Doctor Baugh

One of the more passive characters in the text, Doc Baugh is a further addition to the system of “mendacity.” Instead of telling Big Daddy about his terminal cancer, the doctor instead opts to comfort him with lie of a “spastic colon” diagnosis. While he is less insincere than Reverend Tooker, it seems his contributions to the play are just as deceptive and corrosive. He explains that many people “don’t admit they’re having the pain” in order to “sort of escape the fact of it” and yet he is a major perpetuating force for this self-deceit, providing Big Daddy with morphine rather than honesty. In many ways this makes Brick’s paranoia about truth understandable, as even a highly respected doctor fails to provide truth.