Heat and Ice in Tennessee Williams's "Three Players in a Summer Game"

Abstract

Inspiring Tennessee Williams to write Cat on a hot tin roof, “Three players in a summer game” figures as a potentially interesting text to semiotic studies by pointing out ‘heat’ and ‘ice’ as extensive metaphors. Owing to this, this essay aims at observing the connotative universe of the short-story and the relation between such universe and the three characters foreshadowed in the title. The article approaches gender questions in two different manners. On the one hand, it problematizes stereotypical male and female behaviors; on the other hand, the asymmetry between man and woman’s rights.

Keywords

• gender
• symbolism
• social conventions