Summary Of Homosexuality In Kushner's 'Angels In America'

The concept of femininity and masculinity is mentioned many times throughout the essay to highlight it

The extent and degree of information and detail written in this article about each represented author and their contributing works can ultimately be seen as one of the articles main strengths. However, although this article gives a vast amount of information on the women’s opinions and beliefs the article at times seems disassembled and erratic. The flow of the article is somewhat hard to follow, and without an increased measure of concentration, the ability of the reader to comprehend and decipher whom the author is speaking of can be lost. Also, with the extensive amounts of information and detail that each female author contributes to the argument, readers are bombarded with data to interpret and distinguish upon. With the author of the article not decisively choosing the strongest points of argument from each author, the information becomes overwhelming and possibly confusing at times.

He argues in the book that the human mind makes a difference between men and women, but they cannot be judged because of their genders and mental and physical abilities. Thought the thoughts of males and females are entirely different because of internal biological differences society and culture play a part in the standards these genders should conform to fit in. Socialization to gender roles impacts the shaping of the male and female minds in society, and this Pinker did not emphasize. Gender is defined as the socially constructed behavior, roles, attributes and activities that our societies consider appropriate for women and men. The development process that shapes the mind begins in life early and heightens during adolescence stage for instance; researchers discovered that gender expectation negatively influences psychosocial development of girls. Thus inferring the fact that men and females cannot be judged by their mental and physical abilities is true but minus the influence of influences of cultural and religious biases the male and females mind would not be that different.

This critical textual analysis will examine feminine identity and the essentialistic ideas of the late nineteenth century between men and women as elaborated by Kaplan and Rogers in “Essentialisms, Determinisms. It will include an analysis of theories regarding dichotomies of biological determinism and cranial classification. Essentialism argues that there are categories of objects and genres that have essential characteristics, notwithstanding individual variation, and that these essential characteristics define the objects and genres to an extent that they reveal truth (Kaplan and Rogers 27). Determinism is a theory or in some cases a doctrine. “Nature” has been the historical burden women have faced. It is not the only such burden, but it has been the largest and the heaviest. Psychological and social implications of essentialist beliefs create gender segregation, inequality, and is often used to excuse gender-based biases in society. These types of ideas are often used as a justification for misogynistic and essentialistic systems in society.

Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the

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.

In Angels of America, Tony Kushner outlines the entire play with allegorical quotes from Harper. Specifically in act three, scene one, we see Harper appear in the scene where Joe and Louis are in bed together. During this confrontation, Harper says, “I see more than I want to see” (3.1). Looking at this scene from both a literal and figurative perspective, Harper claims to see things that she does not want to, leading her to understand it in a much higher manner. At this specific time in the play, Harper is talking about how she was looking at her husband and her husband’s lover in bed together. Just a few moments ago, Harper was telling Hannah how she was missing Joe and wanted him to come back. After seeing Joe with Louis in bed, Harper takes

Most of the characters in Tony Kushner's Angels in America struggle with their sexuality. Reflected in this struggle, the homosexual characters are flawed to the degree at which they hide their sexuality. Prior, Belize, Louis, Joe, and Roy all deal with this issue in the course of the play. Prior is the least closeted homosexual while Roy is the most. Prior is chosen to be a prophet, is morally upright, and represents good. Roy, the unlawful lawyer, represents evil. Belize, Louis, and Joe fall in between Prior and Roy on the scale. By having these particular characters represent what they do, Tony Kushner places a negative stigma on those in the closet and emphasizes his negative opinion on closeted homosexuals.

The author admits to making gender-generalizations throughout his essay

In every society each gender’s behavioral response is often a reflection of the societal influences that have been instilled since birth. In every society each gender is subjected to certain roles. Males having to suppress their emotions while women are able to be emotional beings. Women being shunned for exhibiting characteristics of the opposite sex. Although, we live in a society that harps on individuality and self-expression, it is clear that this only applies when individuals do not feel inferior. Additionally, self-expression is only situational and accepted based off of certain agendas. In the following story, Porphyria’s Lover by Robert Browning, we are able to analyze how a male reacts to feeling inferior to a woman. In The Yellow Wallpaper, which is written by Charlotte Perkins, we are able to analyze how her husband’s lack of understanding and inability to communicate with his wife ultimately leads to her insanity. In each of these stories, gender roles are being depicted in a negative and positive way. Through the character’s actions were able to learn how society views each gender in the time in which the story takes place.

“The social construction of gender comes out of the general school of thought entitled social constructionism. Social constructionism proposes that everything people "know" or see as "reality" is partially, if not entirely, socially situated. To say that something is socially constructed does not mitigate the power of the concept. These basic theories of social constructionism can be applied to any issue of study pertaining to human life, including gender. This is

In “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” Joan W. Scott provides many angles to explore the relevancy of gender. The first thing that needs to be examined is her argument. The main argument that Joan W. Scott is trying to make is how beneficial to history using gender as a category for analysis would turn out. Another factor that needs to be made in assessing her article is how she presents her argument and findings. Scott formats her article with a beginning, middle, and end. She begins by defining “gender,” and how that term has been used in general. She goes on to describe some of the theories that have analyzed gender. The next part that she explains is how, of late, politics has been coincided with the analysis of gender. Finally, she ends her paper by providing her bottom-line opinion about the analysis and approach of gender.

The goal of this paper is to prove why the homosexual couple is more normal than the heterosexual couple and why the definition of beauty is not accurate throughout the plot of American Beauty by using the technique of gender criticism. My first step to achieving this goal will be providing evidence about the main masculine and feminine roles and how they are reversed. Afterwards, I will compare and contrast the relationship of the homosexual couple with that of the heterosexual couple. In addition, I will describe how the movie depicts society’s definition of beauty by allowing the readers to sympathize with teenagers, Jane Burnham and Angela Hayes.

The narrator finds this cat to be out of place, and she uses the sight of this cat to take her text in a different direction. Losing her train of thought is an exercise in allowing the reader to experience what it might feel like to be a woman writer. Although the narrator goes on to make a valuable point about the atmosphere at her luncheon, she has lost her original point. Women, who so often lack a room of their own and the time to write, cannot compete against the men who are not forced to struggle for such basic necessities.

Although some people believe that the sex role theory or the socialization model of gender as a process, in which we absorb instructions prescribed by the social institutions to act in the acceptable way to our biological sex, is a trivial issue, it is in fact crucial in terms of today’s concern over the gender formation. This significance is accurately noticed by Raewyn Connell, a renown sociologist who proclaimed her views in the essay “Gender in Personal Life” published in Gender: in World Perspective. In her work, the author reveals the flaws of the socialization model, states that psychoanalysis provides a moderately better clarification for the contradictory character of human development and offers a solution that people should actively learn through the dynamic character of gender formation. According to Connell, therefore, the definition of how we acquire gender should not be represented by the socialization model of gender but rather through the emotional contradiction as a part of psychoanalysis and, more importantly, thorough the active and dynamic character of gender formation.