father her child, and that
he cooperate with her in trying to gain the economic
security of the Pollitt estate.
The failures to which James and Mary Tyrone have had
to adjust are inextricably interwoven; they are ultimately
rooted in, but not necessarily caused by, Tyrone's in
satiable greed.^ Among these failures are Tyrone's artis
tic failure, Eugene's death, and Mary's addiction to drugs
in concurrence with her loss of faith and assumption of
guilt. Their two sons, both of whom negate life and seek
escape from it in alcoholism, are constant reminders of
these failures. Tyrone, once committed to artistic excel
lence and to gaining economic security for his family, has
adjusted to these failures by indulging his compulsive
miserliness and by escaping, if only partially, into
alcoholism. Having seen everything else destroyed, he
continues to value money, property, and good whisky. Mary
cannot accept, even in part, her present life, which she
views as a mockery of her life's commitment. The values
which she held previously have been irretrievably lost—
^Supra, pp. 116-128.
174
religious faith, social respectability, physical health and
strength, familial love, and self respect. Addicted to
drugs, unable to direct her life toward an attainable com*
mitment, she regresses to her previous state through the
use of morphine.
Both Eliza and W. 0. Gant have assumed new commit
ments as a result of their unhappy marriage.-* In the early
years of her marriage, Eliza had been committed to the
harmony and social prestige of her family, and she had
valued hard work and economic security as means to this
end. Once having realized the extent of her incompati
bility with Gant, she had restricted her commitment to
economic success and social prestige per se, attributing
essential value to property and money. Now, as she wit
nesses the attempted escape of Gant and the actual escape
of Ben and Eugene, she senses even more that familial
harmony is unattainable, and she renews her commitment to
economic success. W. 0. Gant had also been committed to
the harmony of his family, but he had viewed it as con
tingent upon values vastly different from Eliza's. Work
was to be creative expression, not a means to economic
5Supra, pp. 145-156.
175
security; love was to be a gift, not an obligation; a home
was to be built for and enjoyed by a family, not purchased
as a bargain and rented out to others. Bewildered by his
incompatibility with Eliza, he had become a drunkard and
a libertine, and gradually Eliza had gained control of his
life. Now aging, he realizes his failure as an artist, as
a husband, and as a father; he blames Eliza for treating
him and his children like non-paying boarders at the Dixie
land Boarding House; and he takes refuge in self-pity and
alcohol. When his final attempt at escape is thwarted, he
wills the vestiges of his dreams to the young Eugene.
The following fourteen characters adhere to value
commitments which they have held for some time: Rosemary
Sydney, Howard Bevans, Alan Seymour, Mrs. Helen Potts, Big
Daddy and Big Mama Pollitt, Gooper and Mae Pollitt, Jamie
and Edmund Tyrone, Ben Gant, Helen Gant Barton, Hugh
Barton, and Luke Gant. Of these, only Rosemary Sydney and
Howard Bevans assume a new commitment during the action of
the play. While several of the others modify their be
havior as a result of events in the play, they continue
to react in terms of their previous commitments.
Both reflecting the repressive code of the community
in which they live, Rosemary Sydney and Howard Bevans have
176
been committed to social respectability, she valuing her
independence as a spinster, he valuing his independence as
a bachelor.^ Stimulated by Hal's masculinity, Rosemary's
suppressed sexuality comes to the fore. In giving herself
to Howard sexually, Rosemary destroys the one value which
has justified her position as an unmarried woman in
society--her virginity. Committed to respectability, she
feels compelled to marry, and she intimidates Howard into
marrying her. Howard, committed to the same respectability
but enjoying his male advantage in the double standard, is
content with his bachelorhood, enjoying both the friendship
of Rosemary and the sexual pleasures of the local prosti
tutes. He is well aware that his affair with Rosemary has
jeopardized his position. In line with his commitment to
respectability, he must either keep the affair secret or
marry Rosemary. Rosemary makes his decision for him.
