Truth versus Mendacity

A preoccupation with telling the truth, having the strength to accept the truth, and withholding the truth runs through Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Big Daddy thinks he has just learned the truth when he is told, after extensive medical examinations, that he merely has a spastic colon and not cancer as he had feared. But this is not the truth; his worst fear is realized when Brick, in a moment of anger tells him that he is, in fact, dying Brick has let out the big secret in response to Big Daddy's unveiling of Brick's secret truth—that Brick drove Skipper to the suicidal use of alcohol and drugs when he hung up on Skipper's attempt to "confess" his homosexual love for Brick. While Brick believed that the confession resulted directly from Maggie's jealous pressure upon Skipper, he also feared that he and...