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A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof By Tennessee Williams
Biography of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983):
Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams was a master playwright of the twentieth century, and his plays A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof are considered among the finest of the American stage. At their best, his twenty-five full-length plays combined lyrical intensity, haunting loneliness, and hypnotic violence. He is widely considered the greatest Southern playwright and one of the greatest playwrights in the history of American drama.
Born Thomas Lanier Williams on March 26, 1911, he suffered through a difficult and troubling childhood. His father, Cornelius Williams, was a shoe salesman and an emotionally absent parent. He became increasingly abusive as the Williams children grew older. His mother, Edwina, was the daughter of a Southern Episcopal minister and had lived the adolescence and young womanhood of a spoiled Southern belle. Williams was sickly as a child, and his mother was a loving but smothering woman. In 1918 the family moved from Mississippi to St. Louis, and the change from a small provincial town to a big city was very difficult for Williams' mother. The young Williams was also influenced by his older sister Rose's emotional and mental imbalance during their childhood.
In 1929, Williams enrolled in the University of Missouri. After two years his father withdrew him for flunking ROTC, and he took a job at his father's shoe company. He despised the job but worked at the warehouse by day and wrote late into the night. The strain was too much, and in 1935 Williams had a nervous breakdown. He recovered at his grandparents' home in Memphis, and during these years he continued to write. Amateur productions of his early plays were produced in Memphis and St. Louis.
Rose's mental health continued to deteriorate as well. During a fight between Cornelius and Edwina in 1936, Cornelius made a move towards Rose that he claimed was meant to calm her. Rose thought his overtures were sexual and suffered a terrible breakdown. Her parents had her lobotomized shortly afterward.
Williams went back to school and graduated from the University of Iowa in 1938. He then moved to New Orleans, where he began going by the name Tennessee, a nickname he'd been given in college thanks to his southern drawl. After struggling with his sexuality through his youth, he finally entered a new life as a gay man, with a new name, a new home, and a promising new career.
In the early 40s, Williams moved between several cities for different jobs and playwriting classes, also working at MGM as a scriptwriter. In 1944 came the great turning point in his career: The Glass Menagerie. First produced in Chicago to great success, the play transferred to Broadway in 1945 and won the NY Critics Circle Award.
While success freed Williams financially, it also made it difficult for him to write. He went to Mexico to work on a play originally titled The Poker Night. This play eventually became one of his masterpieces, A Streetcar Named Desire. It won Williams a second NY Critics' Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1947, enabling him to travel and buy a home in Key West as an escape for both relaxation and writing. The year 1951 brought The Rose Tattoo and Williams' first Tony award, as well as the successful film adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Vivian Leigh.
Around this time, Williams met Frank Merlo. The two fell in love, and the young man became Williams' romantic partner until Merlo's untimely death in 1961. He was a steadying influence on Williams, who suffered from depression and lived in fear that he, like his sister Rose, would go insane.
The following years were some of Williams' most productive. His plays were a great success in the United States and abroad, and he was able to write works that were well-received by critics and popular with audiences, including The Rose Tattoo (1950), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Night of the Iguana (1961), and many others. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof won Williams his second Pulitzer Prize, and was his last truly great artistic and commercial success.
He gave American theatergoers unforgettable characters, an incredible vision of life in the South, and a series of powerful portraits of the human condition. He was deeply interested in something he called "poetic realism," namely the use of everyday objects which, seen repeatedly and in the right contexts, become imbued with symbolic meaning. His plays also seemed preoccupied with the extremes of human brutality and sexual behavior: madness, rape, incest, nymphomania, as well as violent and fantastic deaths. Williams himself often commented on the violence in his own work, which to him seemed part of the human condition; he was conscious, also, of the violence in his plays being expressed in a particularly American setting. As with the work of Edward Albee, critics who attacked the "excesses" of Williams' work often were making thinly veiled attacked on his sexuality. Homosexuality was not discussed openly at that time, but in Williams' plays the themes of desire and isolation reveal, among other things, the influence of having grown up gay in a homophobic world.
The sixties brought hard times for Tennessee Williams. He had become dependent on drugs, and the problem only grew worse after the death of Frank Merlo in 1961. Merlo's death from lung cancer sent Williams into a deep depression that lasted ten years. Williams was also insecure about his work, which was sometimes of inconsistent quality, and he was violently jealous of younger playwrights.
His sister Rose was in his thoughts during his later work. The later plays are not considered Williams' best, including the failed Clothes for a Summer Hotel. Overwork and drug use continued to take their toll on him, and on February 23, 1983, Williams choked to death on the lid of one of his pill bottles.
He left behind an impressive body of work, including plays that continue to be performed the world over. In his worst work, his writing is melodramatic and overwrought, but at his best Tennessee Williams is a haunting, lyrical, and powerful voice, and one of the most important forces in twentieth-century American drama.
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Short Summary:
On a single summer evening, the Pollitt family gathers to celebrate the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy.
On the previous evening, Big Daddy's son Brick broke his leg while trying to jump hurdles at the school track. His wife Margaret chides him for his foolish behavior and his constant state of drunkenness, but mostly she is trying to impress – and seduce – her husband. Brick has refused to sleep with Maggie ever since his friend Skipper died. Maggie desperately wants Brick to sleep with her – both to satisfy her own physical needs, and because she wants to get pregnant.
Maggie feels a particularly urgent need to have a baby because she needs to produce an heir. Big Daddy is dying, although he has not been told this yet, and he does not have a will. Maggie is terribly afraid of being poor, so she wants to make sure that she and Brick have a secure place in Big Daddy's will. In order to do so, however, she must contend with Brick's brother Gooper and his wife's significant brood of children.
Brick, for his part, is too numb with liquor to care much about anything. He makes clear that he is disgusted by Maggie and completely uninterested in anything she has to say. The only thing that rises him to emotion is the topic of Skipper. He and Brick were best friends, but Maggie thinks their relationship was a bit more than that. She called Skipper out on his attraction to her husband, and to prove her wrong Skipper slept with her. Both Maggie and Skipper, however, were making love to one another in lieu of Brick. Shortly thereafter, Skipper began to self-destruct, and soon died. This is the point at which Brick turned to liquor as well.
They are interrupted by the arrival of more family members. Everyone but Big Daddy and Big Mama knows that Big Daddy is dying, but he and his wife were told by the doctor that he just had a spastic colon. Tonight, the sons will tell their mother the truth.
After a round of happy birthday, the older couple is left alone. Big Daddy is cruel to Big Mama, who insists that she loves him even though he doesn't believe her. He is frustrated that she has taken charge of the estate since he became sick, but now that he knows that his days are no longer numbered (he thinks) he is going to take it all back and return Big Mama to her place.
Big Mama leaves and Big Daddy summons Brick. Big Daddy tries to open up to Brick, but his son isn't interested in talking. The older man persists in making an effort at communication, telling stories about his travels in Europe and how horrible poverty is. He worked hard to get where he is now, financially, and now that he is free of cancer, he is going to enjoy his wealth properly. Big Daddy speaks of taking on a mistress – Big Mama never interested him.
Brick, however, does interest him. He tries to coerce his son into admitting why he drinks, eventually stealing his crutch and knocking him to the ground. With some effort, Big Daddy zeros in on the truth – that it all comes back to Skipper. The night that Skipper and Maggie slept together, Skipper called Brick and tried to make an admission. Brick hung up on him, because he was entirely incapable of even allowing the possibility of homosexuality into his outlook. It is this disgust with himself and with his world that drove Brick to the bottle.
In his fury about being confronted with the truth of his relationship with Skipper, Brick tells Big Daddy that he has cancer.
Big Daddy leaves, upset, and the rest of the family enters. With difficulty, Big Mama is told that Big Daddy has cancer, although she refuses to believe it at first. She tells Maggie that Brick has to get his act together, so that he can take care of the estate when Big Daddy is gone.
Mae and Gooper pounce on this, and they produce legal papers that would establish a will favorable to their interests. They try to convince Big Mama that this arrangement is for the best, due to Brick's alcoholism and Maggie's childlessness. Maggie takes this as her cue and announces grandly that she is with child. Her brother- and sister-in-law don't believe her for a second, but Big Mama rejoices in the good news, and leaves to tell Big Daddy.
Maggie and Brick are left alone. He says she was very bold to make that lie, but Maggie intends to turn the lie into truth. She takes away Brick's liquor, and says that she will not get him any more drinks until he consents to sleep with her. Big Mama runs in, searching for the morphine that the doctor left for Big Daddy – the pain has set in. She leaves, and as the play ends, Maggie tells Brick that she loves him as Brick wonders "wouldn't it be funny if that were true?"
Character List
Brick
a taciturn and stony-faced drunk, Brick is too numb to feel much of anything anymore. His good looks and cool aloofness have won him admirers his whole life, from his own parents to his wife Maggie, despite his inability to reciprocate their affections. Since the death of his friend Skipper, Brick has retreated into a drunken shell, and the only emotions that he can express are disgust and boredom. A rise can still be coaxed out of Brick, however, when he is goaded about Skipper.
Maggie
Maggie is a vivacious and attractive woman whose curse is a love for a husband who does not love her. Her one driving goal is to get Brick to sleep with her – both to satisfy her own needs, and to allow her to conceive a baby, which would cement her claim to the Pollitt family's fortune. She is deathly afraid of abandonment, both by Brick and by the comfortable lifestyle to which she has grown accustomed. Despite her self-focused interests, she is also kind and warm-hearted.
Big Daddy
"Like father, like son," is the rule of the Pollitt family. Big Daddy, like Brick, is the sort of man who inspires admiration and adoration without doing much of anything to deserve it. He worked hard for economic success, and now he wants to enjoy it. He is uninterested in his wife and treats her cruelly, belittling her love and that of his other son, Gooper. He sees himself in Brick, however, and therefore Brick is the only person for whom he feels love.


Big Mama
She is an older version of Maggie – more hysterical, sloppier, needier, having let herself go, but still like Maggie. She loves her husband unconditionally despite his cruelty and indifference. She loves both her sons but she cannot help but prefer Brick, who is so much like his father. Her outbursts are a willful effort to avoid the truth about Big Daddy's health – she is a bit cleverer than she lets on, though not much.
Gooper
The elder of the Pollitt children by eight years has languished in Brick's shadow since the day his brother was born. While Brick got the attention with looks and football, Gooper married into society and became a successful lawyer. But the continued focus on his ne'er-do-well brother has turned Gooper bitter and mean as well as paranoid, and so it is out of both greed and spite that he actively campaigns for control of Big Daddy's estate.
Mae
Gooper's wife has picked up his bitterness and greed, without any of his justifying history. She taunts Maggie's barrenness by parading her own substantial brood around the house, and considers herself to be Maggie's superior both socially and within the context of the Pollitt family. She is indiscreet and petty, and brings out the worst in her husband.
Dr. Baugh
The family doctor shows sensitivity and discreetness, allowing the brothers to make their own decision about when and whether to tell Big Mama and Big Daddy about the patriarch's terminal condition (or, perhaps, shirking that responsibility himself).
Reverend Tooker
The clergyman indelicately makes frequent reference to parish donations and needed repairs while hovering around the Pollitt estate, campaigning for a mention in Big Daddy's will. He displays a particular lack of taste and tact.

Major Themes
Mendacity
Brick claims he drinks to escape mendacity and lies, but there is no escape from falsehood in the Pollitt family. Brick is lying to himself about the nature of his relationship with Skipper and his culpability in Skipper's self-destruction and death. Maggie lies to the family about the quality of her relationship with Brick, and everyone lies to Big Daddy about his health. These lies permeate the characters, so that we see clearly how a lie forces a person to split into two or three different individuals, depending who is present.
Unrequited love
The Pollitt men have a tendency to inspire love that cannot be required, including love that dare not speak its name. Maggie and Big Mama both love their husbands passionately and fruitlessly, as they are incapable of returning their affections. Skipper's love for Brick was unrequited as well, by necessity, as Brick was incapable of allowing himself to consider the possibility of a romantic attachment to his friend. Even between the Pollitt men, Big Daddy loves Brick but Brick is too soggy with liquor to reciprocate.
Rivalry
There are several intense rivalries in the Pollitt family, as individuals and couples clamor for the attention and love of the aloof Pollitt men. Gooper and Brick's sibling rivalry is largely one-sided, as Brick has no need to engage in the fight - Gooper lost the contest for his parents' affection the day Brick was born. Instead, the brothers view for a place in their father's will, if not his heart. This rivalry is then foisted on to their wives, who compete mercilessly to see who is the better and worthier daughter-in-law.
Poison
Both Big Daddy's cancer and Brick's alcoholism are characterized not merely as illnesses, but as poisons - something that spreads and contaminates from the inside. The cancer eats away at Big Daddy's body while the alcohol eats away at Brick's soul. The poison theme is addressed explicitly but less literally by Maggie, when she speaks of "venomous thoughts and words in hearts and minds" as the poison devouring the entire Pollitt family.
Proxies
An emotional proxy is an important tool for a playwright - a correlative object allows an emotion or struggle to be represented visually and theatrically. Williams takes this a step further in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by making his characters conscious of their proxies - in particular, Maggie and Skipper each sleeps with the other as a proxy for Brick. Brick, meanwhile, adopts liquor as a proxy for feeling and remembering, and Maggie transparently uses the excuse of a "ticking biological clock" to justify her need for financial security and sexual gratification.
Difficulty of communication
Big Daddy complains frequently about how difficult it is to speak plainly about hard subjects. He is not alone in this frustration - Maggie also struggles to get through to her noncommunicative husband, who is desperately trying to repress the memory of the friend whose communication attempt he rejected. The click in Brick's head when he has drunk enough symbolizes his peace of mind - that is, the moment that he is able to fully detach from the world, and at which communication with him becomes truly impossible.
Blackmail
A popular manipulation technique in the Pollitt family is blackmail and emotional ransom. In particular, everyone tries to control Brick through holding ransom the two things he most requires in order to function - his crutch, and his liquor. Big Daddy knocks Brick to the ground and holds his crutch ransom until he admits why he drinks. Maggie flushes Brick's liquor down the toilet, and won't provide more until he consents to sleep with her. And the control of the Pollitt estate is also effectively held random until Maggie can produce an heir.