Although they are separated by a generation, Alan
Seymour and Mrs. Helen Potts have in common their con
tinuing adherence to the values which their families have
structured for them.7 Alan has been b o m into wealth and
6Supra, pp. 39-43, 48-50.
7Supra, pp. 45-48, 50-53.
177
social position; he is committed to behaving in a manner
appropriate to his status. He values personal honor and
the maintenance of appearances. He prefers to believe that
Madge has been violated by Hal than to believe that Madge
has succumbed to Hal; even if he must commit perjury to do
so, he will destroy Hal in order to preserve Madge*s honor.
Mrs. Helen Potts, whose one experience with love ended
years ago in an annulled marriage, is committed to taking
care of her mother. Without bitterness, she sentimental
izes the romance which her mother forbade her, and she is
content to play the role of daughter even into old age.
For years, Big Daddy and Big Mama Pollitt have been
conmitted to building a family and an empire organized
O
under a domineering husband, a submissive wife. Big Daddy
has valued power and has been committed to gaining control
over his environment; he has viewed family and land as
essential values, and Big Mama has adopted his views with
out question. For them, family and land are not only the
essential values but also the values which assure im
mortality on earth. While Big Daddy, when momentarily
g
Supra, pp. 76-85, 94-98.
178
freed from the threat of death, verbalizes a commitment to
enjoying the harmonious pleasures which he has missed, such
pleasures as familial love and sexual enjoyment, he is
fundamentally incapable of giving up his commitment to
power. And as a man of power, he would lack the sensi
tivity to approach such pleasures. Big Hama, having con
sistently lived in her husband's glory, has merely re
flected her husband's commitments, never assuming any of
her own. He scorns her submissiveness at the same time
that he relies upon it. VJhen he tries to deny her a share
in his accomplishments, she rationalizes his denial as the
fabrication of a sick man. And when she learns that he is
to die, she urges Brick, his favorite son, to fill his
position, so that she may continue to echo Big Daddy's
values.
Also scorned by Big Daddy are Gooper and Mae
Pollitt.^ They have earned his disdain by pursuing so
carefully the letter of his values with no conception of
the underlying spirit of them. Gooper is a colorless
imitation of his father, moving methodically and without
^Supra, pp. 98-102.
179
passion in the direction of power, attempting to gain by
following the rules the land and family which Big Daddy had
won by fearless gambling, sustained only by his own will
to succeed. Committed to winning Big Daddy's estate, in
spite of their already having gained some measure of eco
nomic security for themselves, Gooper and Mae regard even
their children as means to this end, as conclusive evidence
of their right to the estate.
Jamie and Edmund Tyrone have emerged from an unhappy
childhood assured that there are no values worthy of com
mitment— that the only antidote for an intolerable life is
escape.^® Jamie, the less productive of the two, is com
mitted to destroying both himself and his brother to avenge
the injustices which life, through his father, has in
flicted upon his mother, his brother, and himself. In all
of his undertakings, he has failed consistently, almost
purposefully; and his most positive values are alcoholism,
whoring, and fatalistic poetry. Edmund, while physically
weaker than his brother, is potentially more productive.
For him, too, life is intolerable, and escape is the anti
dote. Like Jamie, he has on occasion escaped from life
^Supra, pp. 128-133.
180
through alcoholism, whoring, and fatalistic poetry; but un
like Jamie, he has on other occasions escaped into life in
rare and ecstatic moments of identification with a world
transcending the world of men. His denial of life-as-it-is
is tempered by his affirmation of life-as-it-should-be, and
his resultant anxiety attests to his freedom to choose yet
another commitment.
Ben Gant has lived with two commitments— one to his
family, to love them and protect them from one another, and
one to himself, to escape from his family into a world
where he might fulfill his own potentialities.** He has
consistently fulfilled the former, only attempting the
latter. His last voluntary attempt at escape, at best a
half-hearted attempt, is rendered ineffectual by his ill
health. Only in death does he accomplish his escape; and
before he dies, he wills his commitment to self-fulfillment
to Eugene.
