Wednesday, February 21, 2007

In the Name of the Father and Then Some

Clive in E. M. Forster's Maurice, emerges theoretically as Brick in Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. When Maggie tries to tell Brick the truth as he insists his is the special platonic love, the highest spiritual love that he had with Skipper, yet he chose to forgo occupations that did not include Skippers presence.

So, Maggie makes hay (well it wasn't love) with Skipper, who is drunk with longing and liquor for Brick. But, who is Brick really angry with Skipper or Maggie/ "Well i married you, didn't I"
Just doesn't quite answer the query being illegal to marry Skipper.

Moreover, Maggie calls Brick a "...superior creature...a god-like being...." Reminiscent of Phaedra and Eros's errant arrows. Furthermore, by making love to to Skipper Maggie attempts to complete the circle, to share or shatter and chaos ensues with Skipper's solution to kill himself.

Meanwhile, Brick continues denying his true feelings for Skipper in a Gothic atmosphere of greed and the pending death of Brick's father appropriately named Big Daddy with Mommy inappropriately titled Big Mama and treated as insignificantly as a chair Big Daddy might have reclined on years ago and left broken and rotting, yet still uttering nothings amounting to creaks and rattling.
Finally, akin to "Queer Tutelage", "...the Name of the Father..." becomes "...The name of the Father ..."becomes the "...name of the of the family- that is, the name family."

Finally, who better to position himself in his father's place than Brick, the true son, to give the family heirs, whether by choice or influence, he will become "the father'.

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