cat thoughts...

        So, can you believe that this was my first time ever reading or learning the story plot of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”? (rhetorical)...  As soon as I finished the text, I thought I had it all figured out.  It was a story of favoritism, jealousy, and selfishness.  While it does include all of that, after reading “The Cat Has Nine Lives” article I totally understand it as a story about the cycles of life and how they were all animals just trying to make it.  However,  I want to bring up my thoughts/opinion on a question that the group that presented closed with: if Maggie was a woman in today’s time, would she still be wasting her time trying to make her (somewhat obvious failed) marriage with Brick work, and still be trying to have a baby with him having the resources that women have to date (i.e. being able to be a single woman with a job and support herself).

        It seemed as though most people in class said she would not be waiting around for Brick, considering she was still young, had no children to hold her back, and of course was a beautiful woman.  But, one gentleman shared that he did think Maggie would be trying to stick around for the money/estate.  I couldn’t agree more.  Even though today’s society offers women much more independence then the past ever did, I think that the core concepts of Maggie sticking around and staying with Brick are still alive today.  Money and greed can make people endurer a lot just so they can get their hands on some cash, and feeling outdone can make one want to outdo.  Maggie feels pressure to have a baby, yes, but she also knows that if she can become pregnant then husband Brick (and family) is forever tied to her.  Even to this day when a woman has a baby, the father of that child is almost always tied to her and the child in some sort of way...mostly finically.

        I think that there are plenty (no, not all) of women who would try and get something out of their marriage before they left it empty handed.  Yes, these days I do think that a lot of marriages take place because of money in the first place, but in comparing myself to Maggie, if I were a young attractive woman who fell in love with a young handsome man who came from money and married him, then our relationship went south and I thought that it might end, I can say that I honestly would deeply consider having a baby by him to ensure either  some of his family’s money or better yet, in hopes that he would clean up his act and step up as a man.  There is no way I would let myself walk away empty handed regardless of the fact that I could go get a job and make it on my own and possibly even remarry.   I say this not to sound selfish or like I’m a thief, but because if i had the chance to get money out of what I felt was partly mine, I would.