Unlike the other Gants, Helen Gant Barton has been
able to define her own self-fulfillment without violating
either of her commitments— to the Gants, and to her
**Supra, pp. 157-160.
181
1 9
husband, Hugh. She is content to devote her life to
alleviating, to the extent to which she can, the misery
which her loved ones inflict upon one another. She shares
with her husband a commitment to familial harmony, and
while both of them hope to better themselves, they are not
unhappy in their present situation. Luke is introduced
only as having escaped his commitment to the Gants; he is
not revealed as having adopted any other commitment.
The following characters are seeking to define self-
fulfillment, assuming value commitments which they have not
as yet tested: Hal Carter, Madge and Millie Owens, and
Eugene Gant. Until the present, Hal has remained without
conscious commitments, assuming one pose or another as
convenient, compensating as best he can for his meager
I Q
heritage and his accidental birth and upbringing. Having
just determined to give his life a conscious structuring,
he has assumed a commitment to defining his own individu
ality and to finding a place for himself in society. He
values economic independence, social respectability, and
personal honesty; and in falling in love with Madge,
^ Supra, pp. 165-167. ^ Supra, pp. 27-34.
182
he finds someone with whom he hopes to pursue these values
and fulfill his commitment. Simultaneous with this dis
covery, he is evicted from the community; but it is implied
that with Madge's help, he will continue elsewhere to
direct his life toward this commitment.
Madge, bewildered by the image which others have of
her--that of a beautiful object rather than a human being--
is also looking for her own individuality and for a place
in society.^ Hal, who loves her as a person and who wants
to marry her, provides the commitment within which she sees
herself fulfilled. Above the social status and economic
security which Alan offers, she values the love and re
sponsibility which her commitment to Hal entails.
With adolescent, intensity, Millie resents the fact
that she is looked on as an intellect rather than as a
person.^ She is jealous of Madge's beauty and popularity,
and she compensates for her lack of these qualities by
devaluating anything feminine, becoming a tomboy who prides
herself on being able to out-perform her male peers in both
athletic and intellectual activities. Under Hal's in
fluence, she gains some respect for femininity.
* 1 /
Supra, pp. 34-39. 15Supra, pp. 43-45.
183
Eugene Gant, introduced as seeking to define his own
self-image and to discover a purpose in life, values
16
freedom, love, and knowledge. Like Ben, he is torn
between love for his family and the desire to free himself
from them. After falling in love with Laura, he defines
his self-fulfillment in terms of his love for her, and he
is willing to relinquish his exercise of freedom and his
pursuit of learning in order to remain with her. However,
when her love is withdrawn from him, he determines that his
self-fulfillment is contingent upon his getting an educa
tion and upon his travelling the world. He frees himself
from his family, but not without a nostalgic yearning to
remain with them.
The preceding discussion has summarized the value
conmitments of the twenty-five characters investigated in
the present study. Three categories of characters were
sunmarized: those who have failed to meet their earlier
conmitments, those who have adhered to their earlier-
assumed commitments, and those who have not yet articulated
particular value conmitments.
16Supra, pp. 161-164.
184
II. CONCLUSIONS
From the data reported in the present investigation,
certain conclusions regarding the value commitments of
contemporary dramatic characters were derived. These con
clusions, listed below, epitomize not only the values
emerging from the four plays considered but also the values
described in current analyses of contemporary American
society.^ Moreover, the society which has given both
popular and critical approval to these plays has also
structured the observations of the writers who have created
mouthpieces for themselves in the fictional personalities.
Thus, the value commitments of these fictional characters
reflect the problems and solutions meaningful to man in
society as well as to the fictional personalities them
selves.
1. The more perceptive individual becomes aware of
conflicting commitments which complicate his efforts to
realize his potentialities. With a few rare exceptions,
such as Helen Gant in Look Homeward, Angel, only the indi
vidual who is able to follow a tradition without question
^ Supra, pp. 5 ff.
185
can remain unaffected by the profound responsibility im
posed by his very freedom to choose among contradictory
commitments, and by the irrevocability of many of his more
critical choices.
