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The impact of angels in America
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“When MILLENNIUM APPROACHES, Part One of ANGELS IN AMERICA, opened on Broadway in 1993, Tony Kushner was hailed as the savior of serious American theater” (Gainor, Garner, and Puchner1459). When Kushner wrote Part One of this Gay Fantasia he brought together many themes and issues of the 1980s. Such themes and issues include AIDS, homosexuality, religion, and politics. As other plays a balance must be kept and so Kushner wrote this work with exact precision. With so many topics to discuss Kushner’s writing had to demonstrate a wide range of characters and their differentiating opinions to keep the balance. The sense of balance of this play is demonstrated by the similarities, oppositions, and connections of characters through the writing style.
Similarities between characters can strengthen their relationship and connect their reactions of events, even if the characters do not come together. For instance, Harper and Louis are similar in that they abandon their lovers (Borreca 2). Louis abandons Prior when the toll of Prior’s declining health and impending death becomes too great. Joe knows something too; as he leaves Harper alone going on long walks emotionally deserting her until she ultimately leaves Joe, coughing up blood. After they abandon their partners, Louis and Joe cling to one another therefore connecting them to each other (2). The ones left alone, Prior and Harper, are then connected in their loneliness and their hallucinations. They even share in each other’s hallucination/dream. This is where they confront each other about the other’s partner with information neither of them could have known in reality (Meisner 3). Consequently Harper, Prior, and Roy are all connected in their supernatural hallucinat...
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... 2009. 1459-463. Print.
Kushner, Tony. “Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches.” The Norton Anthology of Drama Volume Two The Nineteenth Century to the Present. 1st. 2. Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner JR., and Martin Puchner. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2009. 1465-525. Print.
All relative material comes from this primary source
Posnock, Ross. “Roy Cohn in America.” Raritan 13.3 (Winter 1994): 64-77. Rpt. in Drama Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
Meisner, Natalie. “Messing with the Idyllic: The Performance of Femininity in Kushner’s Angels in America.” Yale Journal of Criticism 16.1 (Spring 2003): 177-189. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 203. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.
In summation, the interconnection of people and events that one might ordinarily see as disconnected or unrelated is successfully applied in Angels of America. The use of dual roles, in correlation with dialogue and character interaction allow Kushner’s to interconnect four of the major characters established persona and communities, all the while fulfilling the requirements of other characters to further the play. Consequently, Kushner is able to expand or sustain, rather than renegotiate, his characters for the audience so that the messages, triumphs and struggles of one character may be evolved even while an actor is represented in another character.
Tony Kushner, in his play Angels in America, explores a multitude of issues pertaining to modern American society including, but not limited to, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Through his diverse character selection, he is able to compare and contrast the many varied experiences that Americans might face today. Through it all, the characters’ lives are all linked together through a common thread: progress, both personal and public. Kushner offers insight on this topic by allowing his characters to discuss what it means to make progress and allowing them to change in their own ways. Careful observation of certain patterns reveals that, in the scope of the play, progress is cyclical in that it follows a sequential process of rootlessness, desire, and sacrifice, which repeats itself.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Literature. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, xi-xxiv. Print.
In Tony Kushners to part play, Angels in America, readers are introduced to a closeted gay man, Joe Pitt and are exposed to his relationship with his Mormon mother, Hannah. An underlying conflict occurs when Hannah finds out her son is a homosexual; a problem which forces her to question her love and acceptance towards her son and her strong Mormon anti gay sentiments and beliefs. This conflict between mother and son helps Kushner illustrate the complexity of sexuality and the changing views of homosexuality.
“American Crisis.” The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill 2009. Print
increases, he realizes that in war there are no parts.In the book Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, we read about the
Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers, begins with the introduction of an African American 19-year-old boy who lives in Chicago. Recently he's joined the army and been assigned domestic work as he hoped for due to his bad leg and unreliable strength on it. Then, by accident of paperwork, he was eventually sent to Nam and put directly onto the field. He agreed to wait for his injury profile to catch up with him and that then he could return home. His mother at home is quite worried for him and also for the future of her other younger son Kenny. Life is hard and money is scarce with the absence of the family's father. In Nam, the elder son Perry undergoes many experiences that are permanently damaging to his mental physique and deal with the balance of life and death. As any Vietnam Story, me...
Gainor, J. Ellen., Stanton B. Garner, and Martin Puchner. The Norton Anthology of Drama, Shorter Edition. New York: W. W. Norton &, 2010. Print.
Nussbaum, Felicity. “Risky Business: Feminism Now and Then.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 26.1 (Spring 2007): 81-86. JSTOR. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
Works Cited “American Literature 1865-1914.” Baym 1271. Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Essay date 1935." Twentieth-Century Litirary Criticism 9. Ed. Dennis Poupond. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. 316-317
In conclusion, the famed twentieth century playwright Arthur Miller is a complete modernist. Throughout his many works, he uses modernist ideas of the worst of human nature to create very strong characters that establish and work in the roles he makes for them well. All of these points can be further exemplified by the literary criticism of Christopher Bigsby, Harold Clurman and anonymous who all help to show further the path of modernism that Miller undertook in the creation of his many landmark plays. Overall, Arthur Miller’s influence as a modernist playwright not only had an effect on the entire theatre industry but also much of the modernist literature of the entire twentieth century as well leaving a profound image of what modernism truly is on American culture.
Both parts of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America paint a painfully truthful picture of what gay men go through. In most cases, they suffer either inner anguish or public torment. Sometimes they must endure both. Being homosexual in America is a double-edged sword. If you publicly announce that you are gay, you suffer ridicule and are mocked by the ignorant of society; but if you keep your homosexuality a secret, you are condemned to personal turmoil. Kushner's work attempts to make America take a close look at itself and hopefully change its ways. The fear of public scrutiny forces many gay men into a life of denial and secrecy.