This paper analyzes the symbolic role of angels in Tony Kushner's two-part play Angels in America. It examines how the angels serve as metaphors for death, bureaucracy, prophecy, and social struggle, particularly within the context of the AIDS/HIV crisis and broader American society. The paper traces the angel's relationship with the protagonist Prior Walter, arguing that he functions as a prophet figure himself. It also considers how Kushner uses theatrical illusion and magical realism to deliver a moral critique of American society while ultimately offering a message of hope and forward progress.
This paper introduces and analyzes Angels in America by Tony Kushner, focusing on the play's central symbolic figures: the angels. Specifically, it examines who the angels are, how they affect the play, and what they represent within the broader context of American society and the AIDS/HIV crisis.
The two-part play Angels in America by Tony Kushner won Pulitzer Prizes, has been banned from some communities, and continues to be a controversial and enlightening examination of the AIDS/HIV community and how America responds to it. It also looks at America more broadly — how we live, what we fear, and what we must confront in the future. Throughout, the angels serve as metaphors for any number of human and inhuman conditions.
Early in the play, Prior finds "kisses from the angel of death" — wine-colored skin lesions that indicate he is HIV positive and will eventually die. He shows them to his lover, Louis, and this moment also marks the "kiss of death" for their relationship. Louis is not strong enough to stay with Prior and ultimately leaves him.
Later, in the second part of the play, one of the characters describes angels as "powerful bureaucrats; they have no imagination, they can do anything but they can't invent, create, they're sort of fabulous and dull all at once" (Kushner). Thus, the angels can stand for anything and everything that is happening to America. Consistently, the characters express how hard it is to live in America — referring to the difficulty of fitting into society when one is different: a Mormon, gay, Black, or sick. The angels in America are those who know how hard it is to live here, and do it day after day.
When the angel arrives to tell Prior he is a prophet, the announcement is direct: "Greetings, Prophet; / The Great Work begins; / The Messenger has arrived" (Kushner). The angel also tells him that God is dead. This is another symbol of the turmoil in America. One character declares that "faggots are just a bad dream America is having." There are many such bad dreams in the play: the depletion of the ozone layer, Reaganomics, government overreach, hunger, racism, and nearly every other failing in American life.
Prior gradually comes to understand that he may indeed be a prophet — a prophet for Americans, so that the country can fix what is wrong with it. As he reflects, "Maybe I'm a prophet. Not just me, all of us who are dying now. Maybe we've caught the virus of prophecy" (Kushner).
The angels also represent each of us, and the "HIV" that each of us faces. We all carry something secret, something inside us that we wrestle with. We will all die eventually. The angels represent our own inner demons waiting to emerge, and our own mortality. As Prior observes: "Jacob wrestles with the angel....I'm....It's me. In that struggle. Fierce, and unfair. The angel is not human, and it holds nothing back, so how could anyone human win, what kind of a fight is that? It's not just. Losing means your soul thrown down in the dust, your heart torn from God's. But you can't not lose" (Kushner).
"Angels represent universal human inner conflict"
"Prior contrasted with Cohn as agent of change"
"Kushner's use of theatrical magic and illusion"
Andreach, Robert J. Creating the Self in the Contemporary American Theatre. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998.
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