2. If the individual’s actual life departs signi
ficantly from the ideal life which he feels to be his
potential birthright, he will resist a conscious awareness
of his predicament. He may repress his ideal by directing
his energies toward a realistically-attainable commitment,
as does Eliza Gant in Look Homeward, Angel, or he may
repress his actual existence by withdrawing to an illu-
sionary world of his ideal, as does Mary Tyrone in Long
Day's Journey Into Night. He may accept his predicament
as inevitable, perhaps even assuming some pride in it as a
confirmation of his unique individuality, as does W. 0.
Gant in Look Homeward, Angel. Or he may extend the range
of his freedom in search of a commitment within which both
the actual and the potential may become meaningful.
3. This predicament, perceived more or less
abstractly by the youth, is frequently translated into
concrete terms by the adult, particularly within the insti
tution of marriage. Because this institution is besieged
186
both externally by social and economic pressures and Inter
nally by the conflicting drives toward self-fulfillment of
the individuals, it tends to provide concrete focus for the
generalized gropings of the individuals. Frequently, the
individual may project his own failures to his partner
rather than acknowledge the qualities within himself which
impede his progress toward self-fulfillment. An example of
such projection is Brick Pollitt’s, in Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof.
4. Basic to many incompatible marriages is the
predicament which focuses concretely in a conflict between
two individuals adhering to mutually-exclusive commitments.
One partner chooses an exclusive commitment to the actual
world; and in doing so, he overvalues existentially-
rewarding activities and devaluates essentially-rewarding
activities. The other partner chooses an exclusive com
mitment to the potential world; and in doing so, he over
values essentially-rewarding activities and devaluates
existentially-rewarding activities. Since the former is
more generally fortified by social approval and by
realistically-attainable rewards, he is more likely to
dominate in the relationship, as does Eliza Gant in Look
Homeward, Angel.
187
5. Representatives of each oncoming generation,
perceiving the conflict lived out in the past, are able to
view both commitments with some degree of objectivity.
They tend to fear and devaluate the commitment held by the
dominant parent, to attempt to extend the range of their
freedom, and to seek a transcendent commitment which will
accommodate the seeminglyincompatible commitments of both
parents.
Descriptive of man as reflected in the plays con
sidered, these conclusions provide significant insights
into the nature of man as reflected in the drama. The
value commitments of the characters described reflect those
of man in contemporary American society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. PRIMARY SOURCES
Frings, Ketti. Look Homeward, Angel. New York: Samuel
French, Inc., 1958.
Inge, William. Picnic. New York: Dramatists Play Service
Inc., 1955.
0fNeill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey Into Night. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1956.
Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. New York:
Dramatists Play Service Inc., 1958.
B. SECONDARY SOURCES
1. Books
Albert, Ethel M., and Clyde Kluckhohn. A Selected Bibli
ography on Values, Ethics, and Esthetics. Glencoe,
Illinois: The Free Press of Glencoe, Illinois, 1959.
Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: The Uni
versity of Chicago Press, 1958.
Bentley, Eric. In Search of Theatre. New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., 1953.
Butcher, S. H. Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and the Fine
Arts. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951.
Cantril, Hadley. The "Why" of Man’s Experience. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1950.
189
190
Chapman, John. Broadway’s Best, 1960. New York: Doubleday
and Company, Inc., 1960.
Downs, Harold. The Critic in the Theatre. London:
Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1953.
Fromm, Erich. Man for Himself. New York: Rinehart and
Company, Inc., 1947.
________ . The Sane Society. New York: Rinehart and Com
pany, Inc., 1955.
Gassner, John. Form and Idea in the Modem Theatre. New
York: The Dryden Press, 1956.
Good, Carter V., and Douglas E. Scates. Methods of
Research. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.,
1954.
Hewitt, Barnard W. Theatre U.S.A., 1668 to 1957. New
York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1959.
Kaufman, Walter. From Shakespeare to Existentialism:
Studies in Religion and Philosophy. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1960.
Kitchin, Laurence. Mid-Century Drama. London: Faber and
Faber, Ltd., 1960.
