Angels in America by Tony Kushner, Essay Example

According to the play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, an angel is a divine presence with a poetic and confident speaking style, and multi-gendered sexuality descends from heaven. The angel is regarded as a hermaphrodite as it is neither male nor female. The most common aspects known about angels represented in the play are that they are immortal, glorious, and can fly. However, Kushner seeks to differentiate his angels from how they are typically expected to be. In literature, the depiction of angels is that they are fulfilled creatures whose work is to worship God and perform his assigned tasks. On the contrary, the angels in the play are joyless, bored, and are unable to make autonomous decisions. In the play, the angel is also described as imposing and terrifying, “with a disturbingly reactionary cosmology” (165). Her terrifying nature is reflected when she fiercely roars at Prior, telling him to “submit to the will of heaven.” (166). The angel first appears to a sick and bedridden Prior Walter, and she hands over an anti-migration book to him, telling him that the great work begins. In the play, Kushner’s depiction of angels is different from the ordinary human perception of angels. This is because, instead of them being holy creatures that spend all their time worshipping God, following his commands, and guarding and guiding humans, they are portrayed as helpless beings that have been abandoned by God and are seeking help from humans to bring God back to heaven and are in a position to negotiate with humans.

What is known about the angel is that she appears before a sickly Prior Walter after he is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and after his boyfriend abandons him. The angel wants Prior to becoming a prophet and spread a specific message to humans. The angel tells Prior that heaven is currently in a disorganized state because, due to God’s preference for human beings, he has abandoned the angels. God left heaven and the angels for humans who, from their creative minds, have made progress in technology and developed the world in significant ways by traveling around it. The angel explains to Prior that God, “bored with his angels, bewitched by humanity, and in his mortifying imitation of humanity, sails off on voyages, no knowing where” (46). The angel explains that God left heaven forever on the day of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and since then, the angels were alone and with no direction. The angel is envious of the human race for distracting God from his angels and heaven, and she wants Prior to spread a message to people and tell them to “stop moving” (52). The angel wants to compel human beings to stop being human, whereby they can finish their advancements and making the world better so that God can return to heaven.

The angel in the play has chosen Prior Walter as the prophet because of his ancient Anglo-Saxon lineage. This makes Prior appear rooted and stable, although this is not his case. The angel believes that Prior’s stability would be sufficient in convincing people to abandon their ways. The angel appears to sympathize with Prior because he is in bad shape due to his HIV/AIDS infection, and his boyfriend Louis left him, and both had made him weak and bedridden. The angel asks tells him to become a prophet and ask people to stop moving.

It is not surprising that after hearing all that, the angel had to say, Prior refused to play the role of a prophet. Prior vows to “flee from her at all costs” (56), Prior rejected the angel’s offer to become a prophet because he could not agree that the human race should stop using their knowledge for invention and development.

In the play, there is a biblical image of Job wrestling with an angel. After Prior had refused to be a prophet, he suffered a medical breakdown at the visitors’ center, and he is rushed to the hospital. The angel descends again, and Prior tells her to take her anti-migration book back because he would not be a prophet and prior wrestles her. Prior defeats the angel, and he is granted entry into heaven so that he can refuse his prophecy. In heaven, Prior tells the other angels that he also wanted them to give him more life and bless him. The angels are sympathetic to his state, but they inform him that the plague cannot be stopped because they did not have the power to prevent it. The epidemic, in this case, is HIV/AIDS. The representation of Job wrestling with an angel is meant to show the endurance of the existence of angels in the human imagination, and the resilience that human beings possess, even in their time of suffering. Despite being severely sick, Prior wrestles a heavenly being, and he wins. When he gets back to earth, his fever is broken, meaning that he is stronger, and he lives for more years with his disease, even if it has killed many other people.