Summary and Analysis of Act One
The play is set in the "bed-sitting-room" of a Mississippi Delta plantation, on a single evening in the summer.
As the play begins, Margaret is shouting at her husband Brick over the roar of his shower, complaining about her "no-neck monster" nephews. Brick's brother and sister-in-law, Gooper and Mae, have brought their five children to Big Daddy's home to display them like animals at a county fair, and it is driving Margaret mad. Brick is uninterested in his wife's concerns.
Margaret reveals that Big Daddy – Brick's father – is dying of cancer. The report only came that day. Margaret is certain that Gooper's family is only in town for Big Daddy's birthday because they want to get on his good side, now that he is dying. She also worries that they are trying to get Brick locked up for being an alcoholic – which he is. His leg is currently in a cast because he broke in the night before, in a drunken attempt to jump the hurtles at the high school athletic field. But Margaret thinks Brick still has the advantage because Big Daddy prefers him.
Brick lies on the bed and largely ignores Margaret as she continues talking about how Gooper thinks he married up but is still low rent. She observes that Brick is looking at her coldly, and she calls him on it, but he barely acknowledges her. She says that "living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone if the one that you love doesn't love you." Brick asks if she would like to live alone, and she adamantly insists that she wouldn't.
Margaret forces the conversation back to trivial manners, complimenting Brick on not losing his looks despite being a drinking man. But she wishes he would, because that would ease her attraction to him, which tortures her because he refuses to make love to her. She asks what is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof, and answers the question herself – just staying on it, as long as she can.
Brick takes another drink, and drops his crutch. Margaret tries to get him to lean on her, but he refuses. Brick announces that the click hasn't happened yet, the click in his head when he's had enough to drink that he becomes peaceful. He tries to get her to shut up, and she tries to get him to sign a birthday card for Big Daddy. Brick says that she is forgetting the conditions on which he agreed to continue living with her, and Margaret replies "I'm not living with you. We occupy the same cage."
Mae enters, and asks Margaret to hide her archery set around the children, mocking Margaret for not having any of her own. Margaret in turn mocks Mae for giving her children ridiculous names like Trixie and Buster. Mae asks why Margaret is so catty, and leaves.
Alone again, Margaret cries to Brick that she is catty because she is consumed with longing for a man who won't love her. She asks when her punishment will be over, and he responds by encouraging her to take a lover. But she cannot make herself be interested in any man but her husband. He says she is making a fool of herself, but she wants to make a fool of herself over him. She cries that she cannot accept their status, and seizes his shoulders. He pushes her away and threatens her with a chair, "like a lion-tamer facing a big circus cat," but they are interrupted by Big Mama.
Brick retreats into the bathroom while Margaret greets Big Mama. It is revealed that Big Mama doesn't know that Big Daddy has cancer, nor does Big Daddy know. Big Mama asks if Brick has been drinking, and blames Margaret and her childlessness for Brick's alcoholism.
Big Mama leaves, and Brick re-enters. Margaret says that she is certain their sex life will pick up again, and shows off how well her body looks. Men constantly make advances at her, and Brick says she should respond to them, but she refuses to give Brick grounds to divorce her.
Margaret forces Brick to realize that Big Daddy is dying, and reveals that Big Mama will be told later tonight. Big Daddy will be kept in the dark. Mae and Gooper are plotting to get the better share in his will, relying on Brick's childlessness, but Margaret is intent on getting the money herself. She has been poor her whole life but she needs money for when she gets old.
Margaret adds that it was a mistake to tell Brick about Skipper. Brick says to shut up about Skipper, but Margaret refuses. She and Skipper made love so that each of them could feel a little closer to Brick. She thinks it was noble, a beautiful way to express a pair of impossible loves. Brick threatens Margaret for her implications, saying that "a man has one great good true thing in his life – I had friendship with Skipper – You are naming it dirty!"
Margaret amends that it was only Skipper who even unconsciously desired anything not "perfectly pure," and when she confronted Skipper about it, he hit her and then slept with her to prove it wasn't true. From then on, Skipper was a drunk, until drinking killed him. Wild now, Maggie cries that Skipper is dead, but she is alive, and cannot be ignored. Brick tries to hit her with his crutch, and falls.
Dixie, Gooper and Mae's daughter bursts in. Brick tells her that he is on the floor because he tried to kill her Aunt Maggie and failed. Margaret yells at Dixie, who says that Maggie's just jealous because she can't have babies, and leaves again.
Margaret tells Brick that a gynecologist said there's no reason why she can't conceive, and that it is the right time of the month for her. Brick asks how she is going to conceive with a man who can't stand her, and Maggie says this is a problem she will have to work out. As the curtain falls, the rest of the family is on their way into the room.
Analysis
The first act of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof is one continuous scene, a single dialogue between Maggie and Brick, almost unbroken save for the occasional brief interruption. Many plays will compress all the action of an act into a single scene, but it is rarer for that scene to not feature the periodic re-alignment of the characters involved. Tennessee Williams makes the bold choice to show us this one conversation, trusting his stars to hold the attention of the audience all the way until the first intermission.
This scene-act is simultaneously a huge information-dump and a pivotal moment in Brick and Maggie's relationship. It is very transparently structured, building repeatedly from a stasis position of Maggie monologuing at a taciturn Brick to a heated, angry, and violent moment of truth. Each time the couple reaches this dangerous breaking point, they are interrupted by a family member. The interruption forces Brick and Maggie to retreat to their corners and catch their breath before starting the cycle over again when they are again alone. This cycle repeats at least three times, with each confrontation building on the venom of the previous, until we finally reach the breaking point that ends the act. Maggie and Brick will not be left alone again for a long time, so they are now permanently frozen at the height of their fury with one another.
Williams employs a barrage of playwrights' tricks to keep the audience's attention during this scene. Brick's silence and temper create two starkly contrasting moods – when he is silent, Maggie monologues, essentially uninterrupted. But when Brick is angered, Maggie switches gears altogether, and we get a glimpse of the couple's former chemistry while enjoying a completely different tone.
Williams also seeds the conversation with references to slow-cooking issues, heightening tension and curiosity. Skipper is mentioned long before we find out that he slept with Maggie, and we find that out long before we learn the connection that event and his death. Big Daddy's illness is revealed, and then taken back, and then re-revealed. Significantly, we learn a great deal about Big Daddy through hearsay, without ever meeting him, effectively heightening anticipation for his actual introduction in the second act.
Another difficulty in writing such a scene is in keeping it visually interesting. Two people talking in a single room for forty-five minutes can easily come off badly on stage, but Williams gives a director plenty to work with. Brick lounges on a giant bed while Maggie paces and dresses herself, physically highlighting the gulf between them. When Brick stands – when he enters her space – he is on a crutch, limping, ineffectual. It is not where he belongs, and he only passes through there to reach for more alcohol. The physicality in their arguments also works as contrast – the only time Brick reaches for Maggie is to strike her, and the visual effect of this should be jarring and cruel.
Heavy attention is given to the idea of Maggie the Cat. The play's title is explained outright in dialogue – she is a cat on a hot tin roof, just trying to stay up there as long as possible. She defends herself against accusations of being catty, and she preens and grooms throughout the act like a big Persian. Williams even carries through the imagery to the stage directions, having Brick face Maggie with a chair in arm, like a lion-tamer at the circus. This cat has got claws, and she will bare them.
Summary and Analysis of Act Two
We return to the scene we left at the start of intermission, as Big Daddy makes his big entrance into Maggie and Brick's room. He is joined by the rest of the family and the Reverend, whom Big Daddy mocks for fishing around for donations. A general conversation is broken by Big Daddy cruelly mocking Big Mama, who takes it in stride and hides her hurt for later.
The children sing "Happy Birthday" to Big Daddy, who gets exasperated with Big Mama for showing too much emotion – she's just so happy about Big Daddy's clean bill of health. Maggie and Mae snip at each other, and through the general clutter of inane talk and griping, Big Daddy attempts to find out why Brick was jumping hurdles at three a.m. Big Mama tries to stop his questioning, and he turns on her.
The rest of the family quickly leaves the room to give the older couple some space as Big Mama rails at Big Daddy for talking so meanly when she knows he doesn't mean it. He makes a speech about how his wife had been angling to take over the plantation ever since he started getting sick, the plantation that he worked all his life to grow; now that he is no longer dying, he intends to return to his rightful place in charge of the estate.
Big Mama explodes with hurt and truth – "in all these years you never believed I loved you??" But Big Daddy bears this no mind, and says to himself as she leaves, "wouldn't it be funny if that was true?"
He calls for Brick, who hobbles in with his drink. Big Daddy points out that Maggie and Mae have much the same look about them – two very different brothers married the same sort of woman. Big Daddy has a mind in him to talk, but Brick isn't much interested. Big Daddy then dismisses all eavesdroppers; he is upset with Mae and Gooper for listening in on Maggie and Brick's fights at night and reporting back to Big Mama.
He asks his son why he drinks, and Brick has no answer. He says that he just keeps drinking for his click. Big Daddy reminisces about a trip to Europe, a really dreadful affair on which Big Mama bought everything she saw and Big Daddy was roundly disgusted by starving peasants in Spain and under-age prostitution in Morocco. He observes that men buy and buy and buy things with the vain hope that they can buy immortality. Brick just wants him to shut up.
Big Daddy continues to talk about how he'd been so afraid of dying, but now that the weight has been taken off his shoulders, he is going to live life for real – beginning with jump-starting his sex life. He slept with Big Mama till he was 60, but he never much liked it, and will now be in the market for a mistress.
Brick is still restless, waiting for his click to make him peaceful. This makes Big Daddy keenly aware of the fact that his son is an alcoholic. He pulls the crutch out from under Brick, and won't let him leave until he listens to him. Big Daddy talks more about his relief at being healthy, and ignores Brick's remarks that they only ever talk round and round in circles.
Big Mama interrupts them, and in the ensuing shouting, Brick tries to sneak over to the liquor. Big Daddy trips him, and won't help him up or give him a drink until he says why he drinks. "Disgust" is his answer, but he can't say disgust with what. Big Daddy presses him, and he adds "mendacity," a frustration with a world of lies and liars. What does he know of mendacity, Big Daddy asks. Big Daddy has filled his life with pretense, when the only things in the world he cares about are his plantation and Brick.
Brick adds that he is avoiding life, and this infuriates Big Daddy, with his recent brush with death. When he thought he was dying, he was torn over whether to leave his property to Gooper and Mae, whom he hates, or Brick, whom he loves but who is an alcoholic. Now that he isn't dying, he doesn't have to worry about it for fifteen or twenty more years, and is making up no will.
He goes back to pressing Brick about his reason for drinking, finally zeroing in on the truth that Brick started drinking when Skipper died. Brick's detachment is finally broken by this truth, and violently defends accusations of "impropriety" in his relationship with Skipper as Big Daddy backs away meekly. The old man says he understands all sorts of relationships, having been a hobo in his day before coming to work for the old gay couple that previously owned the plantation, and in whose bedroom they stand. When one of the old men died, the other stopped eating till he died too – and when Skipper died, Brick began drinking.
Brick still angrily flails at the unspoken accusation of sodomy – the idea has clearly been well-ingrained in his psyche as repulsive. Their friendship was white and pure, and the fact that anyone names it dirty shows how little they understand the rare and beautiful thing that is a true friendship.
He breaks into an angry monologue about how he and Skipper tried to stay in football after Ole Miss, but Brick got injured and Skipper got drunk. Maggie put the idea into Skipper's head that he and Brick's relationship was less than proper, and Skipper slept with her to prove her wrong.
Big Daddy knows this story is missing something, and presses until Brick admits that he left out a phone call in which a drunken Skipper made a confession and Brick hung up – this was the last time they ever spoke to each other. Big Daddy declares that this is the mendacity that disgusts Brick, the truth that he wouldn't face with Skipper. Brick furiously asks just who can't face truth, and lets slip that Big Daddy is not after all in perfect health.
Brick tries to take back the beginning of the admission, but Big Daddy holds him to it. Brick doesn't say more, but Big Daddy can read between the lines, and knows now that he has cancer. Brick apologizes for speaking the truth, but that's what Big Daddy just did to him. Big Daddy rushes out, shouting angrily, as Brick remains motionless and the curtain falls.
Analysis
In the second act, Williams takes the revelations of the first and follows them to their inevitable conclusions. Coming out of the first intermission, we know that Big Daddy's is going to find out that he has cancer, and we know that Brick is going to be forced to acknowledge the truth about Skipper – but we're not yet sure how this will play out. The long second act serves to pull these two revelations together in an emotional, drawn-out confrontation.
After the long exposition of the first act, there is surprisingly little new information in the second. The only new information is that Brick hung up on Skipper when he tried to make a confession – and we probably guessed as much already from how he'd reacted to Maggie's previous accusations. Therefore, a performance of the play must rely entirely on the audience forming an emotional connection with the characters, such that we are hooked solely by the prospect of seeing how they react to these revelations, rather than the content of the revelations themselves.
This is no small task that Williams puts before his actors. The first act rested squarely on Maggie's shoulders – now she has been given an act in the wings while Big Daddy holds court for this entire long act. Both acts show us an extended portrait of a person who loves Brick more than he is capable of loving back, and their attempts to break through his glaze of alcohol and depression. Big Daddy is the more successful of the two, in that he succeeds in getting a rise out of Brick, but the man remains closed off and hurtful. We now have a better idea of what happened to him, but we still don't really know why.
For this to be effective, the audience must feel, as Maggie and Big Daddy do, that Brick is someone worth knowing. Williams slides into didacticism in his stage directions towards the end of this act; right before Brick's surface begins to crack, Williams warns that he wants his hero to remain inscrutable, "just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life." This challenges the actor to be simultaneously opaque and enthralling, while giving a sense of revelation and breakthrough to a scene that retreads familiar material.
A parallel is set up between the marriages of Brick and Maggie and of Big Daddy and Big Mama. Both women are in love with husbands who can't stand them, and who lost interest in sex long before they did. Depending on how the actor plays Big Daddy's lines about his time as a hobo, it can even be implied that he may also not be entirely heterosexual.
