Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the play’s treatment of alcohol addiction and anti-gay bias. This section also references brief mentions of suicidal thinking and child sexual exploitation.

As the play opens, Brick Pollitt is in the shower. His wife Maggie enters their bedroom, shouting at him over the roar of water. She begins undressing and complaining that one of Brick’s brother’s “monsters” (children) stained her dress. Brick emerges, one foot plastered in a cast, claiming he couldn’t hear Maggie. His brother, Gooper, and his wife, Mae, have five children with another on the way, and Maggie continues to complain about the children’s behavior at dinner. She claims Gooper and Mae show off their children “like animals […] at a country fair” (197) and make snide remarks about her lack of children. She claims Gooper seeks to deny Brick his inheritance of the family estate now that their father, Big Daddy, has been diagnosed with cancer.

Maggie berates Brick for helping Gooper and Mae’s case against them by “devoting [himself] to the occupation of drinkin’” (248) and breaking his ankle jumping hurdles on a high school track. However, she believes Big Daddy likes Brick more than Gooper and her more than Mae—as she sometimes catches him admiring her body.