Big Daddy's Dramatic Word Strings

Abstract

SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE TOO successful. Tennessee Williams was just that when he created the character of Big Daddy, who so dominates the second act of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that Elia Kazan would not direct the play unless the third act were rewritten.1 The original version sent Big Daddy offstage at the end of the second act and allowed him only to groan in pain from the wings during the third. Kazan simply did not want to lose a character who generated so much dramatic excitement from the climactic moments of the play. His request had little to do with plot. The second act was almost overwhelming because of Big Daddy; the third act, without his reappearance, would be a letdown beyond any director's ability to trick things together. What is the excitement about Big Daddy? How does he succeed in arousing the emotion of the audience to such a high pitch of admiration and active concern? To a certain extent it is by his dramatic function, but that does not fully explain it. After all, the plot is simply that old hack theme of who is going to be included in the family will-the how and the why of the hungry heirs. A dying patriarch who has yet to dispose of his property need not necessarily be sympathetic or even dramatically exciting. But the way Tennessee Williams does him, he is both. The explanation is in his use of language. Big Daddy is a rough, crude poet who can command and strategically employ both bombast and lyricism. He delights us with the poetic power of his speech, while carefully maintaining the pose of a man who contemns culture. To do this successfully, he must stay within the circumscribed word choice of slang. Anything fancy would be peculiar or precious, and he is, therefore, forced to fall back upon the natural rhythms of local speech for his effect. This is his starting place. Just how he maneuvers into more complex patterns is the interesting secret of his dramatic