Big Daddy is a peculiar character, the sort that Williams specializes in – the plain-talking, down-to-earth redneck who nevertheless serves as the author's mouthpiece for the truths and themes of the play. Like Stanley Kowalski before him, Big Daddy is crude and angry and uneducated, but given to him are lines like "[a man] buys and buys and buys [in the] hope that one of his purchases will be life everlasting" and "why is it so damn hard for people to talk?" – the key lines that encapsulate Williams' intentions in this scene.
For all his gruffness, Big Daddy is the voice of the playwright – he is Williams' tool for announcing his themes and prodding his characters into stating painful truths. He is, in sum, a plot device – but a plot device who was well set up by the first act so that, in a strong performance, the audience will never realize that the character is merely serving a narrative role.
Summary and Analysis of Act Three
Again, no time has lapsed since the previous act. Mae, Big Mama, Gooper, and the Reverend all enter at once, looking for Big Daddy, followed by Maggie and Dr. Baugh. Big Mama says that Big Daddy has gone to bed, and remarks that he ate like a horse at dinner because he was so relieved. Gooper wants to have a family talk, and Maggie fetches Brick.
There is a fair amount of delay while Big Mama talks about how Skipper's death ruined Brick, and delays what she knows is going to be an unpleasant conversation. Finally, painfully, Big Mama is forced to understand that Big Daddy has cancer after all, and it is too far gone to be treated. Upset, she calls for Brick, her "only son" – a designation that doesn't escape Gooper's notice.
The doctor makes Big Mama take some morphine for Big Daddy for when the pain hits, and he and the reverend leave. Big Mama is still upset, and turns on Gooper and Mae, who in turn attack Brick for being a drunk. Big Mama tells Maggie that she has to make Brick pull it together so that he can take charge of the estate.
Gooper and Mae pounce on this, and pull out a briefcase of papers that his firm had drawn up for Big Daddy's property. Big Mama isn't interested in talking about who will run the place, because she insists that Big Daddy is not going anywhere. Mae and Gooper further attack Brick's competence and soundness of mind. Gooper has been overshadowed by Brick his whole life, and just wants a fair deal.
Brick finally enters, quite drunk. Now that the whole family is present, Gooper again lays out the papers. Big Mama tells them all off, on Big Daddy's behalf. She speaks tenderly to Brick, saying that it would make Big Daddy's dreams come true if he could give him a grandson "as much like his son as his son is like Big Daddy."
Mae snaps that Maggie can't oblige, but Maggie jumps to her feet and makes an announcement – she is pregnant. Mae and Gooper don't believe her for a second, but Big Mama is thrilled, and exits to tell Big Daddy the good news. After expressing their disgust, Mae and Gooper leave as well, and Maggie thanks Brick for not exposing her lie in front of the others.
Finally, after one more drink, Brick's "click" comes, and he is full of peace. Maggie says that she is ovulating, and that she will lock up Brick's liquor until he concedes to sleep with her.
Big Mama runs on, in search of the morphine – Big Daddy is now in pain. She leaves again, and Maggie continues her plan. She is going to make her lie true, no matter what. As the curtain begins to fall, she tells Brick once more that she loves him, and he says, echoing Big Daddy, "wouldn't it be funny if that was true?"
Analysis
The third act finally fills the stage for the first time in the play, bringing all the characters together under the off-stage specter of Big Daddy and his illness. Big Daddy does not return, except as an off-stage shout towards the end. This bold choice of removing a key player for the entire third act was so bold, in fact, that the director Elia Kazan forced Williams to write an alternate third act for the Broadway premiere, in which Big Daddy makes a final appearance.
Williams continues the idea of Maggie the Cat in the third act, as other characters begin to pick up on this characterization – Mae, for instance, remarks that Maggie has "climbed back up in her family tree." Meanwhile, the parallel between the relationships of the older and younger Pollitt couples is further elaborated. The last line of the play, Brick's "wouldn't it be funny if that were true?," quotes Big Daddy's same remark when Big Mama likewise expressed her love. It's a little ham-fisted, this line, in how it draws the already obvious connection between the couples in big bold letters, but it makes for an effective and sucker-punching closing line.
Poor Gooper receives his first characterization in this scene, and it isn't favorable. On paper, you can easily sympathize with the older brother who is constantly over-shadowed by the golden child. Gooper is a striver and a worker, and Brick has had everything handed to him on a silver platter, even the love of their parents. But this jealousy and resentment burst through in a display of petty greed, and every character looks down on him for it – even the doctor snubs Gooper as he exits the house.
The powerless characters of the play attempt to exert some agency in the third and final act. Gooper and Mae, who have previously remained mostly off screen, now have their moment to show off their plots and schemes. But their attempt to preempt the inheritance issue is thwarted by Big Mama, who also takes her first steps towards exhibiting some agency. In Big Mama's case, however, she chooses to use her agency to support Big Daddy's opinions and wishes. She doesn't hide her partiality to Brick and her impatience with Gooper, going so far as to stand up to him. She can't stand up to Brick or Big Daddy, but she is capable of holding her own against her weaker son.
And the play ends with Maggie making use of the only option she has. Previously, she has refused to leave Brick, or take on a lover, or do anything else that would change their static relationship – she has consented merely to stay up on the hot tin roof, waiting for it to cool down. By claiming pregnancy, she doesn't quite bring the ball into her court, but she does force a play on to Brick. She can't jump off the roof or make it cooler, but she can learn how to adapt to stand it.
Nothing really happens in the entire play, plot-wise, until that last moment when Maggie claims to be pregnant. This has not been an eventful evening in the Pollitt family – just a telling snapshot of their existence at a time when underlying tensions are coming to the fore, but with nothing actually changing. Williams avoids the crutch of theatrical plot devices – and plot altogether – to create what is closer to a theater of the mind.
The Second Third Act
When Tennessee Williams made the decision to take Big Daddy, the pivotal personality of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, off stage for the entire final act of the play, it was a bold choice. so bold a choice, in fact, that the original Broadway director Elia Kazan forced Williams to rewrite the last act to fix it.
Film is a director's medium – the final control over a movie is entirely in the hands of its director. The stage, however, is the providence of writers. While a powerful director or a weak-willed writer can make the balance swing in the other direction, it is largely acknowledged that a completed play is what it is, and there's only just so much a director can change without the consent of the author.
The Broadway premiere of Cat On a Hot Tin Roof was a special case. A blockbuster writer and a blockbuster director came together to produce their first play since their most significant achievement together, A Streetcar Named Desire. After their long association Williams greatly respected Kazan, and trusted his instincts. Williams writes in the explanatory note of the published edition of the play that a playwright can hand a director an absolute final play without allowing him access to drafts, or he can find a director who will cave to the writer's every request – and neither is desirable. In Kazan, Williams said, he had found a director he could trust to give perceptive and meaningful notes early on in the process.
And Kazan had major reservations about the first completed draft of the play, the one that is still printed in published editions. As summed up by Williams in his explanatory note, these reservations were:
1) Big Daddy was too vivid and important a character to disappear from the play except as an offstage cry after the second act curtain.
2) The character of Brick should undergo some apparent mutation as a result of the virtual vivisection that he undergoes in his interview with his father in Act Two.
3) The character of Margaret should be, if possible, more clearly sympathetic to the audience.
Williams did not agree with these edits – especially the second, bcause he felt that "a conversation, however revelatory, [never] effects so immediate a change in the heart or even conduct of a person in Brick's state of spiritual disrepair." But he wanted Kazan to direct his play, and he wanted it to be a success, and so he re-wrote the third act to address these concerns.
This revised third act covers much of the same material as in the published version, but compresses much of the dialog to make room for Big Daddy, who storms around the stage, makes some coarse jokes, learns of Maggie's feigned pregnancy, and then exits again to survey his kingdom from the roof. The added appearance by Big Daddy adds nothing to the play except for what it explicitly is – a final connection with the character before the last curtain. Yet for that reason alone, for the mere presence of Big Daddy on stage, it is a substantial change to the feelings of the audience regarding his character. No doubt the act can be (and has been) performed effectively either way, but it is easy to see why Kazan was uneasy about letting such a monumental character fade away unseen.
The one other significant change is to the very end. In the published script, we are left entirely uncertain as to whether Brick will concede to sleep once more with Maggie and allow her to bear a child. The text itself leads one to suspect that nothing is going to change, but with enough ambiguity that each production can choose for itself which ending will be implied.
In the playing script, however, Brick ends the act sitting on the bed – and although the dialog is also quite different from the published script, it is this stage direction that significantly weights the dice in favor of Brick having a change of heart. That big bed has been sitting in the middle of the stage all night, the demilitarized zone of their marriage, and by sitting on it at the end Brick finally crosses that line towards Maggie.
The revised third act played in the Broadway premiere and is often published alongside the original third act. Many high profile productions have used the original script, or Williams further revision of the original for the 1974 revival. Today, a director is given the option to essentially play at being Elia Kazan, and decide which third act of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is preferred. There's no right answer.
Essay Questions:
1. Characterize the relationship between the Pollitt brothers.
Brick is eight years the junior of Gooper, and has always been coddled and adored as the baby of the family. There is a sibling rivalry, but it is entirely one-sided. Gooper is threatened by the universal adoration for Brick and resents his little brother's ability to succeed and be loved without doing anything to deserve it. Brick, on the other hand, barely notices Gooper's existence. As in all Brick's relationships, it is the other party who has the strong emotions.
2. A recent Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof broke from tradition by having an entirely African American cast. How would the play be different if Williams had intended the characters to be African-American?
Most significantly, it is difficult to imagine a black planter achieving Big Daddy's sort of financial success in the mid-century South. Accompanying that, the tensions and conflicts of the play are entirely internal to the family – there are no outside threats. In this time and place, a wealthy black family with questionable lines of inheritance would face an entirely different set of social and legal pressures regarding the land and wealth. To deal with these issues, the production in question moved the time frame of the play to an unspecified later period, in which their race would not affect their wealth.
3. Maggie thinks that announcing her pregnancy will solve all her problems. Is she right?
Quite possibly. The one thing holding Brick and Maggie back from full possession of the Pollitt estate after Big Daddy's death is their lack of an heir – if Big Daddy thinks that a baby is on the way when he's writing his will, that concern will be eliminated. But Maggie also knows that a sham pregnancy can't last long without being found out or proven true, so she is banking on Brick's obligation to make the lie a truth, in order to satisfy her own desire. The question now is whether Brick will be willing to or physically capable of pushing through his haze of liquor and disgust for successful procreation.
4. Tennessee Williams chose to compress the staged action of this play into a single night, but the story itself has a much longer range. When does this story begin and end?
The story begins with the death of Skipper – or perhaps even the night Maggie and Skipper sleep together. It encompasses Brick's ensuing ennui and Maggie's growing desperation; the years of Big Daddy's illness; and the night shown in the play itself. The ending, we can surmise, comes if and when Maggie does have a baby, or when Big Daddy signs his will. But by compressing the action to a single night, Williams succeeds in heightening emotions and forcing the confrontations and angry truths that result in good drama.
5. Compare and contrast Big Daddy and Brick.
The men are portrayed as similar in their relationships to their wives. Both Big Daddy and Brick are married to women who adore and worship them, but who they can't stand. It is their very insouciance, in fact, that makes the women love them. Likewise, both appear to be capable of expressing true affection for only one person – Big Daddy for Brick, and Brick for Skipper. It is the tragedy of the play that none of the affections are mutual. Big Daddy is just as thwarted in his love for his son as Maggie is.
6. "It is so damn hard for people to talk to each other," Big Daddy says repeatedly, yet many plain and hurtful words are said in this play. How does Williams manipulate his characters into really talking to one another, when they otherwise would not?
Brick's silence is a tool by the playwright to allow Maggie and Big Daddy to express some deeply personal and hurtful truths – because he is so unresponsive, they each are able to monologue in his presence, almost like an aria in an opera, as though he weren't really there. Brick, on the other hand, is made truthful by liquor, and Gooper and Mae by overwhelming greed. Big Daddy and Big Mama are also forced to speak plainly by the prospect of death, forcing into the open thoughts and feelings that would otherwise go unsaid.
7. Why does Williams give his hero an injury?
Crippling Brick serves a thematic role as well as being a plot and staging device. On the most basic level, Brick hobbling around the stage on his crutch keeps the long conversations visually interesting, and gives the actor something to work with. As a plot device, Brick's escapades at the school track force everyone's awareness of his alcohol problem. But it also externalizes how Brick his emotionally crippled since the death of Skipper – the damage done to his psyche is just as profound, real, and debilitating as a broken leg.
8. Where does Mae fit into the family? Why does she feel threatened?
Mae married into the Pollitt clan, going from a family with social standing but no money to a family with plenty of cash and a lack of class. But she's a striver, and wants to ensure that the money heads eventually in the direction of her brood. On the one hand, she feels like she has more of a claim to being a part of the family than Maggie has, because she has a passel of children who are bonafide Pollitts. Yet she still feels threatened by Maggie's obviously likability and the general preference the parents have for Brick and Maggie over Gooper and Mae.
9. Could Cat on a Hot Tin Roof be rewritten to take place today, or have social structures changed too much?
In 1955, when the play was first produced, the majority of women did not work outside the home. Maggie and Mae would have been fully dependent on their husband's wealth, with their only contribution to the advancement of their family being in the form of child-bearing. More to the point is the issue of Brick and Skipper's possible homosexuality – could a man still closet himself to death? Sadly, the answer is yes. Although in many areas the story of Brick and Skipper would be absurd self-delusion, there are still plenty of people who, like Brick, were so thoroughly indoctrinated into a belief in the unnaturalness of homosexuality that they just cannot accept the possibility. Perhaps if we give it another generation, their sad story will no longer be possible.
10. The entire play takes place in one unbroken stretch of time, in one room, with an infrequently rotating cast of characters. As the theater is fundamentally a visual medium, how does Williams vary the action and keep things visually interesting?
In short – he doesn't. Cat is a very difficult play to stage effectively, because of the extreme compression of time and place. The first act is an unbroken conversation between two people, and the second act is mostly an unbroken conversation between two people. But in each pair, one person is Brick, the crippled drunk. The action of Brick hobbling back and forth to the bar, and the various attempts by Maggie and Big Daddy to steal Brick's crutch and physically manipulate him, give a director something to work with in terms of the staging. The frequent interruptions by other characters are also of assistance. But in the end, the burden of creating a visually interesting piece of drama and of fully utilizing the space is left entirely to the cast and director.






















