Why did skipper kill himself

Daddy knows that Brick is passing the buck onto time and disgust and mendacity, and that he started drinking when Skipper died. Brick starts, his calm broken, and asks what Daddy is suggesting. Daddy attempts to calm his son; Gooper and Mae told him there was something abnormal in their friendship. Daddy explains that he himself "knocked around" in his time in hobo jungles and flophouses.

Brick indignantly asks if he thinks he is a queer. He asks if that was why Daddy put him in the former plantation owners', Straw and Ochello, room. Reverend Tooker appears looking for the bathroom and Daddy orders him out. He tells Brick he understands and that Ochello stopped eating when Straw died just like Brick took to drinking after Skipper. You think me an'Skipper did, did, did! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook.

Maggie: But Skipper played. Oh, he played all right. Played his first professional game without Brick Without you, Skipper was nothin'. Outside - big, tough, confident. Inside - pure jelly. You saw the game on TV. You saw what happened. Brick: But I didn't see what happened in Skipper's hotel room. That little episode was not on TV. Go ahead, tell Big Daddy why you were in Skipper's room. Maggie reveals the circumstances of Skipper's last night before his suicidal death.

She encouraged Skipper to leave the adolescent world in which he and Brick co-existed:. He was sick, sick with drink and he wouldn't come out. He busted some furniture and the hotel manager said to stop him before he called the police. So I went to his room.

I scratched on his door and begged him to let me in. He was half-crazy, violent and screamin' one minute and weak and cryin' the next. And all the time, scared stiff about you. So I said to him, maybe it was time we forgot about football.

Maybe he ought to get a job and let me and Brick alone. I thought he'd hit me. He walked toward me with a funny sort of smile on his face. Then he did the strangest thing. He kissed me. That was the first time he'd ever touched me. And then I knew what I was gonna do. I'd get rid of Skipper.

I'd show Brick that their deep true friendship was a big lie. I'd prove it by showin' that Skipper would make love to the wife of his best friend. He didn't need any coaxin'.

He was more than willin'. He even seemed to have the same idea. To end the strong affection between Skipper and Brick [and to test her suspicions about an unnatural homosexual relationship between them], Maggie thought she could lead Skipper to sleep with her to arouse her husband's anger at his best friend [and to prove that her suspicions were untrue - that Skipper was indeed heterosexual] - but then she had second thoughts:. Maggie: I was tryin' to win back my husband.

It didn't matter how. I would have done anythin' - even that. At the last second, I-I got panicky. Supposin' I lost you instead. Supposin' you'd hate me instead of Skipper. So I ran. Nothin' happened. I've tried to tell him [Brick] a hundred times but he won't let me.

Brick: Hallelujah - Saint Maggie! He raises his drinking glass Maggie: I wanted to get rid of Skipper but not if it meant losin' you. Maybe I got rid of Skipper. Skipper went out anyway. I didn't get rid of him at all.

Isn't it an awful joke, honey? I lost you anyway. Big Daddy presses Brick for the rest of the story, learning from Maggie that Brick was the last person to speak to Skipper on the phone. Skipper's suicidal jump came shortly after Brick hung up on him, but Brick won't tell Maggie why he rejected his friend:.

When they put his [Skipper's] poor broken body in the ambulance, I rode with him to the hospital. And all the time, he kept on sayin', 'Why did Brick hang up on me? After Maggie leaves the scene, Big Daddy hammers away further in the interrogation of his son, accusing him of being an irresponsible, immature thirty-year old man.

Brick admits that he feels responsibility for Skipper's despairing death because he rejected his friend and ruthlessly hung up on his anguished call.

That night, a drunk and scared Skipper phoned, revealing his abject emotional dependence on Brick and shattering Brick's idolizing image of his adolescent-hero:. Big Daddy: What are you runnin' away from? Why'd you hang up on Skipper when he called you? Answer me. What did he say? Was it about him and Maggie?

Brick: He said they'd made love. Big Daddy: And you believed him. Brick: Yes. Big Daddy: Then why haven't you thrown her out? Somethin's missin' here. Now, now why did Skipper kill himself? Brick: 'Cause somebody let him down. I let him down.

When he called that night, I couldn't make much sense out of There was one thing that was sure. Skipper was scared. It would happen that day on the football field, that I'd blame him, scared that I'd walk out on him.

Skipper afraid - I couldn't believe that. I mean inside, he was real deep-down scared. And he broke like a rotten stick. He started cryin': 'I need you. Help me! How does one drownin' man help another drownin' man?

