Even Angels Have Morals! Blog#4

After reading the first 62 pages of this play one can’t help but think about how individual morals play an important part in the lives of the characters. Kushner tries to explain the national issues that many people fail to speak about. He includes sex, homosexuality, drug addiction, politics, corruption, AIDS, power, religion and much more to get his point across about the different issues that Americans face nationally. So far, in the novel we have learned of two individuals Prior and Roy, who don’t know each other but they both have something in common, they have AIDS. We learn about how they cope with their disease as it progresses and their different perspectives on having AIDs in society. Then there is another couple, Harper and Joe who are Mormons, they are married but Joe is gay and cannot admit to anyone that he is. Prior and Louis are the last couple that this play revolves around, in the beginning of the play we discover that Prior has AIDS and Louis has no clue how to deal with it. The central idea in this play is whether or not any of the actions that these characters are taking are moral.

The characters represent America. They represent issues of heterosexual and homosexual Americans in their everyday lives. America is in chaos, everyone has a different political point of view, drugs are used as an escape rather than a cure, relationships split and the other half is supposed to figure out their own way of picking up the pieces.

Joe and Harper have an awkward relationship. Joe is unsure as to whether he is gay or not and therefore he stays with Harper. What it really seems the be is that Joe is too scared to admit that he is gay due to the fact that the Mormon church will not accept him. While Harper has a dream scene with Prior she speaks of things that she is subconsciously thinking. She tells Prior, “In my church we don’t believe in homosexuals.” They eventually talk about Joe; the mystery of this scene is whether or not the dream belongs to Harper or to Prior. There are things mentioned in the scene that Harper feels, for example that she is not supposed to take Valium because her religion forbids her to be addicted to anything and Prior telling her that, “Your husband’s a homo.” At first she doesn’t believe it but then she tries to make connections and compares his actions. Subconsciously she knows its true but cannot accuse him unless she knows for certain. She obviously wants more form life and by her taking valium on a consistent basis she is crying for someone to help her to stop. Mainly she wants her husband to help her but he constantly leaves her lonely. Morally, Joe cannot leave his wife because the only reason he would leave his wife is to be with a man. He finds it hard to do that because he is Mormon and wants to continue to be Mormon; he knows that by being gay he would have to disassociate himself with his religion. What will his family think? What will his wife think? To Joe, morally it is the wrong thing to do.

Louis and Prior have a normal relationship until he is diagnosed with AIDS. Louis is not afraid of the disease he is afraid to spend the rest of his life without Prior. He decides that but just cutting out the middle and just leaving the relationship it would be less heartbreaking for him. It is the only way to get out and not get hurt. He really doesn’t think about how much Prior needs him to be there or emotionally how much it will affect him. However, morally he is faced with the issue of whether or not leaving Prior is the right thing to do. He suffers with the question of: How can you leave someone that you love when they need you the most? This is not just an issue for this gay couple it is an issue that anyone can relate to. It can even be compared to Harper and Joe: Why would Joe leave Harper especially when he knows that she is an addict? He should help her feel better before he leaves her behind.

Then lastly there is Roy, an attorney in New York with political power. Roy is homophobic and the ironic this is, that he is actually gay himself. For him being gay will take away from the masculinity that he is supposed to show in his career. We learn that he has AIDs but because he believes that he is not gay he will not admit that he has it. Roy doesn’t tell us that he is gay we find out during the scene when he meets with Henry and we are told that he has been treated for numerous bacteria’s that he could only have gotten by having sex with men. Roy prove many times that he has no morals, he sleeps with prostitutes, he curses swears and there is no evidence that he believes in god or follows any religion: therefore leaving the reader to think that he has no morals.