The Crucible

Short Summary:
The Crucible, a historical play based on events of the Salem witchcraft trials, takes place in a small Puritan village in the colony of Massachusetts in 1692. The witchcraft trials, as Miller explains in a prose prologue to the play, grew out of the particular moral system of the Puritans, which promoted interference in others' affairs as well as a repressive code of conduct that frowned on any diversion from norms of behavior.
The play begins in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris, whose daughter, Betty, lays ill. Parris lives with his daughter and his seventeen-year old niece, Abigail Williams, an orphan who witnessed her parents' murder by the Indians. Parris has sent for Reverend Hale of Beverly, believing his daughter's illness stems from supernatural explanations. Betty became ill when her father discovered her dancing in the woods with Abigail, Tituba (the Parris' slave from Barbados) and several other local girls. Already there are rumors that Betty's illness is due to witchcraft, but Parris tells Abigail that he cannot admit that he found his daughter and niece dancing like heathens in the forest. Abigail says that she will admit to dancing and accept the punishment, but will not admit to witchcraft. Abigail and Parris discuss rumors about the girls: when they were dancing one of the girls was naked, and Tituba was screeching gibberish. Parris also brings up rumors that Abigail's former employer, Elizabeth Proctor, believes that Abby is immoral.
Thomas and Ann Putnam arrive and tell Parris that their daughter, Ruth, is sick. Ann Putnam admits that she sent Ruth to Tituba, for Tituba knows how to speak to the dead and could find out who murdered her seven children, each of whom died during infancy. When the adults leave, Abigail discusses Betty's illness with Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren, the servants of the Putnams and the Proctors, respectively. Abigail threatens them, warning them not to say anything more than that they danced and Tituba conjured Ruth's sisters. John Proctor arrives to find Mary and send her home. He speaks with Abigail alone, and she admits to him about the dancing. In the past, John and Abigail had an affair, which is the reason why Elizabeth Proctor fired her. Abigail propositions John, but he sternly refuses her. When Betty hears people singing psalms from outside, she begins to shriek. Reverend Parris returns, and realizes that Betty cannot bear to hear the Lord's name.
Giles Corey and Rebecca Nurse are the next to visit. The former is a contentious old man, while the latter is a well-respected old woman. Rebecca claims that Betty's illness is nothing serious, but merely a childish phase. Parris confronts Proctor because he has not been in church recently, but Proctor claims that Parris is too obsessed with damnation and never mentions God.
Reverend John Hale arrives from Beverly, a scholarly man who looks for precise signs of the supernatural. Parris tells him about the dancing and the conjuring, while Giles Corey asks if there is any significance to his wife's reading strange books. Hale questions Abigail, asking if she sold her soul to Lucifer. Finally Abigail blames Tituba, claiming that Tituba made Abigail and Betty drink blood and that Tituba sends her spirit out to make mischief. Putnam declares that Tituba must be hanged, but Hale confronts her. Upon realizing that the only way to save herself is to admit to the charge, Tituba claims that the devil came to her and promised to return her to Barbados. She says that several women were with him, including Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, and the girls join in the chorus of accusations, name more people they claim to have seen with the devil.
The second act takes place a week later in the Proctor's home. John Proctor returns home late after a long day planting in the fields, and Elizabeth suspects that he has been in the village. Mary Warren has been there as an official of the court for the witchcraft trials, even after Elizabeth forbade her. Elizabeth tells John that she must tell Ezekiel Cheever, the constable, that Abigail admitted that Betty's sickness has nothing to do with witchcraft, but Proctor admits that nobody will believe him because he was alone with Abigail at the time. Elizabeth is disturbed by this, but Proctor reprimands her for her suspicion. Mary Warren arrives and gives Elizabeth a poppet that she made in court. Mary tells them that thirty-nine people have been arrested and Sarah Osburn will hang, but not Sarah Good, who confessed. When Proctor becomes angry at Mary, she tells him that she saved Elizabeth's life today, for her name was mentioned in court.
John Hale arrives. He tells the Proctors that Rebecca Nurse was charged, then questions Proctor on his churchgoing habits. Finally he makes Proctor state the ten commandments; he can remember nine of the ten, but Elizabeth must remind him of adultery. Proctor tells Hale what Abigail admitted about Parris discovering her in the woods, but Hale says that it must be nonsense, for so many have confessed to witchcraft. Proctor reminds him that these people would certainly confess, if denying it means that they be hanged. Hale asks Proctor whether he believes in witches, and he says that he does, but not those in Salem. Elizabeth denies all belief in witchcraft, for she believes that the devil cannot take a woman's soul if she is truly upright.
Ezekiel Cheever arrives to arrest Elizabeth on the charge that she sent her spirit out to Abigail and stuck a needle in her. Cheever finds the poppet, which has a needle in it, but Mary Warren says that she made the poppet in court that day, although Abigail witnessed her making it. Upon hearing the charge, Elizabeth claims that Abigail is a murderer who must be ripped out of the world. Proctor rips up the warrant and tells Cheever that he will not give his wife to vengeance. When Hale insists that the court is just, Proctor calls him a Pontius Pilate. He finally demands that Mary Warren come to court and testify against Abigail, but she sobs that she cannot.
The third act takes place in the vestry room of the Salem meeting house, which serves the court. Giles Corey arrives with Francis Nurse and tells Deputy Governor Danforth, who presides over the trials, that Thomas Putnam is charging people with witchcraft in order to gain their land. He also says that he meant nothing when he said that his wife read strange books.
John Proctor arrives with Mary Warren, and presents a deposition signed by Mary that asserts that she never saw any spirits. Parris thinks that they are there to overthrow the court, and Danforth questions whether Proctor has any ulterior motive, and tells Proctor that his wife is pregnant and thus will live at least one more year, even if convicted. Proctor also presents a petition signed by ninety-one people attesting to the good character of Elizabeth Proctor, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey. Parris claims that this is an attack upon the court, but Hale asks Parris if every defense is an attack on it.
Putnam arrives at the court, and Giles Corey charges him with murder. Giles tells Danforth that someone told him that Putnam prompted his daughter to accuse George Jacobs so that he could buy his land. Giles refuses to name this person, and so is arrested for contempt. Abigail then arrives with the other girls, and Proctor tells Danforth how Abigail means to murder his wife. Abigail pretends that she feels a sharp wind threatening her. Proctor grabs her by the hair and calls her a whore, finally admitting his affair.
Danforth orders that Elizabeth be brought to the court. If Elizabeth admits to firing Abigail for her affair, Danforth will charge Abigail with murder. Elizabeth, thinking that she is defending her husband, only claims that she fired Abigail because of poor work habits. Proctor cries out for Elizabeth to tell the truth, and Hale admits that Elizabeth's lie is a natural one to tell. Abigail then claims that Mary Warren's spirit is attacking her in the form of a bird. Although Mary claims that the girls are lying, she soon breaks down and tells Danforth that Proctor is in league with Satan and wants to pull down the court. Proctor cries out that God is dead, and that a fire is burning in Hell because the court is pulling Heaven down and raising up a whore. Hale denounces the proceedings and quits the court.
The fourth act takes places several months later in the autumn at the Salem jail cell. Cheever details how the town is in shambles because so many people are in jail. Hale has been begging Rebecca Nurse to admit to witchcraft. Parris arrives and tells Danforth how Abigail has vanished with Mercy Lewis and stolen his money. Parris worries about the rumors of rebellion against the witchcraft proceedings in Andover, but Hathorne reminds Parris how there has only been great satisfaction in all of the Salem executions. Parris reminds him that Rebecca Nurse is no immoral woman like the others executed and there will be consequences to her execution. Still, Danforth refuses to postpone any of the executions.
Danforth calls for Elizabeth Proctor, and Hale tells her that he does not want Proctor to die, for he would feel responsible for the murder. He tells Elizabeth that God may damn a liar less than a person who throws one's life away, but Elizabeth claims that this may be the Devil's argument. Finally Elizabeth agrees to speak with Proctor, who is brought in bearded and filthy. Proctor and Elizabeth discuss their children, and Elizabeth tells him how Giles Corey died: when he refused to answer yes or no to his indictment, and was thus pressed with stones until he would answer. He only gave the words "more weight" before they crushed him.
Proctor says that he cannot mount the gibbet as a saint, for it would be a fraud to claim that he has never lied. Elizabeth says that she has her own sins, for only a cold wife would prompt lechery. Finally Proctor decides that he will confess himself. Danforth demands a written confession and, to prove the purity of his soul, he demands that Proctor accuse others. Hale suggests that it is sufficient for Proctor to confess to God, but Danforth still requires a written statement. Proctor refuses, because he wishes only to keep his good name for the respectability of his children. Danforth refuses to accept his confession, and orders that he be hanged. Hale begs Elizabeth to plead with Proctor to sign a confession, but Elizabeth claims that Proctor now has his goodness, and nobody should take it away from him.




Robinson Crusoe
Short Summary:
Robinson Crusoe is a youth of about eighteen years old who resides in Hull, England. Although his father wishes him to become a lawyer, Crusoe dreams of going on sea voyages. He disregards the fact that his two older brothers are gone because of their need for adventure. His father cautions that a middle-class existence is the most stable. Robinson ignores him. When his parents refuse to let him take at least one journey, he runs away with a friend and secures free passage to London. Misfortune begins immediately, in the form of rough weather. The ship is forced to land at Yarmouth. When Crusoe's friend learns the circumstances under which he left his family, he becomes angry and tells him that he should have never come to the sea. They part, and Crusoe makes his way to London via land. He thinks briefly about going home, but cannot stand to be humiliated. He manages to find another voyage headed to Guiana. Once there, he wants to become a trader. On the way, the ship is attacked by Turkish pirates, who bring the crew and passengers into the Moorish port of Sallee. Robinson is made a slave. For two years he plans an escape. An opportunity is presented when he is sent out with two Moorish youths to go fishing. Crusoe throws one overboard, and tells the other one, called Xury, that he may stay if he is faithful. They anchor on what appears to be uninhabited land. Soon they see that black people live there. These natives are very friendly to Crusoe and Xury. At one point, the two see a Portuguese ship in the distance. They manage to paddle after it and get the attention of those on board. The captain is kind and says he will take them aboard for free and bring them to Brazil.
Robinson goes to Brazil and leaves Xury with the captain. The captain and a widow in England are Crusoe's financial guardians. In the new country, Robinson observes that much wealth comes from plantations. He resolves to buy one for himself. After a few years, he has some partners, and they are all doing very well financially. Crusoe is presented with a new proposition: to begin a trading business. These men want to trade slaves, and they want Robinson to be the master of the tradepost. Although he knows he has enough money, Crusoe decides to make the voyage. A terrible shipwreck occurs and Robinson is the only survivor. He manages to make it to the shore of an island.
Robinson remains on the island for twenty-seven years. He is able to take many provisions from the ship. In that time, he recreates his English life, building homes, necessities, learning how to cook, raise goats and crops. He is at first very miserable, but embraces religion as a balm for his unhappiness. He is able to convince himself that he lives a much better life here than he did in Europe--much more simple, much less wicked. He comes to appreciate his sovereignty over the entire island. One time he tries to use a boat to explore the rest of the island, but he is almost swept away, and does not make the attempt again. He has pets whom he treats as subjects. There is no appearance of man until about 15 years into his stay. He sees a footprint, and later observes cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. They don't live on the island; they come in canoes from a mainland not too far away. Robinson is filled with outrage, and resolves to save the prisoners the next time these savages appear. Some years later they return. Using his guns, Crusoe scares them away and saves a young savage whom he names Friday.
Friday is extremely grateful and becomes Robinson's devoted servant. He learns some English and takes on the Christian religion. For some years the two live happily. Then, another ship of savages arrives with three prisoners. Together Crusoe and Friday are able to save two of them. One is a Spaniard; the other is Friday's father. Their reunion is very joyous. Both have come from the mainland close by. After a few months, they leave to bring back the rest of the Spaniard's men. Crusoe is happy that his island is being peopled. Before the Spaniard and Friday's father can return, a boat of European men comes ashore. There are three prisoners. While most of the men are exploring the island, Crusoe learns from one that he is the captain of a ship whose crew mutinied. Robinson says he will help them as long as they leave the authority of the island in his hands, and as long as they promise to take Friday and himself to England for free. The agreement is made. Together this little army manages to capture the rest of the crew and retake the captain's ship. Friday and Robinson are taken to England. Even though Crusoe has been gone thirty-five years, he finds that his plantations have done well and he is very wealthy. He gives money to the Portuguese captain and the widow who were so kind to him. He returns to the English countryside and settles there, marrying and having three children. When his wife dies, he once more goes to the sea.

Character List:
Robinson Crusoe
the main character of the story, he is a rebellious youth with an inexplicable need to travel. Because of this need, he brings misfortune on himself and is left to fend for himself in a primitive land. The novel essentially chronicles his mental and spiritual development as a result of his isolation. He is a contradictory character; at the same time he is practical ingenuity and immature decisiveness.
Xury
a friend/servant of Crusoe's, he also escapes from the Moors. A simple youth who is dedicated to Crusoe, he is admirable for his willingness to stand by the narrator. However, he does not think for himself.
Friday
another friend/servant of Crusoe's, he spends a number of years on the island with the main character, who saves him from cannibalistic death. Friday is basically Crusoe's protege, a living example of religious justification of the slavery relationship between the two men. His eagerness to be redone in the European image is supposed to convey that this image is indeed the right one.
Crusoe's father
although he appears only briefly in the beginning, he embodies the theme of the merits of Protestant, middle-class living. It is his teachings from which Crusoe is running, with poor success.
Crusoe's mother
one of the few female figures, she fully supports her husband and will not let Crusoe go on a voyage.
Moorish patron
Crusoe's slave master, he allows for a role reversal of white men as slaves. He apparently is not too swift, however, in that he basically hands Crusoe an escape opportunity.
Portuguese sea captain
one of the kindest figures in the book, he is an honest man who embodies all the Christian ideals. Everyone is supposed to admire him for his extreme generosity to the narrator. He almost takes the place of Crusoe's father.
Spaniard
one of the prisoners saved by Crusoe, it is interesting to note that he is treated with much more respect in Crusoe's mind than any of the colored peoples with whom Crusoe is in contact.