Moreover, the theme of religion is primarily demonstrated in the paly. The characters’ persistence on the significance of religion exceeds that of politics. This is seen when Louis establishes his opinion when he says that “there are no gods here, no ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels in America, no spiritual past” (pg. 96).  When he demonstrates his words, Kushner comes around and tries to invalidate Louis’s statement and progressively establishes that there exist angels in America, factually, and allegorically. He continues to say that religion is an indiscernible force that runs most of the world’s actions. It is undeniably to understand that religion infiltrates the text. Kushner does not appear in advocating for God in any customary monotheistic manner, but he is evidently a profoundly mystical individual who recognizes the weight of religious tradition and history. It is important to note that religion assists individuals in making sense of their existence and their individuality. Furthermore, such traditions are intensely intertwined into the fabric of American history, literature, philosophy, and culture.

There are two religions, which are Judaism and Mormonism, of which both crucially impact the characters’ behaviors in the direction of change. For instance, Harper and Harper belong to the Mormon religion, while Prior and Louis and belong to the Jewish religion. One can understand that both of the faiths establish a scheme of ethics for their believers. Moreover, although the players are not sincere, they share these significance systems and significantly or insignificantly, induce upon them in times of necessity. The performance’s very principle act can be observed during the Jewish funeral, which was conducted by a prehistoric rabbi, Isador Chemelwit. Instantaneously there is a debate of Jewish values.  When they had discovered that Prior was infected with AIDS, Louis enquires the rabbi whether it would be unfair for Prior to be left behind, theoretically. This forces rabbi to respond by discarding his Catholic-seeming concession. He saya that, “Catholics believe in forgiveness, Jews believe in guilt” (pg. 25). Furthermore, there exists a repetitive reference to the scriptural story of Jacob.

This is because, in one instance, Joe reflects back on a youthful reminiscence of memorizing this tale. Where he says that “Jacob wrestles with an angel… Jacob is young and very strong. The angel is…a beautiful man, with golden hair and wings, of course” (pg. 51), in this case for Joe, this allegory signifies the years of him combating with his homosexual individuality. While being raised up in Mormon religion, Joe was regularly imparted that lesbianism was a sin. Consequently, due to his belief, Joe kept his homosexuality identity a secret from the external world. When he was shimmering on his childhood, he comprehends that he recited this allegory more often since it was his method of approving male beauty in an acknowledged manner.

Therefore, such descriptions eventually flicker his awareness of him turning into a homosexual. Furthermore, the reference to Jacob foretells a future act where Prior factually tussles with the angel. One understands that Prior has to battle with this enormous, flying angel in his infirmary room. At one instance, the angel calls Prior “Jonah” (pg 173). Conferring to the Bible, Jonah was prescient who had refused his duty and spiritual roles. In this case, Prior did the exact thing once he is in guidance with the angels. He reluctantly declined to utilize the text the provided him with, and disobediently says that “I want more life. I can’t help myself. I do… I’ll take my illness with me. And I’ll take my death with me, too. The earth’s my home, and I want to go home” (278) In this scenario, Prior is destined by the label that seraphs provide him to decide breathing life as feeble and vile human rather than performing through angels and God as an envoy.

Consequently, he refuses the given offer of immortality and prominence, like Jonah, did. One can grasp that he might be condemned to Jonah’s destiny of being chastised pending he regretted to God. Nonetheless, he still decides to take a chance into his hands. Furthermore, unintentionally, Prior shadows the footsteps that his belief had championed for him, the route that poignantly motivates him to take himself over spiritual roles.

In summary, Kushner correctly uses the idea of the angel to reflect the role of God and the angels. The angels take orders from God, and when he abandons heaven, everything is left in disarray. The angels can bless because even after Prior wrestles the angel and goes to heaven, he comes back with HIV/AIDS, but he lives a longer life even when many people have died of the disease. Also, Kushner implies that the two religions, Judaism and Mormonism, have the same themes and that broadmindedness of each is essential in a perfect America. Furthermore, the two religions understand that they condemn homosexuality and are relatively conformist regarding gender. The play’s reference to religion assists in establishing a sacred environment through associating modern America to the world of the Bible. It helps to convince the audience that prophecy is certainly achievable in the secular period.  One can say that such religions have a mandate to evolve and embrace all the forms of individuality if there is a need for them to demonstrate an adaptable angle to the modern era.

Works Cited

Kushner, Tony. Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. Vol. 1. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993.