In a plantation house, a family celebrates the sixty-fifth birthday of Big Daddy. The mood is somber, despite the festivities, because a number of evils poison the gaiety: greed, sins of the past and desperate, clawing hopes for the future spar with one another as the knowledge that Big Daddy is dying slowly makes the rounds. The favorite son, Brick, collides in a alcoholic fog with his wife, Maggie. By evening's end, Maggie's ingenuity, fortitude and passion will set things right, and Brick's love for his father, never before expressed, will retrieve him from his destructive path and return him to Maggie's loving arms.