Captured sea captain
he is an ideal soldier, the intersection between civilized European and savage white man. Crusoe's support of his fight reveals that the narrator no longer has purely religious motivations.
Widow
she is goodness personified, and keeps Crusoe's money safe for him. She is in some way a foil to his mother, who does not support him at all.
Savages
the cannibals from across the way, they represent the threat to Crusoe's religious and moral convictions, as well as his safety. He must conquer them before returning to his own world.
Negroes
they help Xury and Crusoe when they land on their island, and exist in stark contrast to the savages.
Traitorous crew members
they are an example of white men who do not heed God; they are white savages.







The Gospel of Mark (Gk. τὸ εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μᾶρκον, literally "the good news according to Mark") is the second of the four Canonical Gospels, but is believed by most contemporary scholars to be the first gospel written, on which the other two synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke, were partially based.
The gospel narrates the life of Jesus of Nazareth from his baptism by John the Baptist to the resurrection (or to the empty tomb in the earliest manuscripts), but it concentrates particularly on the last week of his life (chapters 11-16, the trip to Jerusalem). Its swift narrative portrays Jesus as a heroic man of action,an exorcist, a healer and miracle worker. It calls him the Son of Man, the Son of God, and the Christ (the Greek translation of Messiah).
Two important themes of Mark are the Messianic secret and the obtuseness of the disciples. In Mark, Jesus often commands secrecy regarding aspects of his identity and certain actions.
Jesus uses parables to explain his message and fulfill prophecy (4:10-12). At times, the disciples have trouble understanding the parables, but Jesus explains what they mean, in secret (4:13-20, 4:33-34). They also fail to understand the implication of the miracles that he performs before them.
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Gospel According to Mark
General Information
Mark is the second Gospel in the New Testament of the Bible. It is the earliest and the shortest of the four Gospels. Papias, an early church father, ascribed this Gospel to Mark, an interpreter of Peter who is often identified with Mark, the cousin of Saint Barnabas and companion of Barnabas and Saint Paul on their first missionary journey. Irenaeus said that Mark wrote this Gospel after Peter and Paul had died. Most scholars today, therefore, date the book AD 65 - 70.
The Gospel was probably written in Rome for a primarily Gentile audience, to convince them that Jesus of Nazareth, in spite of his sufferings and death, was the Son of God. It has been called a Gospel of action because it records 18 miracles (similar in count to Matthew and Luke) but only 4 parables (Matthew includes 18 parables and Luke 19). Jesus' victory over evil through his deeds and death receives emphasis. Much material in Mark is repeated in Matthew and in Luke, leading most scholars to conclude that Mark was written first and used independently by the other writers.
Douglas Ezell
BibliographyR H Lightfoot, The Gospel Message of St. Mark (1950); C F D Moule, The Gospel According to Mark (1965); V Taylor, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (1966); E Trocme, The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark (1975).
Gospel According to Mark
Brief Outline
Baptism and Temptation of Jesus (1:1-13)
Galilean Ministry (1:14-9:50)
Ministry in Perea (10)
Passion Week and Resurrection (11-16)
Mark
Advanced Information
Mark, the evangelist; "John whose surname was Mark" (Acts 12:12, 25). Mark (Marcus, Col. 4:10, etc.) was his Roman name, which gradually came to supersede his Jewish name John. He is called John in Acts 13:5, 13, and Mark in 15:39, 2 Tim. 4:11, etc. He was the son of Mary, a woman apparently of some means and influence, and was probably born in Jerusalem, where his mother resided (Acts 12:12). Of his father we know nothing. He was cousin of Barnabas (Col. 4:10). It was in his mother's house that Peter found "many gathered together praying" when he was released from prison; and it is probable that it was here that he was converted by Peter, who calls him his "son" (1 Pet. 5: 13). It is probable that the "young man" spoken of in Mark 14:51, 52 was Mark himself. He is first mentioned in Acts 12: 25. He went with Paul and Barnabas on their first journey (about A.D. 47) as their "minister," but from some cause turned back when they reached Perga in Pamphylia (Acts 12:25; 13:13).
Three years afterwards a "sharp contention" arose between Paul and Barnabas (15:36-40), because Paul would not take Mark with him. He, however, was evidently at length reconciled to the apostle, for he was with him in his first imprisonment at Rome (Col. 4:10; Philemon 24). At a later period he was with Peter in Babylon (1 Pet. 5:13), then, and for some centuries afterwards, one of the chief seats of Jewish learning; and he was with Timothy in Ephesus when Paul wrote him during his second imprisonment (2 Tim. 4:11). He then disappears from view.
(Easton Illustrated Dictionary)
Gospel according to Mark
Advanced Information
It is the current and apparently well-founded tradition that Mark derived his information mainly from the discourses of Peter. In his mother's house he would have abundant opportunities of obtaining information from the other apostles and their coadjutors, yet he was "the disciple and interpreter of Peter" specially. As to the time when it was written, the Gospel furnishes us with no definite information. Mark makes no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem, hence it must have been written before that event, and probably about A.D. 63. The place where it was written was probably Rome. Some have supposed Antioch (comp. Mark 15:21 with Acts 11:20). It was intended primarily for Romans.
This appears probable when it is considered that it makes no reference to the Jewish law, and that the writer takes care to interpret words which a Gentile would be likely to misunderstand, such as, "Boanerges" (3:17); "Talitha cumi" (5:41); "Corban" (7:11); "Bartimaeus" (10:46); "Abba" (14:36); "Eloi," etc. (15:34). Jewish usages are also explained (7:3; 14:3; 14:12; 15:42). Mark also uses certain Latin words not found in any of the other Gospels, as "speculator" (6:27, rendered, A.V., "executioner;" R.V., "soldier of his guard"), "xestes" (a corruption of sextarius, rendered "pots," 7:4, 8), "quadrans" (12:42, rendered "a farthing"), "centurion" (15:39, 44, 45). He only twice quotes from the Old Testament (1:2; 15:28).
The characteristics of this Gospel are, (1) the absence of the genealogy of our Lord, (2) whom he represents as clothed with power, the "lion of the tribe of Judah." (3.) Mark also records with wonderful minuteness the very words (3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 14:36) as well as the position (9:35) and gestures (3:5, 34; 5:32; 9:36; 10:16) of our Lord. (4.) He is also careful to record particulars of person (1:29, 36; 3:6, 22, etc.), number (5:13; 6:7, etc.), place (2:13; 4:1; 7:31, etc.), and time (1:35; 2:1; 4:35, etc.), which the other evangelists omit. (5.) The phrase "and straightway" occurs nearly forty times in this Gospel; while in Luke's Gospel, which is much longer, it is used only seven times, and in John only four times. "The Gospel of Mark," says Westcott, "is essentially a transcript from life.
The course and issue of facts are imaged in it with the clearest outline." "In Mark we have no attempt to draw up a continuous narrative. His Gospel is a rapid succession of vivid pictures loosely strung together without much attempt to bind them into a whole or give the events in their natural sequence. This pictorial power is that which specially characterizes this evangelist, so that 'if any one desires to know an evangelical fact, not only in its main features and grand results, but also in its most minute and so to speak more graphic delineation, he must betake himself to Mark.'" The leading principle running through this Gospel may be expressed in the motto: "Jesus came......preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Mark 1:14). "Out of a total of 662 verses, Mark has 406 in common with Matthew and Luke, 145 with Matthew, 60 with Luke, and at most 51 peculiar to itself." (See Matthew).
(Easton Illustrated Dictionary)





Gospel of Saint Mark
Catholic Information
The subject will be treated under the following heads:
I. Contents, Selection and Arrangement of Matter;
II. Authorship;
III. Original Language, Vocabulary, and Style;
IV. State of Text and Integrity;
V. Place and Date of Composition;
VI. Destination and Purpose;
VII. Relation to Matthew and Luke.
I. CONTENTS, SELECTION AND ARRANGEMENT OF MATTER
The Second Gospel, like the other two Synoptics, deals chiefly with the Galilean ministry of Christ, and the events of the last week at Jerusalem. In a brief introduction, the ministry of the Precursor and the immediate preparation of Christ for His official work by His Baptism and temptation are touched upon (i, 1-13); then follows the body of the Gospel, dealing with the public ministry, Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus (i, 14-xvi, 8); and lastly the work in its present form gives a summary account of some appearances of the risen Lord, and ends with a reference to the Ascension and the universal preaching of the Gospel (xvi, 9-20). The body of the Gospel falls naturally into three divisions: the ministry in Galilee and adjoining districts: Phoenicia, Decapolis, and the country north towards Cæarea Philippi (i, 14-ix, 49); the ministry in Judea and (kai peran, with B, Aleph, C*, L, Psi, in x, 1) Peræ, and the journey to Jerusalem (x, 1-xi, 10); the events of the last week at Jerusalem (xi, 11-xvi, 8).
Beginning with the public ministry (cf. Acts 1:22; 10:37), St. Mark passes in silence over the preliminary events recorded by the other Synoptists: the conception and birth of the Baptist, the genealogy, conception, and birth of Jesus, the coming of the Magi, etc. He is much more concerned with Christ's acts than with His discourses, only two of these being given at any considerable length (iv, 3-32; xiii, 5-37). The miracles are narrated most graphically and thrown into great prominence, almost a fourth of the entire Gospel (in the Vulg., 164 verses out of 677) being devoted to them, and there seems to be a desire to impress the readers from the outset with Christ's almighty power and dominion over all nature. The very first chapter records three miracles: the casting out of an unclean spirit, the cure of Peter's mother-in-law, and the healing of a leper, besides alluding summarily to many others (i, 32-34); and, of the eighteen miracles recorded altogether in the Gospel, all but three (ix, 16-28; x, 46-52; xi, 12-14) occur in the first eight chapters. Only two of these miracles (vii, 31-37; viii, 22-26) are peculiar to Mark, but, in regard to nearly all, there are graphic touches and minute details not found in the other Synoptics. Of the parables proper Mark has only four: the sower (iv, 3-9), the seed growing secretly (iv, 26-29), the mustard seed (iv, 30-32), and the wicked husbandman (xii, 1-9); the second of these is wanting in the other Gospels. Special attention is paid throughout to the human feelings and emotions of Christ, and to the effect produced by His miracles upon the crowd. The weaknesses of the Apostles are far more apparent than in the parallel narratives of Matt. and Luke, this being, probably due to the graphic and candid discourses of Peter, upon which tradition represents Mark as relying.
The repeated notes of time and place (e.g., i, 14, 19, 20, 21, 29, 32, 35) seem to show that the Evangelist meant to arrange in chronological order at least a number of the events which he records. Occasionally the note of time is wanting (e.g. i, 40; iii, 1; iv, 1; x, 1, 2, 13) or vague (e.g. ii, 1, 23; iv, 35), and in such cases he may of course depart from the order of events. But the very fact that in some instances he speaks thus vaguely and indefinitely makes it all the more necessary to take his definite notes of time and sequence in other cases as indicating chronological order. We are here confronted, however, with the testimony of Papias, who quotes an elder (presbyter), with whom he apparently agrees, as saying that Mark did not write in order: "And the elder said this also: Mark, having become interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered, without, however, recording in order what was either said or done by Christ. For neither did he hear the Lord, nor did he follow Him, but afterwards, as I said, (he attended) Peter, who adapted his instructions to the needs (of his hearers), but had no design of giving a connected account of the Lord's oracles [v. l. "words"]. So then Mark made no mistake [Schmiedel, "committed no fault"], while he thus wrote down some things (enia as he remembered them; for he made it his one care not to omit anything that he had heard, or set down any false statement therein" (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", III, xxxix). Some indeed have understood this famous passage to mean merely that Mark did not write a literary work, but simply a string of notes connected in the simplest fashion (cf. Swete, "The Gospel acc. to Mark", pp. lx-lxi). The present writer, however, is convinced that what Papias and the elder deny to our Gospel is chronological order, since for no other order would it have been necessary that Mark should have heard or followed Christ. But the passage need not be understood to mean more than that Mark occasionally departs from chronological order, a thing we are quite prepared to admit. What Papias and the elder considered to be the true order we cannot say; they can hardly have fancied it to be represented in the First Gospel, which so evidently groups (e.g. viii-ix), nor, it would seem, in the Third, since Luke, like Mark, had not been a disciple of Christ. It may well be that, belonging as they did to Asia Minor, they had the Gospel of St. John and its chronology in mind. At any rate, their judgment upon the Second Gospel, even if be just, does not prevent us from holding that Mark, to some extent, arranges the events of Christ's like in chronological order.
II. AUTHORSHIP
All early tradition connects the Second Gospel with two names, those of St. Mark and St. Peter, Mark being held to have written what Peter had preached. We have just seen that this was the view of Papias and the elder to whom he refers. Papias wrote not later than about A.D. 130, so that the testimony of the elder probably brings us back to the first century, and shows the Second Gospel known in Asia Minor and attributed to St. Mark at that early time. So Irenæus says: "Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in writing what was preached by Peter" ("Adv. Hær.", III, i; ibid., x, 6). St. Clement of Alexandria, relying on the authority of "the elder presbyters", tells us that, when Peter had publicly preached in Rome, many of those who heard him exhorted Mark, as one who had long followed Peter and remembered what he had said, to write it down, and that Mark "composed the Gospel and gave it to those who had asked for it" (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xiv). Origen says (ibid., VI, xxv) that Mark wrote as Peter directed him (os Petros huphegesato auto), and Eusebius himself reports the tradition that Peter approved or authorized Mark's work ("Hist. Eccl.", II, xv). To these early Eastern witnesses may be added, from the West, the author of the Muratorian Fragment, which in its first line almost certainly refers to Mark's presence at Peter's discourses and his composition of the Gospel accordingly (Quibus tamen interfuit et ita posuit); Tertullian, who states: "The Gospel which Mark published (edidit is affirmed to be Peter's, whose interpreter Mark was" ("Contra Marc.", IV, v); St. Jerome, who in one place says that Mark wrote a short Gospel at the request of the brethren at Rome, and that Peter authorized it to be read in the Churches ("De Vir. Ill.", viii), and in another that Mark's Gospel was composed, Peter narrating and Mark writing (Petro narrante et illo scribente--"Ad Hedib.", ep. cxx). In every one of these ancient authorities Mark is regarded as the writer of the Gospel, which is looked upon at the same time as having Apostolic authority, because substantially at least it had come from St. Peter. In the light of this traditional connexion of he Gospel with St. Peter, there can be no doubt that it is to it St. Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, refers ("Dial.", 106), when he sags that Christ gave the title of "Boanerges" to the sons of Zebedee (a fact mentioned in the New Testament only in Mark 3:17), and that this is written in the "memoirs" of Peter (en tois apopnemaneumasin autou--after he had just named Peter). Though St. Justin does not name Mark as the writer of the memoirs, the fact that his disciple Tatian used our present Mark, including even the last twelve verses, in the composition of the "Diatessaron", makes it practically certain that St. Justin knew our present Second Gospel, and like the other Fathers connected it with St. Peter.