Kluckhohn, Florence R., and Fred L. Strodtbeck. Variations
in Value Orientations. Evanston, Illinois: Row,
Peterson and Company, 1961.
Krutch, Joseph Wood. "Modernism" in Modem Drama. Ithica,
New York: Cornell University Press, 1953.
Langner, Lawrence. The Play’s the Thing. New York:
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1960.
Lawson, John H. Theory and Technique of Playwriting and
Screenwriting. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949.
Lumley, Frederick. Trends in 20th Century Drama. Revised
edition. Fair Lawn, N. J.: Essential Books, 1960.
191
Millet, Fred B. Reading Drama. New York: Harper and
Brothers Publishers, 1950.
Morison, Elting (ed.). The American Style: Essays in Value
and Performance. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958.
Rice, Elmer. The Living Theatre. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1959.
Scott, Nathan A. Modem Literature and the Religious
Frontier. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958.
Tillich, Paul. The Protestant Era. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1948.
Tynan, Kenneth. Curtains. New York: Atheneum, 1961.
Walser, Richard. Thomas Wolfe: An Introduction and Inter
pretation. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1961.
Werkmeister, W. H. Outlines of a Value Theory. Six
Lectures Delivered at the University of Istanbul.
Istanbul: A. Turan Oflazoglu, 1959.
Whitney, Frederick Lamson. The Elements of Research.
New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1954.
Wiener, Norbert. The Human Use of Human Beings. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950.
Wolfe, Thomas. Look Homeward, Angel. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1940.
________ . You Can't Go Home Again. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1940.
2. Periodicals
Bigelow, Gordon E. "A Primer of Existentialism," College
English, XXIII (December, 1961), 171-178.
Eastman, Richard M. "Drama as Psychological Argument,"
College English, XIX (May, 1958), 327-332.
192
Keman, Alvin B. "Truth and Dramatic Mode in the Modem
Theater," Modem Drama, I (September, 1958), 101-114.
Klapp, Orrin E. "Tragedy and the American Climate of
Opinion," Centennial Review of Arts and Sciences,
II (Fall, 1958), 396-413.
Scodel, Alvin. "Changes in Song Lyrics and Some Specula
tions on National Character," Merrill-Palmer Quarterly
of Behavior and Development, VII (January, 1961),
39-47.
Sharp, William. "An Unfashionable View of Tennessee
Williams," The Tulane Drama Review, VI (March, 1962),
160-171.
Williams, Tennessee. "Tennessee Williams Presents His
POV," Span, VIII (June, 1961), 27-30.
3. Essays and Articles in Collections^
Allport, Gordon W. "Normative Compatibility in the Light
of Social Science," New Knowledge in Human Values,
Abraham H. Maslow, editor. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1959. Pp. 137-150.
Fromm, Erich. "Values, Psychology, and Human Existence,"
New Knowledge in Human Values, Abraham H. Maslow,
editor. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959.
Pp. 151-164.
Hopper, Stanley R. "The Problem of Moral Isolation in
Contemporary Literature," Spiritual Problems in Con
temporary Literature, Stanley R. Hopper, editor.
New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952. Pp. 153-170.
Kemodle, George. "Patterns of Belief in Contemporary
Drama," Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature,
Stanley R. Hopper, editor. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1952. Pp. 177-189.
193
Tillich, Paul. "Is a Science of Human Values Possible?"
New Knowledge in Human Values, Abraham H. Maslow,
editor. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959.
Pp. 189-196.
Weisskopf, Walter A. "Existence and Values,” New Knowledge
in Human Values. Abraham H. Maslow, editor. New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1959. Pp. 107-118.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Gobrecht, Eleanor Alverta (author)

Core Title A Descriptive Study Of The Value Commitments Of The Principal Characters In Four Recent American Plays: 'Picnic,' 'Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,' 'Long Day'S Journey Into Night,' And 'Look Homeward, Angel'

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication (Drama)

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag OAI-PMH Harvest,Theater

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Butler, James H. (committee chair), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member), Werkmeister, William H. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-279357

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