Hi!
Does anyone have any examples of high scoring essays for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?
Thank you so much 
I happen to still have my Adaptions SAC for Cat! This scored 49/50 so I hope it helps
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof- Adaptations and Transformations
The key propeller of William's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is his exploration of the way in which mendacity, conformity and human faith can both cage and liberate an individual in post-war America. Whilst Richard Brook also seeks to elucidate the significance of the aforementioned concepts, the overt fashion of expression adopted in the film, alongside other alterations, have ultimately warped the literary intentions of the play itself.
It is, of course, inevitable that any shifts in medium should result in a shift in meaning, as the subtleties of language are often lost in translation when reincarnated cinematically. As the lyrical beauty of William's prose which stirs the human imagination is replaced by striking visuals, and the magnetic personas of Maggie and Brick are rendered all the more vibrant on-screen, the schism between play and film is widened. Nonetheless, it is not merely the filmic techniques themselves which enable this profound change, but also the intentional bowdlerization of the original play to ensure its suitability and popularity with a conventional audience.
The discussion of mendacity is, to a considerable degree, altered between the two works. Such a change is largely a product of the director's interpretation of this human tendency. At the heart of the play, William seeks to lambaste dishonesty, yet also appears to accept lying as inherent and ineluctable in the human experience. Within the character of Brick there exists a conflux of simultaneous "disgust" with mendacity and a begrudging reliance upon it to numb the pain of living. In William’s version, the most apparent manifestation of this self-deceit is Brick's internalized homosexuality, and the most effective means of blurring the line between truth and illusion is through alcohol. The utility of alcohol as the "one way out" of the "system of mendacity" is therefore consistent throughout the play. To some extent, the liquor only furthers Brick's agony as, in the process of numbing his guilt and repressing his homosexual desires, he has emptied himself of human emotion completely. Thus, Williams is adamant that "not facing a fire doesn't put it out"- or, in other words- clinging tenaciously to a lie will never enable it to substitute truth.
However, the film presents alcohol not as a vehicle to self-deception, but as a physical and psychological analogy for lying itself. Shortly after Brick confronts his supposedly platonic devotion to Skipper, an abrupt role-reversal takes place in the basement. Shrouded by shadows of the past, Big Daddy's desperate, almost animalistic cries for the "click" and Brick's sober refusal of liquor rapidly enable the dehumanisation of one and spiritual revival of the other. The low-angle shot further establishes that in vocalizing the source of his "disgust", Brick has miraculously been cured of his "real liquor problem". It's most probable that such a resolution effectively reflects the archetypal Hollywood story of self-redemption to bolster the appeal of the film, although the complexity and fundamentality of mendacity as ingrained in the human psyche are forgone as a result.
Similarly, the significant adaptation of the film's concluding scenes warps Williams' vision of "lying and liars" entirely. Whilst the original play finishes with the foreshadowing of Maggie's actual pregnancy, the scene is tempered by Brick's inability to neither accept nor reciprocate Maggie's love. It can thus be prophesized that the offspring of Maggie's deceit would be more so a "condition of agreement" than a product of coveted love. Although it paints a disturbingly realistic depiction of "that cloudy, flickering, evanescent… interplay of live human beings" in a way that may not be well-received by a common audience, it substantiates Brick's acute intolerance with the lies of other people, even when he is endorsing them. This also reveals a simple but crucial irony- one that perhaps lies at the root of Brick's collapse and the heart of the very play- that regardless of how Brick and Big Daddy recoil at the very notion of "pretences!", the only truths they can bear to live with are those of everyone else. In his forced consent to satisfy Maggie's lie and his drunken denial about Skipper, Brick appears as keen a contributor to the "system of mendacity" as the people he so righteously scorns and condemns.
Yet, in Richard Brooks' haste to produce a commercial success, William's critique of social hypocrisy is erased in place of what's generally deemed a more satisfying ending. As Brick willingly, even gladly, "backs (Maggie) up in (her) lie", enabling the couple to at least reconcile, Brick's previous disdain towards mendacity seemingly dissipates in favour of an optimistic resolution. The dimming of lights in the bedroom and subsequent close-up of the raw disbelief in Maggie’s eyes largely romanticizes what was initially an instance of violent coercion and bitter defiance. In doing so, a modern-day audience is likely to sympathize more with both Brick and Maggie, as the closure this version provides is consistent with the propagated ideal that all conflicts must first be rectified to conclude.
There is a prominent linkage between the concept of mendacity and that of faith which is addressed more-so by the film than the original work. Aligned with the wild hope, ambition and luxury of belief epitomized by the great American Dream, the film implies through its series of events that Maggie and Big Mama's blind optimism should yield desirable results. As such, Big Daddy's unexpected proclamation of his "love" for Big Mama, coupled with his expressions of tenderness in their final scene together, affirm the notion that "staying on (the hot tin roof) as long as (one) can" is both productive and admirable. The film therefore establishes hope as a preferable and definitively disparate quality to mendacity, despite the same form of self-delusion being exhibited in both.
On the contrary, Williams' pragmatic view of life as harsh and unforgiving dismisses Maggie's hope to be as fruitless as blatant dishonesty. While it cannot be denied that the staggering strength of her conviction possesses an irresistible allure, her illusionary hope nonetheless fails to remedy the gaping flaws in her marriage with a "man who can't stand (her)". Thus, the man who at last relinquishes power to "Maggie the cat" has only been overcome by her physically, but emotionally remains just as detached as before. The fragile nature of hope is further evidenced by Maggie as she "holds the big pillow forlornly" before "throw(ing) it on the bed", hence "throwing" aside her last vestiges of hope that Brick will develop a genuine affection for her. This may be interpreted as an act of capitulation- one that hums with the poignant, pitiful and profound acceptance of truth. In the film however, the implications of this image have been abandoned and replaced with rich, sensual music. The pillow is transformed also from a symbol of hope to a superficial object of sexual insinuations; one that happens to lie in the hands of the masculine, rather than the feminine.
Moreover, the conceptualisation of conformity has undergone substantial change in its cinematic adaptation. Indeed, as the sentiments of the Cold War pervaded Southern America, the ideals behind McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare made conformity integral to survival in a conservative, regimented society. In particular, sexual conformity is perhaps the most significant adjustment made in the film. While Tennessee actively condemns the "conventional mores" of his era and its vehement oppression of the homosexual community, Brook has controversially delineated Brick as a heterosexual man whose relationship with Skipper is as "pure" "clean" and "true" as he insists in the play. While the obscuring of this key feature is in part due to the Hay's Code, it cannot go unnoticed that filmic productions were also expected to conform and satisfy the appetites of the audience. A paradox hence arises, as a critical commentary on conformity as an institutional flaw of American society and by-product of Cold War paranoia has been contorted to please the very people William deplores. The deliberate omission of Straw and Ochello, hyper-sexualisation of Maggie and construction of her suspected affair with Skipper as the primary cause for Brick's "disgust" only perpetuates the conformist ideological that dictated what was socially acceptable in William's time.
Crucially, whilst both play and film aspire to elucidate the dichotomy between truth and illusion, the shift in medium has drastically altered the entire framework of William’s original production. As such, the play stands as a scathing analysis of a society in which dishonesty grows malignant, while the film has unintentionally been rendered a mere product of this malignancy. Through its conformist lens, William’s concerns of Brick’s closeted homosexuality have essentially been displaced by the archetypal American myth; one where “love” appears the ultimate solution to familial dysfunction, patent subterfuge and prolonged self-deceit.
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