If, then, a consistent and widespread early tradition is to count for anything, St. Mark wrote a work based upon St. Peter's preaching. It is absurd to seek to destroy the force of this tradition by suggesting that all the subsequent authorities relied upon Papias, who may have been deceived. Apart from the utter improbability that Papias, who had spoken with many disciples of the Apostles, could have been deceived on such a question, the fact that Irenæus seems to place the composition of Mark's work after Peter's death, while Origen and other represent the Apostle as approving of it (see below, V), shows that all do not draw from the same source. Moreover, Clement of Alexandria mentions as his source, not any single authority, but "the elders from the beginning" (ton anekathen presbuteron--Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xiv). The only question, then, that can be raised with any shadow of reason, is whether St. Mark's work was identical with our present Second Gospel, and on this there is no room for doubt. Early Christian literature knows no trace of an Urmarkus different from our present Gospel, and it is impossible that a work giving the Prince of the Apostles' account of Christ's words and deeds could have disappeared utterly, without leaving any trace behind. Nor can it be said that the original Mark has been worked up into our present Second Gospel, for then, St. Mark not being the actual writer of the present work and its substance being due to St. Peter, there would have been no reason to attribute it to Mark, and it would undoubtedly have been known in the Church, not by the title it bears, but as the "Gospel according to Peter".
Internal evidence strongly confirms the view that our present Second Gospel is the work referred to by Papias. That work, as has been seen, was based on Peter's discourses. Now we learn from Acts (i, 21-22; x, 37-41) that Peter's preaching dealt chiefly with the public life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. So our present Mark, confining itself to the same limits, omitting all reference to Christ's birth and private life, such as is found in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke, and commencing with the preaching of the Baptist, ends with Christ's Resurrection and Ascension. Again (1) the graphic and vivid touches peculiar to our present Second Gospel, its minute notes in regard to (2) persons, (3) places, (4) times, and (5) numbers, point to an eyewitness like Peter as the source of the writer's information. Thus we are told (1) how Jesus took Peter's mother-in-law by the hand and raised her up (i, 31), how with anger He looked round about on His critics (iii, 5), how He took little children into His arms and blessed them and laid His hands upon them (ix, 35; x, 16), how those who carried the paralytic uncovered the roof (ii, 3, 4), how Christ commanded that the multitude should sit down upon the green grass, and how they sat down in companies, in hundred and in fifties (vi, 39-40); (2) how James and John left their father in the boat with the hired servants (i, 20), how they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John (i, 29), how the blind man at Jericho was the son of Timeus (x, 46), how Simon of Cyrene was the father of Alexander and Rufus (xv, 21); (3) how there was no room even about the door of the house where Jesus was (ii, 2), how Jesus sat in the sea and all the multitude was by the sea on the land (iv, 1), how Jesus was in the stern of the boat asleep on the pillow (iv, 38); (4) how on the evening of the Sabbath, when the sun had set, the sick were brought to be cured (i, 32), how in the morning, long before day, Christ rose up (i, 35), how He was crucified at the third hour (xv, 25), how the women came to the tomb very early, when the sun had risen (xvi, 2); (5) how the paralytic was carried by four (ii, 3), how the swine were about two thousand in number (v. 13), how Christ began to send forth the Apostles, two and two (vi, 7). This mass of information which is wanting in the other Synoptics, and of which the above instances are only a sample, proved beyond doubt that the writer of the Second Gospel must have drawn from some independent source, and that this source must have been an eyewitness. And when we reflect that incidents connected with Peter, such as the cure of his mother-in-law and his three denials, are told with special details in this Gospel; that the accounts of the raising to life of the daughter of Jaïrus, of the Transfiguration, and of the Agony in the Garden, three occasions on which only Peter and James and John were present, show special signs of first-hand knowledge (cf. Swete, op. cit., p. xliv) such as might be expected in the work of a disciple of Peter (Matthew and Luke may also have relied upon the Petrine tradition for their accounts of these events, but naturally Peter's disciple would be more intimately acquainted with the tradition); finally, when we remember that, though the Second Gospel records with special fullness Peter's three denials, it alone among the Gospels omit all reference to the promise or bestowal upon him of the primacy (cf. Matthew 16:18-19; Luke 22:32; John 21:15-17), we are led to conclude that the eyewitness to whom St. Mark was indebted for his special information was St. Peter himself, and that our present Second Gospel, like Mark's work referred to by Papias, is based upon Peter's discourse. This internal evidence, if it does not actually prove the traditional view regarding the Petrine origin of the Second Gospel, is altogether consistent with it and tends strongly to confirm it.
III. ORIGINAL LANGUAGE, VOCABULARY, AND STYLE
It has always been the common opinion that the Second Gospel was written in Greek, and there is no solid reason to doubt the correctness of this view. We learn from Juvenal (Sat., III, 60 sq.; VI, 187 sqq.) and Martial (Epig., XIV, 58) that Greek was very widely spoken at Rome in the first century. Various influences were at work to spread the language in the capital of the Empire. "Indeed, there was a double tendency which embraced at once classes at both ends of the social scale. On the one hand among slaves and the trading classes there were swarms of Greek and Greek-speaking Orientals. On the other hand in the higher ranks it was the fashion to speak Greek; children were taught it by Greek nurses; and in after life the use of it was carried to the pitch of affectation" (Sanday and Headlam, "Romans", p. lii). We know, too, that it was in Greek St. Paul wrote to the Romans, and from Rome St. Clement wrote to the Church of Corinth in the same language. It is true that some cursive Greek manuscripts of the tenth century or later speak of the Second Gospel as written in Latin (egrathe Romaisti en Rome, but scant and late evidence like this, which is probably only a deduction from the fact that the Gospel was written at Rome, can be allowed on weight. Equally improbable seems the view of Blass (Philol. of the Gosp., 196 sqq.) that the Gospel was originally written in Aramaic. The arguments advanced by Blass (cf. also Allen in "Expositor", 6th series, I, 436 sqq.) merely show at most that Mark may have thought in Aramaic; and naturally his simple, colloquial Greek discloses much of the native Aramaic tinge. Blass indeed urges that the various readings in the manuscripts of Mark, and the variations in Patristic quotations from the Gospel, are relics of different translations of an Aramaic original, but the instances he adduces in support of this are quite inconclusive. An Aramaic original is absolutely incompatible with the testimony of Papias, who evidently contrasts the work of Peter's interpreter with the Aramaic work of Matthew. It is incompatible, too, with the testimony of all the other Fathers, who represent the Gospel as written by Peter's interpreter for the Christians of Rome.
The vocabulary of the Second Gospel embraces 1330 distinct words, of which 60 are proper names. Eighty words, exclusive of proper names, are not found elsewhere in the New Testament; this, however, is a small number in comparison with more than 250 peculiar words found in the Gospel of St. Luke. Of St. Mark's words, 150 are shared only by the other two Synoptists; 15 are shared only by St. John (Gospel); and 12 others by one or other of the Synoptists and St. John. Though the words found but once in the New Testament (apax legomena) are not relatively numerous in the Second Gospel, they are often remarkable; we meet with words rare in later Greek such as (eiten, paidiothen, with colloquialisms like (kenturion, xestes, spekoulator), and with transliterations such as korban, taleitha koum, ephphatha, rabbounei (cf. Swete, op. cit., p. xlvii). Of the words peculiar to St. Mark about one-fourth are non-classical, while among those peculiar to St. Matthew or to St. Luke the proportion of non-classical words is only about one-seventh (cf. Hawkins, "Hor. Synopt.", 171). On the whole, the vocabulary of the Second Gospel points to the writer as a foreigner who was well acquainted with colloquial Greek, but a comparative stranger to the literary use of the language.
St. Mark's style is clear, direct, terse, and picturesque, if at times a little harsh. He makes very frequent use of participles, is fond of the historical present, of direct narration, of double negatives, of the copious use of adverbs to define and emphasize his expressions. He varies his tenses very freely, sometimes to bring out different shades of meaning (vii, 35; xv, 44), sometimes apparently to give life to a dialogue (ix, 34; xi, 27). The style is often most compressed, a great deal being conveyed in very few words (i, 13, 27; xii, 38-40), yet at other times adverbs and synonyms and even repetitions are used to heighten the impression and lend colour to the picture. Clauses are generally strung together in the simplest way by kai; de is not used half as frequently as in Matthew or Luke; while oun occurs only five times in the entire Gospel. Latinisms are met with more frequently than in the other Gospels, but this does not prove that Mark wrote in Latin or even understood the language. It proves merely that he was familiar with the common Greek of the Roman Empire, which freely adopted Latin words and, to some extent, Latin phraseology (cf. Blass, "Philol. of the Gosp.", 211 sq.), Indeed such familiarity with what we may call Roman Greek strongly confirms the traditional view that Mark was an "interpreter" who spent some time at Rome.
IV. STATE OF TEXT AND INTEGRITY
The text of the Second Gospel, as indeed of all the Gospels, is excellently attested. It is contained in all the primary unical manuscripts, C, however, not having the text complete, in all the more important later unicals, in the great mass of cursives; in all the ancient versions: Latin (both Vet. It., in its best manuscripts, and Vulg.), Syriac (Pesh., Curet., Sin., Harcl., Palest.), Coptic (Memph. and Theb.), Armenian, Gothic, and Ethiopic; and it is largely attested by Patristic quotations. Some textual problems, however, still remain, e.g. whether Gerasenon or Gergesenon is to be read in v, 1, eporei or epoiei in vi, 20, and whether the difficult autou, attested by B, Aleph, A, L, or autes is to be read in vi, 20. But the great textual problem of the Gospel concerns the genuineness of the last twelve verses. Three conclusions of the Gospel are known: the long conclusion, as in our Bibles, containing verses 9-20, the short one ending with verse 8 (ephoboumto gar), and an intermediate form which (with some slight variations) runs as follows: "And they immediately made known all that had been commanded to those about Peter. And after this, Jesus Himself appeared to them, and through them sent forth from East to West the holy and incorruptible proclamation of the eternal salvation." Now this third form may be dismissed at once. Four unical manuscripts, dating from the seventh to the ninth century, give it, indeed, after xvi, 9, but each of them also makes reference to the longer ending as an alternative (for particulars cf. Swete, op. cit., pp. cv-cvii). It stands also in the margin of the cursive Manuscript 274, in the margin of the Harclean Syriac and of two manuscripts of the Memphitic version; and in a few manuscripts of the Ethiopic it stands between verse 8 and the ordinary conclusion. Only one authority, the Old Latin k, gives it alone (in a very corrupt rendering), without any reference to the longer form. Such evidence, especially when compared with that for the other two endings, can have no weight, and in fact, no scholar regards this intermediate conclusion as having any titles to acceptance.
We may pass on, then, to consider how the case stands between the long conclusion and the short, i.e. between accepting xvi, 9-20, as a genuine portion of the original Gospel, or making the original end with xvi, 8. In favour of the short ending Eusebius ("Quaest. ad Marin.") is appealed to as saying that an apologist might get rid of any difficulty arising from a comparison of Matt. xxviii, 1, with Mark, xvi, 9, in regard to the hour of Christ's Resurrection, by pointing out that the passage in Mark beginning with verse 9 is not contained in all the manuscripts of the Gospel. The historian then goes on himself to say that in nearly all the manuscripts of Mark, at least, in the accurate ones (schedon en apasi tois antigraphois . . . ta goun akribe, the Gospel ends with xvi, 8. It is true, Eusebius gives a second reply which the apologist might make, and which supposes the genuineness of the disputed passage, and he says that this latter reply might be made by one "who did not dare to set aside anything whatever that was found in any way in the Gospel writing". But the whole passage shows clearly enough that Eusebius was inclined to reject everything after xvi, 8. It is commonly held, too, that he did not apply his canons to the disputed verses, thereby showing clearly that he did not regard them as a portion of the original text (see, however, Scriv., "Introd.", II, 1894, 339). St. Jerome also says in one place ("Ad. Hedib.") that the passage was wanting in nearly all Greek manuscripts (omnibus Græciæ libris poene hoc capitulum in fine non habentibus), but he quotes it elsewhere ("Comment. on Matt."; "Ad Hedib."), and, as we know, he incorporated it in the Vulgate. It is quite clear that the whole passage, where Jerome makes the statement about the disputed verses being absent from Greek manuscripts, is borrowed almost verbatim from Eusebius, and it may be doubted whether his statement really adds any independent weight to the statement of Eusebius. It seems most likely also that Victor of Antioch, the first commentator of the Second Gospel, regarded xvi, 8, as the conclusion. If we add to this that the Gospel ends with xvi, 8, in the two oldest Greek manuscripts, B and Aleph, in the Sin. Syriac and in a few Ethiopic manuscripts, and that the cursive Manuscript 22 and some Armenian manuscripts indicate doubt as to whether the true ending is at verse 8 or verse 20, we have mentioned all the evidence that can be adduced in favour of the short conclusion. The external evidence in favour of the long, or ordinary, conclusion is exceedingly strong. The passage stands in all the great unicals except B and Aleph--in A, C, (D), E, F, G, H, K, M, (N), S, U, V, X, Gamma, Delta, (Pi, Sigma), Omega, Beth--in all the cursives, in all the Latin manuscripts (O.L. and Vulg.) except k, in all the Syriac versions except the Sinaitic (in the Pesh., Curet., Harcl., Palest.), in the Coptic, Gothic, and most manuscripts of the Armenian. It is cited or alluded to, in the fourth century, by Aphraates, the Syriac Table of Canons, Macarius Magnes, Didymus, the Syriac Acts of the Apostles, Leontius, Pseudo-Ephraem, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Augustine, and Chrysostom; in the third century, by Hippolytus, Vincentius, the "Acts of Pilate", the "Apostolic Constitutions", and probably by Celsus; in the second, by Irenæus most explicitly as the end of Mark's Gospel ("In fine autem evangelii ait Marcus et quidem dominus Jesus", etc.--Mark xvi, 19), by Tatian in the "Diatessaron", and most probably by Justin ("Apol. I", 45) and Hermas (Pastor, IX, xxv, 2). Moreover, in the fourth century certainly, and probably in the third, the passage was used in the Liturgy of the Greek Church, sufficient evidence that no doubt whatever was entertained as to its genuineness. Thus, if the authenticity of the passage were to be judged by external evidence alone, there could hardly be any doubt about it.
