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Heather Durkin
Professor Judy Good
HUM 200
April 1, 2016
Impacts of Sexuality on Personality
Sexuality plays an important role in shaping ones identity.
Different forms of sexuality such as homosexuality, asexuality, and
heterosexuality can motivate a characters choice of action. This
concept is prevalent in Tennessee Williams play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
and Dorothy Allisons novel, Bastard Out of Carolina. Each characters
sexuality in each book influences their identity. The two works show a
character study examining the impact of sexuality.
Both Dorothy Allison and Tennessee Williams were homosexuals
and this motivated them to portray homosexuality in innocent,
favorable characters within their works. The reader discovers that
Allisons character, Raylene Boatwright is lesbian through her
heartbreak when a woman she loved left her. The novel portrays
Raylene as more of a mother figure to Bone than Bones own mother
and she provides Bone with a more stable lifestyle. Moira P. Baker
points this out when she notes that Bone, [] refuses to return to a
violent patriarchal household, even if it means leaving her mother and
choosing a home with her lesbian aunt as a surrogate mother (125).
Although not directly stated in the play, Williams also does a

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convincing job of portraying a homosexual relationship between his
two characters Brick and Skipper. According to Michael P. Bibler, The
loving relationship between these two men reveals the various
emotional defects of every straight relationship in the play(101). It is
clear that Williams wanted the admirable protagonist to be gay.
Many characters in the play suspect the homoerotic relationship
between the two and question Brick after Skipper dies, but Brick
refuses to admit it so he can maintain his strong manly character.
When Maggie questions Brick about this, Brick replies, One man has
one great good true thing in his life. One great good thing which is
true!I had a friendship with Skipper.You are naming it
dirty!(Williams 59). Brick gets irritated with the constant badgering
and says, Why cant exceptional friendship, real, real, deep, deep,
friendship! between two men be respected as something clean and
decent without being thought of as fairies(Williams 122). Williams
shows that the gay relationship is there by repeating and italicizing
words to emphasize the intensity on stage. Brick continues to grieve
over the loss of his partner and does not show any physical affection to
his wife, Maggie. According to Bibler, [] he rejects his marriage to
Maggie because her past sexual encounter with Skipper brings a literal
connection to homosexuality into the bedroom (Bibler 101). This
rejection leads Maggie to become upset and jealous.

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Bricks relationship with Skipper motivates Maggies previous
adulterous actions. After Maggie sleeps with Skipper, she tells Brick,
Skipper and I made love, if you call it, because it made us both feel a
bit closer to you... And so we made love to each other to dream it was
you, both of us! Yes, yes, yes! Truth, truth!(Williams 56-57). Maggies
decision to sleep with Skipper does not rest well with Brick and their
relationship is not the same since. Maggie repeatedly brings up Skipper
to Brick because she was always envious of what they had. Jealousy
also motivates Allisons character, Daddy Glen. He becomes envious
of Anneys relationship with her daughter, Bone, and uses his male
dominance to react by sexually abusing Bone:
In contrast to this feminocentric, non-nuclear family, the
male-dominated nuclear family that Bone enters when her
mother marries Glen is a site of verbal and physical
violence, obsessive male jealousy of Anneys attention
toward her children, and escalating sexual molestation
culminating in Bones rape by her stepfather. (Baker 128129).
Anney tells her Aunt Ruth that she thinks Glen hates her and Ruth
confirms this when she responds, Youre right, girl. Hes jealous, I
think Theres a way hes just a little boy himself, wanting more of
your mama than you, wanting to be her baby more than her husband.
And that ant so rare, Ill tell you (Allison 123). Glen cannot stand the

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idea of Anney giving more attention to Bone and Bone notices this
when she thinks, It was those hands, the restless way the fingers
would flex and curl while he watched me lean close to Mama (Allison
62). Glens sexual jealousy escalates as the novel progresses and his
abuse toward Bone gets worse.
Bone and Brick both face traumas in the two works that lead
them to have perverted depictions of sex. Brick becomes disinterested
in sex, while Bone becomes obsessive with the idea of sex. Brick tells
Maggie that he will stay married to her as long as nothing physical
happens between them. Brick reveals his asexual feelings when Brick
tells Maggie to Take a lover! and when Maggie locks their bedroom
door to give them privacy, Brick only responds, You know better,
Maggie (Williams 40). In contrast, Bone becomes obsessed with the
idea of sex because of the rape and abuse she receives from her
stepfather at such a young age. She begins masturbating and having
violent sexual fantasies. The abuse and fantasies make it hard for Bone
to come to a true definition of what sex actually is.
Mama and Daddy Glen always hugging and rubbing on
each other, but it was powerful too. Sex. Was that what
Daddy Glen had been doing to me in the parking lot? Was
it what I had starting doing to myself whenever I was alone
in the afternoons? I would imagine being tied up. The
daydream was about struggling to get free while the fire