Big Daddy: So you hung up on him. Brick: And then that phone started to ring again. And it rang and it rang and it wouldn't stop ringin'. And I lay in that hospital bed. I was unable to move or run from that sound and still, it kept ringin' louder and louder! And the sound of that was like Skipper screamin' for help. And I couldn't pick it up. Big Daddy: So that's when he killed himself. Brick: Yep. Tears well up in his eyes So that disgust with mendacity is really disgust with myself.

And when I hear that click in my head, I don't hear the sound of that phone ringin' anymore. And I can stop thinkin'. I'm ashamed, Big Daddy. That's why I'm a drunk. When I'm drunk, I can stand myself. It is not, as Brick contends, the general level of "mendacity" in the world around him that causes his suffering. Instead, he drowns himself in self-pity, drinks heavily, and suffers disillusionment because of his own self-disgust for passing the buck.

He indulges himself in self-deception to avoid facing the truth - he projects onto Maggie his own guilt about Skipper's death. He rejects his own manhood and alienates himself from her in their marriage. Brick is unwilling to listen to his father and wants to run away. As Big Daddy pursues Brick who hobbles on his crutch in the rain to the garage to get into his convertible and drive off , he delivers a lesson on truth - his boy must relinquish his adolescent world and face life's problems squarely.

Brick hung up on his friend and life because he had lived in a illusionary world with Skipper where they could hold off the painful process of growing up:. But it's always there in the morning, ain't it - the truth? And it's here right now. You're just feelin' sorry for yourself. That's all it is - self-pity. You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself. You and Skipper and millions like ya are livin' in a kid's world, playin' games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities.

Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a bunch of high spots. You're a thirty-year old kid.

Soon you'll be a fifty-year old kid, pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity, you won't The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love anymore.

Truth is dreams that don't come true and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die He draped his coat over Brick The truth is, you never grow'd up. Grown-ups don't hang up on their friends Now that's the truth and that's what you can't face!

After Big Daddy continues to harangue Brick and accuses him of not facing the truth with his friend, Brick feels cornered and goaded beyond reason and wishes to leave. In spiteful revenge, he turns the tables on his father by telling him the "truth" about his medical condition:. Brick: Can you face the truth? Big Daddy: Try me! You're runnin' again. Brick: Yeah, I am runnin'.

Runnin' from lies, lies like birthday congratulations and many happy returns of the day when there won't be any Big Daddy stands shocked and devastated by the revelation of his own imminent death - he refuses to believe he will soon die: "I'll outlive you.

I'll bury you. I'll buy your coffin. It's death, ain't it? Answer me! The truth! You said it yourself, Big Daddy, mendacity is a system we live in. The broken old man, with a drenched shirt, walks slowly into the house past Maggie.

Brick attempts to drive off, but his car's rear wheels spin in the mud and he becomes mired there. Maggie rushes to his side as Brick notes his broken crutch in the car's door: "Look at us, Maggie.

The great Pollitt Enterprises, stuck in the I hurt him really bad. Meanwhile, Big Daddy retreats to the mansion's cellar - a musty, cobweb-filled storage area. After offering morphine and a syringe to him as a painkiller, the doctor tells him: "It's no use pretendin' anymore. When that pain hits, it'll hit hard. Make it easy on yourself. He's as sound as a dollar, and now he knows he is. That's why he ate such a supper. He had a load off his mind, knowin' he wasn't doomed to what he'd thought he was doomed to.

To comfort his mother when she is told of her husband's condition, Maggie pleads with Brick to come downstairs:. Brick: What? Big Daddy enters ferociously and greets Brick. The servants enter with Daddy's cake, and a grotesque sing-a-long commences. Daddy furiously orders everyone to stop.

Mama sobs that he has never believed that she loved him. Daddy bellows for Brick. Maggie delivers him, giving him a kiss on the mouth that he immediately wipes off. Daddy asks Brick why he wiped off her kiss. Mae and Gooper have been saying that he won't sleep with Maggie. As Brick freshens his drink, Daddy asks him about his drinking problem.

Brick cannot explain. Drawing Brick close, Daddy recalls his world tour with Mama. He anxiously closes the doors and asks if Brick has ever been terrified of anything. He aims to cut loose and get himself a woman. Brick explains that he has not gotten the click in his head that makes him peaceful, and he attempts to flee his father. Daddy makes Brick a deal: he will give him a drink if he tells him why he drinks.

Daddy knows that Brick is lying since he started drinking when Skipper died. Daddy asks if there was something "abnormal" in their friendship. Daddy replies that having just come from "death's country," he is not easily shocked. Brick insists that his friendship with Skipper was clean and true until Maggie got the idea Daddy is talking about. Upon his back injury, she put the idea into Skipper's head, and he became a lush and died.

Daddy knows he is not telling the full story and Brick says that Skipper made a drunken confession to him over the phone, and Brick hung up on him. Brick's disgust with mendacity is disgust with himself.