Much has been made of the silence of some third and fourth century Father, their silence being interpreted to mean that they either did not know the passage or rejected it. Thus Tertullian, SS. Cyprian, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Cyril of Alexandria are appealed to. In the case of Tertullian and Cyprian there is room for some doubt, as they might naturally enough to be expected to have quoted or alluded to Mark, xvi, 16, if they received it; but the passage can hardly have been unknown to Athanasius (298-373), since it was received by Didymus (309-394), his contemporary in Alexandria (P.G., XXXIX, 687), nor to Basil, seeing it was received by his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (P.G., XLVI, 652), nor to Gregory of Nazianzus, since it was known to his younger brother Cæsarius (P.G., XXXVIII, 1178); and as to Cyril of Alexandria, he actually quotes it from Nestorius (P.G., LXXVI, 85). The only serious difficulties are created by its omission in B and Aleph and by the statements of Eusebius and Jerome. But Tischendorf proved to demonstration (Proleg., p. xx, 1 sqq.) that the two famous manuscripts are not here two independent witnesses, because the scribe of B copies the leaf in Aleph on which our passage stands. Moreover, in both manuscripts, the scribe, though concluding with verse 8, betrays knowledge that something more followed either in his archetype or in other manuscripts, for in B, contrary to his custom, he leaves more than a column vacant after verse 8, and in Aleph verse 8 is followed by an elaborate arabesque, such as is met with nowhere else in the whole manuscript, showing that the scribe was aware of the existence of some conclusion which he meant deliberately to exclude (cf. Cornely, "Introd.", iii, 96-99; Salmon, "Introd.", 144-48). Thus both manuscripts bear witness to the existence of a conclusion following after verse 8, which they omit. Whether B and Aleph are two of the fifty manuscripts which Constantine commissioned Eusebius to have copies for his new capital we cannot be sure; but at all events they were written at a time when the authority of Eusebius was paramount in Biblical criticism, and probably their authority is but the authority of Eusebius. The real difficulty, therefore, against the passage, from external evidence, is reduced to what Eusebius and St. Jerome say about its omission in so many Greek manuscripts, and these, as Eusebius says, the accurate ones. But whatever be the explanation of this omission, it must be remembered that, as we have seen above, the disputed verses were widely known and received long before the time of Eusebius. Dean Burgon, while contending for the genuineness of the verses, suggested that the omission might have come about as follows. One of the ancient church lessons ended with Mark, xvi, 8, and Burgon suggested that the telos, which would stand at the end of such lesson, may have misled some scribe who had before him a copy of the Four Gospels in which Mark stood last, and from which the last leaf, containing the disputed verses, was missing. Given one such defective copy, and supposing it fell into the hands of ignorant scribes, the error might easily be spread. Others have suggested that the omission is probably to be traced to Alexandria. That Church ended the Lenten fast and commenced the celebration of Easter at midnight, contrary to the custom of most Churches, which waited for cock-crow (cf. Dionysius of Alexandria in P.G., X, 1272 sq.). Now Mark, xvi, 9: "But he rising early", etc., might easily be taken to favour the practice of the other Churches, and it is suggested that the Alexandrians may have omitted verse 9 and what follows from their lectionaries, and from these the omission might pass on into manuscripts of the Gospel. Whether there be any force in these suggestions, they point at any rate to ways in which it was possible that the passage, though genuine, should have been absent from a number of manuscripts in the time of Eusebius; while, on the other and, if the verses were not written by St. Mar, it is extremely hard to understand how they could have been so widely received in the second century as to be accepted by Tatian and Irenæus, and probably by Justin and Hermas, and find a place in the Old Latin and Syriac Versions.
When we turn to the internal evidence, the number, and still more the character, of the peculiarities is certainly striking. The following words or phrases occur nowhere else in the Gospel: prote sabbaton (v. 9), not found again in the New Testament, instead of te[s] mia[s] [ton] sabbaton (v. 2), ekeinos used absolutely (10, 11, 20), poreuomai (10, 12, 15), theaomai (11, 14), apisteo (11, 16), meta tauta and eteros (12), parakoloutheo and en to onomati (17), ho kurios (19, 20), pantachou, sunergeo, bebaioo, epakoloutheo (20). Instead of the usual connexion by kai and an occasional de, we have meta de tauta (12), husteron [de] (14), ho men oun (19), ekeinoi de (20). Then it is urged that the subject of verse 9 has not been mentioned immediately before; that Mary Magdalen seems now to be introduced for the first time, though in fact she has been mentioned three times in the preceding sixteen verses; that no reference is made to an appearance of the Lord in Galilee, though this was to be expected in view of the message of verse 7. Comparatively little importance attached to the last three points, for the subject of verse 9 is sufficiently obvious from the context; the reference to Magdalen as the woman out of whom Christ had cast seven devils is explicable here, as showing the loving mercy of the Lord to one who before had been so wretched; and the mention of an appearance in Galilee was hardly necessary. the important thing being to prove, as this passage does, that Christ was really risen from the dead, and that His Apostles, almost against their wills, were forced to believe the fact. But, even when this is said, the cumulative force of the evidence against the Marcan origin of the passage is considerable. Some explanation indeed can be offered of nearly every point (cf. Knabenbauer, "Comm. in Marc.", 445-47), but it is the fact that in the short space of twelve verse so many points require explanation that constitutes the strength of the evidence. There is nothing strange about the use, in a passage like this, of many words rare with he author. Only in the last character is apisteo used by St. Luke also (Luke 24:11, 41), eteros is used only once in St. John's Gospel (xix, 37), and parakoloutheo is used only once by St. Luke (i, 3). Besides, in other passages St. Mark uses many words that are not found in the Gospel outside the particular passage. In the ten verses, Mark, iv, 20-29, the writer has found fourteen words (fifteen, if phanerousthai of xvi, 12, be not Marcan) which occur nowhere else in the Gospel. But, as was said, it is the combination of so many peculiar features, not only of vocabulary, but of matter and construction, that leaves room for doubt as to the Marcan authorship of the verses.
In weighing the internal evidence, however, account must be take of the improbability of the Evangelist's concluding with verse 8. Apart from the unlikelihood of his ending with the participle gar, he could never deliberately close his account of the "good news" (i, 1) with the note of terror ascribed in xvi, 8, to some of Christ's followers. Nor could an Evangelist, especially a disciple of St. Peter, willingly conclude his Gospel without mentioning some appearance of the risen Lord (Acts 1:22; 10:37-41). If, then, Mark concluded with verse 8, it must have been because he died or was interrupted before he could write more. But tradition points to his living on after the Gospel was completed, since it represents him as bringing the work with him to Egypt or as handing it over to the Roman Christians who had asked for it. Nor is it easy to understand how, if he lived on, he could have been so interrupted as to be effectually prevented from adding, sooner or later, even a short conclusion. Not many minutes would have been needed to write such a passage as xvi, 9-20, and even if it was his desire, as Zahn without reason suggests (Introd., II, 479), to add some considerable portions to the work, it is still inconceivable how he could have either circulated it himself or allowed his friends to circulate it without providing it with at least a temporary and provisional conclusion. In every hypothesis, then, xvi, 8, seems an impossible ending, and we are forced to conclude either that the true ending is lost or that we have it in the disputed verses. Now, it is not easy to see how it could have been lost. Zahn affirms that it has never been established nor made probable that even a single complete sentence of the New Testament has disappeared altogether from the text transmitted by the Church (Introd., II, 477). In the present case, if the true ending were lost during Mark's lifetime, the question at once occurs: Why did he not replace it? And it is difficult to understand how it could have been lost after his death, for before then, unless he died within a few days from the completion of the Gospel, it must have been copied, and it is most unlikely that the same verses could have disappeared from several copies.
It will be seen from this survey of the question that there is no justification for the confident statement of Zahn that "It may be regarded as one of the most certain of critical conclusions, that the words ephobounto gar, xvi, 8, are the last words in the book which were written by the author himself" (Introd., II, 467). Whatever be the fact, it is not at all certain that Mark did not write the disputed verses. It may be that he did not; that they are from the pen of some other inspired writer, and were appended to the Gospel in the first century or the beginning of the second. An Armenian manuscript, written in A.D. 986, ascribes them to a presbyter named Ariston, who may be the same with the presbyter Aristion, mentioned by Papias as a contemporary of St. John in Asia. Catholics are not bound to hold that the verses were written by St. Mark. But they are canonical Scripture, for the Council of Trent (Sess. IV), in defining that all the parts of the Sacred Books are to be received as sacred and canonical, had especially in view the disputed parts of the Gospels, of which this conclusion of Mark is one (cf. Theiner, "Acta gen. Conc. Trid.", I, 71 sq.). Hence, whoever wrote the verses, they are inspired, and must be received as such by every Catholic.
V. PLACE AND DATE OF COMPOSITION
It is certain that the Gospel was written at Rome. St. Chrysostom indeed speaks of Egypt as the place of composition ("Hom. I. on Matt.", 3), but he probably misunderstood Eusebius, who says that Mark was sent to Egypt and preached there the Gospel which he had written ("Hist. Eccl.", II, xvi). Some few modern scholars have adopted the suggestion of Richard Simon ("Hist. crit. du Texte du N.T.", 1689, 107) that the Evangelist may have published both a Roman and an Egyptian edition of the Gospel. But this view is sufficiently refuted by the silence of the Alexandrian Fathers. Other opinions, such as that the Gospel was written in Asia Minor or at Syrian Antioch, are not deserving of any consideration.
The date of the Gospel is uncertain. The external evidence is not decisive, and the internal does not assist very much. St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian, and St. Jerome signify that it was written before St. Peter's death. The subscription of many of the later unical and cursive manuscripts states that it was written in the tenth or twelfth year after the Ascension (A.D. 38-40). The "Paschal Chronicle" assigns it to A.D. 40, and the "Chronicle" of Eusebius to the third year of Claudius (A.D. 43). Possibly these early dates may be only a deduction from the tradition that Peter came to Rome in the second year of Claudius, A.D. 42 (cf. Euseb., "Hist. Eccl.", II, xiv; Jer., "De Vir. Ill.", i). St. Irenæus, on the other hand, seems to place the composition of the Gospel after the death of Peter and Paul (meta de ten touton exodon--"Adv. Hær.", III, i). Papias, too, asserting that Mark wrote according to his recollection of Peter's discourses, has been taken to imply that Peter was dead. This, however, does not necessarily follow from the words of Papias, for Peter might have been absent from Rome. Besides, Clement of Alexandria (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xiv) seems to say that Peter was alive and in Rome at the time Mark wrote, though he gave the Evangelist no help in his work. There is left, therefore, the testimony of St. Irenæus against that of all the other early witnesses; and it is an interesting fact that most present-day Rationalist and Protestant scholars prefer to follow Irenæus and accept the later date for Mark's Gospel, though they reject almost unanimously the saint's testimony, given in the same context and supported by all antiquity, in favour of the priority of Matthew's Gospel to Mark's. Various attempts have been made to explain the passage in Irenæus so as to bring him into agreement with the other early authorities (see, e.g. Cornely, "Introd.", iii, 76-78; Patrizi, "De Evang.", I, 38), but to the present writer they appear unsuccessful if the existing text must be regarded as correct. It seems much more reasonable, however, to believe that Irenæus was mistaken than that all the other authorities are in error, and hence the external evidence would show that Mark wrote before Peter's death (A.D. 64 or 67).
From internal evidence we can conclude that the Gospel was written before A.D. 70, for there is no allusion to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, such as might naturally be expected in view of the prediction in xiii, 2, if that event had already taken place. On the other hand, if xvi, 20: "But they going forth preached everywhere", be from St. Mark's pen, the Gospel cannot well have been written before the close of the first Apostolic journey of St. Paul (A.D. 49 or 50), for it is seen from Acts, xiv, 26; xv, 3, that only then had the conversion of the Gentiles begun on any large scale. Of course it is possible that previous to this the Apostles had preached far and wide among the dispersed Jews, but, on the whole, it seems more probable that the last verse of the Gospel, occurring in a work intended for European readers, cannot have been written before St. Paul's arrival in Europe (A.D. 50-51). Taking the external and internal evidence together, we may conclude that the date of the Gospel probably lies somewhere between A.D. 50 and 67.
VI. DESTINATION AND PURPOSE
Tradition represents the Gospel as written primarily for Roman Christians (see above, II), and internal evidence, if it does not quite prove the truth of this view, is altogether in accord with it. The language and customs of the Jews are supposed to be unknown to at least some of the readers. Hence terms like Boanerges (iii, 17), korban (vii, 11), ephphatha (vii, 34) are interpreted; Jewish customs are explained to illustrate the narrative (vii, 3-4; xiv, 12); the situation of the Mount of Olives in relation to the Temple is pointed out (xiii, 3); the genealogy of Christ is omitted; and the Old Testament is quoted only once (i, 2-3; xv, 28, is omitted by B, Aleph, A, C, D, X). Moreover, the evidence, as far as it goes, points to Roman readers. Pilate and his office are supposed to be known (15:1--cf. Matthew 27:2; Luke 3:1); other coins are reduced to their value in Roman money (xii, 42); Simon of Cyrene is said to be the father of Alexander and Rufus (xv, 21), a fact of no importance in itself, but mentioned probably because Rufus was known to the Roman Christians (Romans 16:13); finally, Latinisms, or uses of vulgar Greek, such as must have been particularly common in a cosmopolitan city like Rome, occur more frequently than in the other Gospels (v, 9, 15; vi, 37; xv, 39, 44; etc.).
