you like that, Baby?--Well, you've been doin' just about ev'rything in your power to bring it about, you've just been doin' ev'rything you can think of to aid and abet them in this scheme of theirs!

Maggie the Cat is a fighter, but she finds it difficult, nevertheless, to be happy because by her own admission, she is "consumed with envy and eaten up with longing" for the security that Big Daddy's wealth can bring her and Brick.

In their greedy desire for the estate, Gooper and Mae focus upon materialism as their goal. Mae has children in the effort to ingratiate herself with Big Daddy, who in truth finds her repulsive. Likewise, Gooper disgusts him, too, as he fails at pleasing his father and sires children in the hopes of ingratiating himself when he should be more genuine and caring instead of conspiring with his wife and vying against Brick in an immature fashion as though they are yet boys. For instance, when his mother asks Brick to get rid of his drink before they eat, Brick gulps it down and Gooper says, "Look at Brick put it down!" ridiculing him so as to gain favor for himself rather than demonstrating filial love. 

For Big Daddy, his financial success has distracted him from what is truly valuable in life, his family. Ida Pollitt has always loved him, but he ignores her, boasting hollowly when he is told by his doctor that he just has a spastic colon that he will drape a girl in mink and "hump her from hell to breakfast" rather than celebrating life with his family. Certainly, his wife Ida is, like Maggie, very lonely. As Maggie tells Brick, "Living with someone you love can be lonelier--than living entirely alone!" 

There is no doubt that the main divisions in the family are the result of the preoccupation with wealth and materialism because they are the cause of envy and "mendacity."