Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Act 2 Summary & Analysis

A group enters, with Big Daddy in the lead, followed by Reverend Tooker and Gooper, who are discussing memorials. Big Daddy interrupts the talk about memorials, asking whether they think someone’s going to die. Reverend Tooker laughs awkwardly, as Mae and Doctor Baugh appear, talking about the children’s immunizations. Margaret tells Brick to turn on the Hi-Fi. When he ignores her, she turns it on herself, and Big Daddy shouts to shut it off again. The speaker is turned off immediately, as Big Mama enters the room and calls for Brick. Big Daddy shouts to turn the speakers back on again, and everyone laughs, at Big Mama’s expense. She herself laughs it off and approaches Brick.

Big Mama fusses over Brick and flops down on the couch, pulling the reverend onto her as a joke. Big Daddy bellows at her to stop joking around, and Big Mama signals the cue for the black servants to bring in Big Daddy’s birthday cake and champagne. Everyone except Brick sings “Happy birthday to you,” and when that’s finished, Mae signals at her children to sing another song about how much they love Big Daddy and Big Mama.

Moved by the spectacle, Big Mama again launches into a speech about the wonderful results of the health report. Margaret interjects, asking Brick whether he’s given Big Daddy his birthday present yet. Gooper bets that Brick doesn’t know what the present is, while Margaret opens the package. She sounds surprised as she pulls out a cashmere robe, but Mae accuses her of faking the surprise, since she happens to know that Margaret purchased it last Saturday. As the conversation gets cattier, Big Daddy bellows for quiet. The reverend unfortunately finishes a sentence in the silence after everyone stops speaking, and Big Daddy turns on him, accusing him of speaking about memorials again.

As the atmosphere in the room grows uncomfortable, Big Daddy turns to Brick and asks what he was doing on the high school track field last night. In crude language, he asks whether Brick was laying a woman, while Mae quickly ushers the reverend out on the gallery. Brick denies it, and Big Daddy continues to interrogate him, asking whether he was drunk. Big Mama and Margaret try to change the subject, drawing attention back to the cake, but Big Daddy bellows in disgust for them to stop. Meanwhile, Gooper has retreated to the gallery as well.

Big Daddy says that he’s tired of Big Mama trying to take over because she thought he was dying of cancer. Big Mama tells him to hush, but he continues. He says that he made the plantation as successful as it was by himself, and he refuses to let her take it over now. Big Daddy claims that his colon has been made spastic by disgust for hypocrisy and liars. Big Mama, upset, exclaims that she has loved him all these years, but he doesn’t believe her. She rushes out onto the gallery, as Big Daddy says to himself, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that was true…”

Big Daddy asks to speak to Brick, and Margaret delivers him, exiting onto the gallery with a kiss, which Brick wipes off. At this point, Big Daddy and Brick are the only ones left in the bedroom, and all the others are out on the gallery. Big Daddy compares Margaret and Mae, and he and Brick agree that they both look like a couple of cats on a hot tin roof. Brick says it’s because they’re trying to get a piece of Big Daddy’s land, and Big Daddy responds that they have a surprise coming to them—he’s not planning to die for a while yet.

Big Daddy hears a sound from the bedroom and asks who’s there. Mae appears by the gallery entrance, and Big Daddy tells her to stop spying. Mae accuses him of being unkind to those who love him, to which Big Daddy tells her to shut up. He says that he plans to move Mae and Gooper out of the room next to Margaret and Brick’s, since all they do is spy and report their findings to Big Mama. Mae leaves the room dramatically, pressing a handkerchief to her nose.

Big Daddy tells Brick that Mae and Gooper have reported that Brick won’t sleep with Margaret. He asks whether this is true and tells Brick to get rid of Margaret if he doesn’t like her. Brick, meanwhile, has gone to the liquor cabinet to freshen his drink, and Big Daddy tells him he has a real liquor problem. He advises Brick to quit drinking and stop throwing his life away. Brick agrees, without really listening. Big Daddy comments that it’s hard to truly communicate.

Meanwhile, the clock chimes, and Brick remarks on how pleasant the chiming sound is. Big Daddy says that he and Big Mama bought the clock on their European tour. Big Daddy adds that he’s lucky he’s a rich man because Big Mama bought so many items on that tour. He tells Brick to guess how much he’s worth, and when Brick doesn’t respond, Big Daddy informs him that he’s worth ten million dollars and has 28,000 acres of the richest land on this side of the Nile. He concludes on a somber note, however, saying that a man can’t buy his life. He continues to reminisce about his trip to Europe, saying that he has enough money to feed all of Barcelona, and remembers how an Arab woman sent her naked child to him to proposition him for sex. He claims that rich men hoard their money to buy items, however, because they hope that one of their purchases will turn out to be life everlasting.

Brick pours himself another drink and informs Big Daddy that he’s talking a lot tonight. Brick says that he prefers "solid quiet" and asks whether Big Daddy’s through talking to him. Brick tells Big Daddy that they never truly talk—he tries to look like he listens, but he never actually listens. Meanwhile, Big Daddy closes the gallery doors so that he and Brick are alone, and asks Brick whether he’s been downright terrified of anything in his life. Big Daddy continues on to say that he thought he really had cancer. With the new health report though, he feels much better.

