Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Episode VIII (Return of the Note) ‏

ISSUES: MORTALITY AND HUMANITY Big Daddy says: “Ignorance of mortality is a comfort.”

Big Daddy also says… (he says a lot): “…the human animal is a beast that dies and if he’s got the money he buys and buys and 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 of his purchases will be life everlasting!” (91)

DEHUMANIZATION: to take human qualities away from; often used to criticize something (a system, humanity’s faults, etc)

MECHANIZATION: to make something mechanical or robotic

e.g. Brick’s alcoholism gives him: “the click – it’s just a mechanical thing… something like a – like a – like a – switch clicking off in my head, turning the hot light off and the cool night on…” (100) WHAT IS CRITICIZED HERE?

ANIMALISATION: to refer to a person like an animal

e.g. “the human animal is a beast that dies but the fact that he’s dying don’t give him pity for others, no sir” (90) “selfish beast” (89), “a beast” (91) -think of all of the animal imagery in the play… criticizing what?