The Second Gospel has no such statement of its purpose as is found in the Third and Fourth (Luke 1:1-3; John 20:31). The Tübingen critics long regarded it as a "Tendency" writing, composed for the purpose of mediating between and reconciling the Petrine and Pauline parties in the early Church. Other Rationalists have seen in it an attempt to allay the disappointment of Christians at the delay of Christ's Coming, and have held that its object was to set forth the Lord's earthly life in such a manner as to show that apart from His glorious return He had sufficiently attested the Messianic character of His mission. But there is no need to have recourse to Rationalists to learn the purpose of the Gospel. The Fathers witness that it was written to put into permanent form for the Roman Church the discourses of St. Peter, nor is there reason to doubt this. And the Gospel itself shows clearly enough that Mark meant, by the selection he made from Peter's discourses, to prove to the Roman Christians, and still more perhaps to those who might think of becoming Christians, that Jesus was the Almighty Son of God. To this end, instead of quoting prophecy, as Matthew does to prove that Jesus was the Messias, he sets forth in graphic language Christ's power over all nature, as evidenced by His miracles. The dominant note of the whole Gospel is sounded in the very first verse: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God" (the words "Son of God" are removed from the text by Westcott and Hort, but quite improperly--cf. Knabenb., "Comm. in Marc.", 23), and the Evangelist's main purpose throughout seems to be to prove the truth of this title and of the centurion's verdict: "Indeed this man was (the) son of God" (xv, 39).
VII. RELATION TO MATTHEW AND LUKE
The three Synoptic Gospels cover to a large extent the same ground. Mark, however, has nothing corresponding to the first two chapters of Matthew or the first two of Luke, very little to represent most of the long discourses of Christ in Matthew, and perhaps nothing quite parallel to the long section in Luke, ix, 51-xviii, 14. On the other hand, he has very little that is not found in either or both of the other two Synoptists, the amount of matter that is peculiar to the Second Gospel, if it were all put together, amounting only to less than sixty verses. In the arrangement of the common matter the three Gospels differ very considerably up to the point where Herod Antipas is said to have heard of the fame of Jesus (Matthew 13:58; Mark 4:13; Luke 9:6). From this point onward the order of events is practically the same in all three, except that Matthew (xxvi, 10) seems to say that Jesus cleansed the Temple the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and cursed the fig tree only on the following day, while Mark assigns both events to the following day, and places the cursing of the fig tree before the cleansing of the Temple; and while Matthew seems to say that the effect of the curse and the astonishment of the disciples thereat followed immediately. Mark says that it was only on the following day the disciples saw that the tree was withered from the roots (Matthew 21:12-20; Mark 11:11-21). It is often said, too, that Luke departs from Mark's arrangement in placing the disclosure of the traitor after the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, but it, as seems certain, the traitor was referred to many times during the Supper, this difference may be more apparent than real (Mark 14:18-24; Luke 22:19-23). And not only is there this considerable agreement as to subject-matter and arrangement, but in many passages, some of considerable length, there is such coincidence of words and phrases that it is impossible to believe the accounts to be wholly independent. On the other hand, side by side with this coincidence, there is strange and frequently recurring divergence. "Let any passage common to the three Synoptists be put to the test. The phenomena presented will be much as follows: first, perhaps, we shall have three, five, or more words identical; then as many wholly distinct; then two clauses or more expressed in the same words, but differing in order; then a clause contained in one or two, and not in the third; then several words identical; then a clause or two not only wholly distinct, but apparently inconsistent; and so forth; with recurrences of the same arbitrary and anomalous alterations, coincidences, and transpositions.
The question then arises, how are we to explain this very remarkable relation of the three Gospels to each other, and, in particular, for our present purpose, how are we to explain the relation of Mark of the other two? For a full discussion of this most important literary problem see SYNOPTICS. It can barely be touched here, but cannot be wholly passed over in silence. At the outset may be put aside, in the writer's opinion, the theory of the common dependence of the three Gospels upon oral tradition, for, except in a very modified form, it is incapable by itself alone of explaining all the phenomena to be accounted for. It seems impossible that an oral tradition could account for the extraordinary similarity between, e.g. Mark, ii, 10-11, and its parallels. Literary dependence or connexion of some kind must be admitted, and the questions is, what is the nature of that dependence or connexion? Does Mark depend upon Matthew, or upon both Matthew and Luke, or was it prior to and utilized in both, or are all three, perhaps, connected through their common dependence upon earlier documents or through a combination of some of these causes? In reply, it is to be noted, in the first place, that all early tradition represents St. Matthew's Gospel as the first written; and this must be understood of our present Matthew, for Eusebius, with the work of Papias before him, had no doubt whatever that it was our present Matthew which Papias held to have been written in Hebrew (Aramaic). The order of the Gospels, according to the Fathers and early writers who refer to the subject, was Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Clement of Alexandria is alone in signifying that Luke wrote before Mark (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl.", VI, xiv, in P.G., XX, 552), and not a single ancient writer held that Mark wrote before Matthew. St. Augustine, assuming the priority of Matthew, attempted to account for the relations of the first two Gospels by holding that the second is a compendium of the first (Matthæum secutus tanquam pedisequus et breviator--"De Consens. Evang.", I, ii). But, as soon as the serious study of the Synoptic Problem began, it was seen that this view could not explain the facts, and it was abandoned. The dependence of Mark's Gospel upon Matthew's however, though not after the manner of a compendium, is still strenuously advocated. Zahn holds that the Second Gospel is dependent on the Aramaic Matthew as well as upon Peter's discourses for its matter, and, to some extent, for its order; and that the Greek Matthew is in turn dependent upon Mark for its phraseology. So, too, Besler ("Einleitung in das N.T.", 1889) and Bonaccorsi ("I tre primi Vangeli", 1904). It will be seen at once that this view is in accordance with tradition in regard to the priority of Matthew, and it also explains the similarities in the first two Gospels. Its chief weakness seems to the present writer to lie in its inability to explain some of Mark's omissions. It is very hard to see, for instance, why, if St. Mark had the First Gospel before him, he omitted all reference to the cure of the centurion's servant (Matthew 8:5-13). This miracle, by reason of its relation to a Roman officer, ought to have had very special interest for Roman readers, and it is extremely difficult to account for its omission by St. Mark, if he had St. Matthew's Gospel before him. Again, St. Matthew relates that when, after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus had come to the disciples, walking on water, those who were in the boat "came and adored him, saying: Indeed Thou art [the] Son of God" (Matthew 14:33). Now, Mark's report of the incident is: "And he went up to them into the ship, and the wind ceased; and they were exceedingly amazed within themselves: for they understood not concerning the loaves, but their heart was blinded" (Mark 6:51-52). Thus Mark makes no reference to the adoration, nor to the striking confession of the disciples that Jesus was [the] Son of God. How can we account for this, if he had Matthew's report before him? Once more, Matthew relates that, on the occasion of Peter's confession of Christ near Cæsarea Philippi, Peter said: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). But Mark's report of this magnificent confession is merely: "Peter answering said to him: Thou art the Christ" (Mark 8:29). It appears impossible to account for the omission here of the words: "the Son of the living God", words which make the special glory of this confession, if Mark made use of the First Gospel. It would seem, therefore, that the view which makes the Second Gospel dependent upon the First is not satisfactory. The prevailing view at the present among Protestant scholars and not a few Catholics, in America and England as well as in Germany, is that St. Mark's Gospel is prior to St. Matthew's, and used in it as well as in St. Luke's. Thus Gigot writes: "The Gospel according to Mark was written first and utilized by the other two Synoptics" ("The New York Review", Sept.-Dec., 1907). So too Bacon, Yale Divinity School: "It appears that the narrative material of Matthew is simply that of Mark transferred to form a framework for the masses of discourse" . . . "We find here positive proof of dependence by our Matthew on our Mark" (Introd. to the N.T., 1905, 186-89). Allen, art. "Matthew" in "The International Critical Commentary", speaks of the priority of the Second to the other two Synoptic Gospels as "the one solid result of literary criticism"; and Burkitt in "The Gospel History" (1907), 37, writes: "We are bound to conclude that Mark contains the whole of a document which Matthew and Luke have independently used, and, further, that Mark contains very little else beside. This conclusion is extremely important; it is the one solid contribution made by the scholarship of the nineteenth century towards the solution of the Synoptic Problem". See also Hawkins, "Horæ Synopt." (1899), 122; Salmond in Hast., "Dict. of the Bible", III, 261; Plummer, "Gospel of Matthew" (1909), p. xi; Stanton, "The Gospels as Historical Documents" (1909), 30-37; Jackson, "Cambridge Biblical Essays" (1909), 455.
Yet, notwithstanding the wide acceptance this theory has gained, it may be doubted whether it can enable us to explain all the phenomena of the first two, Gospels; Orr, "The Resurrection of Jesus" (1908), 61-72, does not think it can, nor does Zahn (Introd., II, 601-17), some of whose arguments against it have not yet been grappled with. It offers indeed a ready explanation of the similarities in language between the two Gospels, but so does Zahn's theory of the dependence of the Greek Matthew upon Mark. It helps also to explain the order of the two Gospels, and to account for certain omissions in Matthew (cf. especially Allen, op. cit., pp. xxxi-xxxiv). But it leaves many differences unexplained. Why, for instance, should Matthew, if he had Mark's Gospel before him, omit reference to the singular fact recorded by Mark that Christ in the desert was with the wild beasts (Mark 1:13)? Why should he omit (Matthew 4:17) from Mark's summary of Christ's first preaching, "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mark 1:15), the very important words "Believe in the Gospel", which were so appropriate to the occasion? Why should he (iv, 21) omit oligon and tautologically add "two brothers" to Mark, i, 19, or fail (iv, 22) to mention "the hired servants" with whom the sons of Zebedee left their father in the boat (Mark 1:20), especially since, as Zahn remarks, the mention would have helped to save their desertion of their father from the appearance of being unfilial. Why, again, should he omit viii, 28-34, the curious fact that though the Gadarene demoniac after his cure wished to follow in the company of Jesus, he was not permitted, but told to go home and announce to his friends what great things the Lord had done for him (Mark 5:18-19). How is it that Matthew has no reference to the widow's mite and Christ's touching comment thereon (Mark 12:41-44) nor to the number of the swine (Matthew 8:3-34; Mark 5:13), nor to the disagreement of the witnesses who appeared against Christ? (Matthew 26:60; Mark 14:56, 59).
It is surely strange too, if he had Mark's Gospel before him, that he should seem to represent so differently the time of the women's visit to the tomb, the situation of the angel that appeared to them and the purpose for which they came (Matthew 28:1-6; Mark 16:1-6). Again, even when we admit that Matthew is grouping in chapters viii-ix, it is hard to see any satisfactory reason why, if he had Mark's Gospel before him, he should so deal with the Marcan account of Christ's earliest recorded miracles as not only to omit the first altogether, but to make the third and second with Mark respectively the first and third with himself (Matthew 8:1-15; Mark 1:23-31; 40-45). Allen indeed. (op. cit., p. xv-xvi) attempts an explanation of this strange omission and inversion in the eighth chapter of Matthew, but it is not convincing. For other difficulties see Zahn, "Introd.", II, 616-617. On the whole, then, it appears premature to regard this theory of the priority of Mark as finally established, especially when we bear in mind that it is opposed to all the early evidence of the priority of Matthew. The question is still sub judice, and notwithstanding the immense labour bestowed upon it, further patient inquiry is needed.
It may possibly be that the solution of the peculiar relations between Matthew and Mark is to be found neither in the dependence of both upon oral tradition nor in the dependence of either upon the other, but in the use by one or both of previous documents. If we may suppose, and Luke, i, 1, gives ground for the supposition, that Matthew had access to a document written probably in Aramaic, embodying the Petrine tradition, he may have combined with it one or more other documents, containing chiefly Christ's discourses, to form his Aramaic Gospel. But the same Petrine tradition, perhaps in a Greek form, might have been known to Mark also; for the early authorities hardly oblige us to hold that he made no use of pre-existing documents. Papias (apud Eus., "H.E." III, 39; P.G. XX, 297) speaks of him as writing down some things as he remembered them, and if Clement of Alexandria (ap. Eus., "H.E." VI, 14; P.G. XX, 552) represents the Romans as thinking that he could write everything from memory, it does not at all follow that he did. Let us suppose, then, that Matthew embodied the Petrine tradition in his Aramaic Gospel, and that Mark afterwards used it or rather a Greek form of it somewhat different, combining with it reminiscences of Peter's discourses. If, in addition to this, we suppose the Greek translator of Matthew to have made use of our present Mark for his phraseology, we have quite a possible means of accounting for the similarities and dissimilarities of our first two Gospels, and we are free at the same time to accept the traditional view in regard to the priority of Matthew. Luke might then be held to have used our present Mark or perhaps an earlier form of the Petrine tradition, combining with it a source or sources which it does not belong to the present article to consider.
Of course the existence of early documents, such as are here supposed, cannot be directly proved, unless the spade should chance to disclose them; but it is not at all improbable. It is reasonable to think that not many years elapsed after Christ's death before attempts were made to put into written form some account of His words and works. Luke tells us that many such attempts had been made before he wrote; and it needs no effort to believe that the Petrine form of the Gospel had been committed to writing before the Apostles separated; that it disappeared afterwards would not be wonderful, seeing that it was embodied in the Gospels. It is hardly necessary to add that the use of earlier documents by an inspired writer is quite intelligible. Grace does not dispense with nature nor, as a rule, inspiration with ordinary, natural means. The writer of the Second Book of Machabees states distinctly that his book is an abridgment of an earlier work (2 Maccabees 2:24, 27), and St. Luke tells us that before undertaking to write his Gospel he had inquired diligently into all things from the beginning (Luke 1:1).
There is no reason, therefore, why Catholics should be timid about admitting, if necessary, the dependence of the inspired evangelists upon earlier documents, and, in view of the difficulties against the other theories, it is well to bear this possibility in mind in attempting to account for the puzzling relations of Mark to the other two synoptists.
Publication information Written by J. MacRory. Transcribed by Ernie Stefanik. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Bibliography
See the article GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE for the decision of the Biblical Commission (26 January, 1913).