| This thesis reads Tony Kushner’s most successful drama Angels in America:A Gay Fantasia on National Themes(Part One:Millennium Approaches and Part Two:Perestroika as one whole play,based on the 2013 revised and complete edition)with the help of new historicism and argues that in this play,Kushner represents the AIDS Crisis through the reversal of power.To be specific,during this AIDS epidemic that happened in the 1980s,the two ends in the power relationship of the AIDS Crisis in America,which are the powerful government and the vulnerable and marginalized gay community,experience a reversal in power.As the government loses its authoritative voice and the gay community becomes stronger and fights for change,Kushner represents the truth about the AIDS Crisis in his own way.The first part gives a general introduction to the author Tony Kushner,the play,as well as new historicism.As one of Kushner’s most successful works,Angels in America enjoys massive success in both the academic field and the show business till today.New historicism provides a unique perspective to interpret such a play with heavy historical references.New historicism is a school of thoughts that proposes the idea that history is the product of culture and power.It is the ideology of the ruling power that determines what to be written in text as history.Thus,when understanding history,literary works are of equal importance as historical facts for that they are both texts produced by different ideologies.In this case,Angels in America can provide an alternative version of the history of the AIDS Crisis.Chapter one details the background in which the play is set.The story in Angels in America took place during the AIDS Crisis,which was around the 1980s when America was in a Cold war with the Soviet Union while domestically suffering from the recession and the spreading of AIDS.Under the pressure of the cold war,the American government failed to react to the AIDS Crisis,which also became the cause of the rising tension between the powerful government and the oppressed gay community.Chapter two analyzes how Roy Cohn,who represents the powerful,authoritative government,loses his power in the AIDS Crisis.Roy Cohn is a real person who worked for the government of the United States.Kushner borrows this character from real life to represent the government who has power and connections.In the play,Roy Cohn starts as a man who could manipulate and threaten people to get what he wants.But after he gets diagnosed to be AIDS positive,he gradually loses his power as his physical health declines Through his interactions with people,he encounters failures and becomes delusional and paranoid,and eventually loses his job and his authority.In the end,Roy’s death completes the reversal of the government’s power that he stands for.It is a representation of the AIDS Crisis through the loss of the government’s power.Chapter three deals with the reversal of the power of Prior Walter.Prior Walter is the representation of the vulnerable and marginalized gay community.His identity as a gay man infected with AIDS,as well as a WASP descendant,make him a typical person of this vulnerable community.Because of his WASP background,he doesn’t need to deal with the oppression that other ethnic minorities face,but his heritage also exposes him to the oppression of religious power.His WASP bloodline is the reason why the Angel from Heaven visits him and asks him to be the prophet to stop human progress,because WASP people have a tendency to stay stagnant.As Prior’ s health condition worsens,the Angel wants to incite Prior’s desire for life to stop time so as to stop the spread of the disease,which will also stop human progress.But realizing that progress and change are the only hope for life.Prior rejects the Angel and in turn asks the Angel for blessing.Through his fight against power embedded in the Angel,Prior becomes powerful.This also represents the AIDS Crisis and how the vulnerable gay people fought for their rights and power. |
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