While reading Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, two questions continued to arise: Was Brick reacting to his friend's death by drinking himself dead, and is it truly important to Brick and Maggie to save face and make appearances seem blissful to the outside world? When this play was assigned, I immediately thought of Anne Proulx and Larry McMurtry's film, Brokeback Mountain. Both men were hiding a relationship, they each had wives and children and jobs but were miserable until their romantic get aways with one another. However, both wives, eventually caught onto the affair these two men were having. Maggie shares the jelousy and love/hate feelings towards her husband as Alma and Lureen feel towards their husbands.
Is it possible to save face, or does everyone find out the skeletons hidden in the closets? Their wives finally breakdown and confront the men on their "secret," the only main difference in the two stories is that Brick does not admit to his being gay whereas Ennis and Jack are openly gay (to themselves).
It was also interesting for me to compare and contrast the two wives in Brokeback Mountain to the wife in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Maggie is an outspoken woman who seems to be staying in a loveless marriage because of financial security. However, she is put into her place when mentioning Skipper, Brick's friend, when Brick begins attacking her with his crutches. She is yelling at him while also dodging flying objects. Lureen is a wealthy woman born into the lap of luxury where as Alma is just as poor as Ennis. It is evident Lureen is not as in love with Jack as Alma is with Ennis. Alma attempts to make her husband happy, because the man is in charge of the household, whereas Lureen is the main breadwinner and Jack is married into this wealthy lifestyle. She is more of an independent and assertive woman, whereas Alma is dependent and passive. The two women are different and I believe Maggie is a mixture of the two. She is spunky, yet knows her financial dependence of Brick.
Is it possible to save face, or does everyone find out the skeletons hidden in the closets? Their wives finally breakdown and confront the men on their "secret," the only main difference in the two stories is that Brick does not admit to his being gay whereas Ennis and Jack are openly gay (to themselves).
It was also interesting for me to compare and contrast the two wives in Brokeback Mountain to the wife in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Maggie is an outspoken woman who seems to be staying in a loveless marriage because of financial security. However, she is put into her place when mentioning Skipper, Brick's friend, when Brick begins attacking her with his crutches. She is yelling at him while also dodging flying objects. Lureen is a wealthy woman born into the lap of luxury where as Alma is just as poor as Ennis. It is evident Lureen is not as in love with Jack as Alma is with Ennis. Alma attempts to make her husband happy, because the man is in charge of the household, whereas Lureen is the main breadwinner and Jack is married into this wealthy lifestyle. She is more of an independent and assertive woman, whereas Alma is dependent and passive. The two women are different and I believe Maggie is a mixture of the two. She is spunky, yet knows her financial dependence of Brick.
In our group project, I contributed by creating two backup questions in case our class discussion is not as productive as planned. I also am going to be introducing our group and its main topics as well as addressing the class regarding the term mendacity and saving face with back up material from a modern film, Brokeback Mountain, with same issues: loveless marriages and questioning sexuality. Along with this, I wrote an outline of our presentation and posted it onto our file in WebCT for the group to have a sense of what the process will be.
1 comment:
Brilliant connection, C.C. Way to go!
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