Big Daddy announces to Brick that he’s contemplating "pleasure with women." He says that he slept with Big Mama until five years ago, when he was sixty, and he never even liked her. Big Mama bustles through the room on the way to answer the phone down the hall. Big Daddy tells her she should go through a different room, but she just makes a playful face at him and hurries through. Brick has started to hobble towards the gallery doors to leave, but Big Daddy tells him that the talk’s not finished yet. Big Mama finishes talking to Miss Sally on the phone, but when she tries to walk back through the room, Big Daddy closes the door and doesn't let her in. After entreating Big Daddy to take back his earlier words about her trying to take over the plantation, she retreats down the hall with a sob.

As Big Daddy goes back to contemplating pleasure with women, talking about how he plans to use his wealth to secure a young woman, Brick rises with effort. Big Daddy asks Brick what makes him so restless, and Brick responds that the “click” hasn’t happened yet. He explains the click he gets when he drinks enough alcohol, and Big Daddy, astonished, calls him an alcoholic, which Brick calmly accepts. Brick attempts to leave again, saying that this talk is like all the others they’ve had, going nowhere. Big Daddy seizes Brick’s crutch and tosses it across the room. Big Daddy continues to talk about his test results and how he believed he had cancer, and Brick makes a wild dash for his crutch.

Big Daddy yells at him to stay, and Big Mama rushes in to see what all the yelling is about. Big Daddy tells her to get out, and she runs out, sobbing. Brick attempts to hobble towards the gallery again, but Big Daddy takes his crutch again. Big Daddy demands to know why Brick drinks and refuses to return the crutch until he gets an answer. He tells Brick that he’ll pour him a drink if Brick says why he drinks. Brick responds that he drinks out of disgust. Big Daddy asks what he’s disgusted with, but Brick refuses to say until Big Daddy pours him a drink. Brick responds that he’s disgusted by mendacity, or lying and liars.

The children start chanting that they want Big Daddy, and Gooper appears in the gallery door to ask him to come and see the rest of the family, but Big Daddy shuts him out. He demands to know who’s been lying to Brick. Big Daddy says he knows all about mendacity, having had to lie about caring for Big Mama, for Gooper, for Mae—in fact, he says the only one he’s ever had any devotion to in his life is Brick. He says there’s nothing to live with other than mendacity. Brick contradicts him, holding up his glass and saying that liquor is something else to live with.

Big Daddy informs Brick that that’s not living. He says that he couldn’t decide who to make his will out to before the health report came in—to give it to Gooper and Mae or to support Brick as he rotted away. Brick responds with indifference before heading to the gallery door to watch Big Daddy’s birthday fireworks. Big Daddy stops Brick. He says that they shouldn’t leave the conversation there, without being fully honest with each other. Brick says that he’s never lied to Big Daddy, but they’ve never truly talked to each other either. Big Daddy wants to continue the discussion about Brick’s drinking.

Big Daddy suggests that Brick goes back to sports announcing, but Brick responds that he hates to sit in a glass box watching games he can no longer play. Big Daddy comments that Brick started drinking when his friend Skipper died. There’s a silence for a few moments, and then Brick asks what Big Daddy is suggesting. Big Daddy says he’s suggesting nothing, but that Gooper and Mae suggested that there was something off about Brick’s friendship with Skipper. Brick loses his composure, asking who else has made the suggestion.

Brick yells at Big Daddy for accusing him, his son, of being a queer. As Big Daddy denies this, Reverend Tooker steps in to look for the bathroom. Big Daddy directs him on his way, and continues talking. He says he’s seen a lot in his life, and that the previous plantation owners, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello, had a special relationship. When Jack Straw died, Ochello stopped eating and died too. Brick wheels around and throws his glass across the room, shouting at Big Daddy. Completely losing his composure, Brick accuses Big Daddy of insinuating that Brick and Skipper performed sodomy together. He charges Big Daddy with comparing Brick and Skipper to a pair of dirty old men like Ochello and Straw. Brick drops his crutch and falls without noticing the pain, while Big Daddy helps him up, trying to calm him down.

Brick says that there was a pledge at his former fraternity who was found attempting to do an “unnatural thing” and was chased off campus. The pledge fled all the way to North Africa. Brick asks why true friendship between two men can’t be respected as something pure and decent. Big Daddy once again says that it’s hard to talk, but instead of letting it go, he asks why Skipper started drinking. Brick decides he’s going to tell Big Daddy the truth about the health report. First, though, he grabs another drink and starts telling Big Daddy his version of what happened with Skipper. He says that Margaret was jealous of their friendship and started planting in Skipper the idea that he was in love with Brick, and Skipper went to bed with Maggie to prove it wasn’t true. When that didn’t work out, however, he believed it was true.

Big Daddy continues to press Brick, believing that he purposefully left something out of the story. Finally, Brick admits that Skipper called Brick long-distance to give a drunken confession of love, and Brick hung up on him. That was the last they spoke to each other. Big Daddy tells Brick that his disgust is really with himself for digging the grave of his friend before he’d face the truth with him.

Brick says that no one—Big Daddy included—can face the truth. Brick blurts out that everyone but Big Daddy knows the truth of the health report, for example. As Big Daddy faces this revelation, Brick swings around on his crutches, finally escaping to the gallery. Big Daddy shouts for Brick, and Brick returns to apologize, admitting it’s hard for him to understand that anyone cares whether they live or die anymore. Big Daddy passionately condemns all liars before leaving the room and retreating down the hall. Down the hall, there is the sound of a child being slapped. It runs through the room, crying, and out of the hall door.