Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

In Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s characters suffer through loss of health, life, and love. Colossal suffering and grief eventually lead to discovery and growth. The main quartet of characters – Louis Ironson, Prior Walter, Joe and Harper Pitt– have many differences, but, aside from their grief, a common characteristic allows for their conjoined relevancy. Each is a member of a group that is somehow marginalized in their society, whether it stems from their sexuality, illness, or personal identity

The Struggles Accompanying Homosexuality in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Set in the late 1980s, a period of regression and tragedy for the homosexual community, Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, explores the lives of four gay men living in New York. Kushner’s two part drama expounds some of the many difficulties encountered by gays during this time period. While two of his characters, Joe Pitt and Roy Cohn, both struggle significantly with their sexual

The Power of Angels in America       "Such ethical possibility is, however, founded on and coextensive with the subject's movement toward what Foucault calls 'care of the self,' the often very fragile concern to provide the self with pleasure and nourishment in an environment that is perceived not particularly to offer them." -Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick   "Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social

In “Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches”, Tony Kushner sets the play in New York, around 1985; where homosexuality was still not accepted by everyone in the society. Around 1980s, heterosexuals dominated society; therefore homosexuality was not freely expressed and accepted. Kushner’s play is all about the expression of homosexuality in New York and their struggle with the AIDS crisis spreading. Most of the male characters in the play are all homosexuals. The main male characters

American playwright Tony Kushner’s momentous two-part production Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes documents the varied lives of five men residing in New York City throughout the 1980s AIDS epidemic. A truly unique aspect, which pertains to Kushner’s dramatized narrative, is that each focal male character is homosexual. Although these men may share a collective sexual orientation, they experience their sexuality in their own individualistic ways. Through the lenses of Kushner’s

A.M.Holmes' Music For Torching, Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, and Tony Kushner's Angels in America The social progression of America in the 20th and 21st centuries has been arguably advantageous. In the years following the feminist and civil rights movements, the United States has undeniably developed into the world’s leading democratic system. Women and minorities have equal citizenship status under the law. There are more females in the workforce than ever before, and formerly guarded issues

Exploring the AIDS Epidemic in 1980s America Angels in America examines the spread AIDS throughout the 1980s and the ways that people reacted towards it. It’s “a serious play about politics, history, spirituality, and death...It was not only an attack on 1980s Reaganism, but also on the conservative movement of the U.S. politics and culture since the end of World War II” (Bronski 58). Angels in America represents an act of resistance and asks the audience whether change is possible. This question

grandma’s funeral8 and the use of religion throughout the first act gives readers an idea of how the characters are going to act based on their religious beliefs because in America, religious views and political ideology are hand in hand. Finally, religion and a belief in God also highlights the notion that Reagan’s America wasn’t that great because certain religious groups during the time believed homosexuality to be a sin, and thus those with HIV/AIDS were seen as being morally deficient and were

doesn't belong. In “Angels in America” a gay fantasia on National themes, characters struggle to be themselves upon fear of whether or not society will accept them as an individual. The characters not only struggles with whether or not society will accept them, but they also struggle with their inner demons, and ultimately the question of what is truly good or evil. In this paper several characters will be analyzed and discussed from several different viewpoints. “Angels in America” is a highly dramatic

Angels in America The play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, by Tony Kushner, contained situations in which characters’ personalities underwent great changes from the beginning of the play to the end. One of the most significant and noticeable changes was that of Harper. She was married to the character named Joe, who she knew was gay and the way she dealt with this came to relate directly to her own sanity. In part one, Harper spent a lot of time with her imaginary