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burned hotter and close But I came. I orgasmed in my
hand to the dream of fire. (Allison 63)
Allison shows how confusing it is to a young girl to define sex and a
virgin when Bone thinks about what Glen has done to her, I knew
what she meant, the thing that men do to women. I knew what the act
was supposed to be, Id read about it, heard the joke. Whats a South
Carolina virgin? Ats a ten-year-old can run fast. He hadnt done that.
Had he? (Allison 124). Both Brick and Bones distorted views of sex
help shape their characters within the two works.
Two main characters in each text that are motivated by sex are
Anney and Big Daddy. Anney allows Glen to control her. The sexual
attention Glen gives her and the desire of having a father for her
children excites the young woman. It is clear that Glen becomes a
necessity to Anney when Alma says, She needs him, needs him like a
starving woman needs meat between her teeth (Allison 41). Anney is
well aware of Glens abusive behaviors towards Bone, but always
somehow blames Bone and asks her what she does to make Glen so
mad. She always forgives Glen and this leads bone to feel ashamed.
Anneys attachment to Glen is strongest at the end of the novel when
she chooses Glen over her own daughter. Baker points out this problem
by noting, Allison clarifies the impossible and conflicting demands laid
upon a mother in heteropatriarchy by placing her character in the
situation of having to choose between her battered child and the

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emotionally damaged husband whom she loved (137). Anney knew
that Bone would be hurt inside if she left her but her obsession with
Glen overruled. Bone was hurt but she knew her life would never be
the same: My heart broke all over again. I wanted my life back, my
mama, but I knew I would never have that (307). Allison also shows
the idea of obsession with sex in her play. Big Daddys perverted
comments show his desire for sex. This is evident while Big Daddy is
talking to Brick and says, I ast you, Brick, if you was cuttin yourself a
poon-tang last night on that cinder track? I thought maybe you were
chasin poon-tang on that truck an tripped over something
(Williams 76). Bid Daddy also shows his feelings towards sex when he
asks Brick how Maggie was in bed. Big Daddy becomes disinterested in
Big Momma and regrets having wasted so much time with her. He
continues talking about his desire for women when he says, Im going
to pick me a good one to spend em on! Im going to pick me a choice
one, I dont care how much she costs, Ill smother her inminks! Ill
strip her naked and choke her with diamonds and smother her with
minks and hump her from hell to breakfast. Ha aha ha ha ha! (Williams
99). The desire for sex is a characteristic that shapes the two
characters, Anney and Big Daddy.
An individuals sexuality can have a significant impact on their
behavior and actions. A perverted view of sexuality, whether young or
mature, can escalate into behaviors which taint healthy relationships.

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Allison and Williams both exemplify this idea through characters within
their works.

WorkCited

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Allison,Dorothy.BastardoutofCarolina.NY:Dutton,1992
Baker,M.P..(2000).ThePoliticsofThey:DorothyAllisonsBastardOutof
CarolinaasCritiqueofClass,Gender,andSexualIdeologies.InJ.J.Folks&N.
S.Folks(Eds.),TheWorldIsOurHome:SocietyandCultureinContemporary
SouthernWriting(pp.117141).UP.ofKY.Retrievedfrom
http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt130j8ps.10
HomonessandFluidityinTennesseeWilliamssCatonaHotTinRoof.
(2009).HomonessandFluidityinTennesseeWilliamssCatonaHotTinRoof.
InCotton'sQueerRelations:SameSexIntimacyandtheLiteratureofthe
SouthernPlantation,19361968(pp.96120).UniversityofVirginiaPress.
Retrievedfromhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wrqd5.7
Williams,Tennessee.CatonaHotTinRoof.NewYork:NewDirections,1975