Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Memory and the Past Quotes Page 1

Cat is as much about Straw and Ochello as it is about the Pollitt family. The Pollitts refer to Straw and Ochello almost as though they were ancestors, and the two ghosts haunt the family throughout. They are the proverbial pink elephants in the room in every moment of the play. Williams includes the detail that the house has not changed much over the years. In this way, the memory of the past is alive, vivid, and unavoidable. While the console with its television, radio, and liquor cabinet herald the modern age, this modernity is overpowered by the memory of the past.

Here we see the many layers and frames of memory. Williams' inspiration for the set of Cat is based on a reproductionof a "faded" photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson's home on a Samoan Island. He is several times removed from the point of inspiration, and we can only assume that he added to, embellished, and recreated his memory of this reproduction as time went on. It is the emotion around "the light on weathered wood" that he remembers and that has stayed with him.

While the act of remembering and retelling memories can be dangerous for the details that are edited or lost, Maggie reminds us how equally dangerous it is not to articulate memories, especially considering there is so much emotion around them. Here also she draws a direct connection between the memory of Skipper that haunts Brick and the cancer that infects Big Daddy.