Prior feels the effects of homosexuality both mentally and physically. He struggles under the simulacra disease and under his AIDS. AIDS was seen as an effect of being gay, disease begets disease. In this framework, there is the influx of religious language. Gay men are diseased because they deviate from what is natural. AIDS is a plague sent to make them extinct. Fiona Rambsy Harris writes, “the punishment for this societal pollution in the eyes of the Right is biblical; after all, plagues were, in scriptural terms, sent down from Heaven to punish the transgressive” (410). The Right refers to political and social conservatives (the people who ran the nation at the time). Gay men were thought of as “societal pollution” not only because of …show more content…
Prior has the chance to stay in heaven, but chooses to go back to Earth. The Angel views the world as a heap of suffering where progress has caused a dissention into madness. Prior rejects this fatalist view of society by asking to live. He becomes progress when he steps back into the human world refusing to believe progress, his identity, and the world is wrong. Claudia Barnett writes, “Prior saves himself, and perhaps the world, from stasis” (478). This stasis is the metanarrative. It is the Angel commanding people to “HOBBLE YOURSELVES” (Kushner 179). His last words to the angels reflect this rejection. He says, “You haven’t seen what’s to come. You’ve only seen what you’re afraid is coming. Until it arrives – please don’t be offended but … all you can see is fear” (279). The angels fear what evolution will do because this means finding truth; it means rejecting the simulation of identities and figuring out the real characteristics of people. Prior has no fear because he knows what advancing can do. It will reveal the truth of homosexuality and dismantle the simulacra of identity. Progress means proving that powerlessness, sinfulness, and disease are not what it means to be gay. Prior subverts all the simulacra. He cannot be damned because he is welcomed to heaven, he has power because he chooses to leave and live, and he is not diseased because eventually he gets better. His choice to live through this crisis, to go through hell (well heaven) and come out the other side is him choosing not to believe in this metanarrative of the sick man in a sick world. He is perfect and powerful. One of his last lines is probably his most telling. He tells the audience, “We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward.” (290). Now that he has seen the truth he can only continue to complicate these homogenizing metanarratives. His story is the best
Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Geanne Harwood, interviewed on an National Public Radio Broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, said that “being gay before Stonewall was a very difficult proposition … we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and as manly as possibly to get by in a society that was really very much against us.” The age of communist threats, and of Joseph McCarthy’s insistence that homosexuals were treacherous, gave credence to the feeling of most society members that homosexuality was a perversion, and that one inflicted was one to not be trusted.
In 1348, religious authorities determined that the immodest behavior of certain groups led to outbreaks of ubiquitous plague. The tendency to regard indecency as the cause of plague is displayed in records of the day. Henry Knighton’s description of a guilty crowd attending the tournaments is a telling example. He laments that, “they spent and wasted their goods, and (according to the common report) abused their bodies in wantonness and scurrilous licentiousness. They neither feared God nor blushed at the criticism of the people, but took the marriage bond lightly and were deaf to the demands of modesty” (130). As one can gather from this passage, the 1348 religi...
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States were principle players involved with reshaping post-war Europe. The region most affected policy changes was Eastern Europe, which includes those states that would eventually fall behind the Iron Curtain. While the camaraderie between the Big Three deteriorated, Soviet-backed communism was spreading across Eastern Europe. The argument during this time was that expansionism was inevitable since Stalin had already decided to establish Soviet power and Soviet-typed systems in the lands his army occupied; resistance was pointless. While nothing in history is inevitable, to a great extent, expansionism was highly probable, especially due to Eastern European political traditions, its political structure after World War II and the West's inactivity in the region which left the area more susceptible to Soviet-backed communism. As George Schopflin states, "Stalin, however ruthless and powerful he may have been, was not possessed of superhuman abilities" (58).
...and that he will never die, kushner might have added this to imply that there are a lot of old ideals that have been passed down in history and have not changed through time. Ethel, however, adds that that's all about to change because the “Millenium approaches.” The scene where the angel comes through the roof of Prior's apartment (pg. 118) is significant because Kushner shows the breakdown of all the tension and ideals that ha been brought up throughout the play. It is not a total culmination of the story but a new beginning because after destruction comes reconstruction.
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
The Impact of Stalin on Russia and the Russian People By 1929, Stalin had become the sole leader of Russia. He said, "We are between 50 and 100 years behind the West. We must make this difference in 10 years or go under." He wanted things to change in Russia quickly and so he brought up the five year plans, which were to modernise the Russian economy.
Prior is one of the most openly gay characters in the play. In act two, Prior suffers in the hospital. He says, "I want Louis. I want my fucking boyfriend, where the fuck is he? I'm dying, I'm dying, where's Louis?" (Kushner 66). He shows his dependence on his boyfriend and his need to seek comfort in his homosexual partner during this traumatic time. Also, just before the angel arrives at the end of part one, Prior says, "I can handle pressure, I am a gay man and I am used to pressure" (Kushner 123). He puts his strong suits forth, including his homosexuality, to convince himself he can handle the situation. In act four, in response to Hannah questioning his homosexuality, Prior says, "Oh, is it that obvious? Yes. I am" (Kushner 231). He has no problem admitting his homosexuality, even to complete strangers. Because of Prior's openness throughout the play, he is, without a doubt, completely out of the closet.
Culture in the Soviet Union possessed many stages as different leaders enforced very different rules in regard to accepted art forms. Under Lenin, many forms and styles of art were accepted as long as they were not overly detrimental to the party mission. Lenin wanted to find a signature style of art that would be unique to the Soviet Union. In order to do this Lenin put very little restriction on the arts. Great experimentation was done in writing and painting and many radical styles were developed during this time. When Lenin died, Joseph Stalin came into power and accepted art that looked drastically different from its previous years. Stalin enforced a much stricter policy on art. Stalin’s policy was named Socialist realism and featured
Although history shows us that homosexuality has been present in the development of the species, the place of homosexuals in society and the perception of homosexuality changed greatly between societies and eras. Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient Greece and Rome and ...
The background of homosexuality in the 1940’s and 50’s was harsh, but people started to be opened toward the rights. There were criticisms toward homosexuality in the early days of Milk. Gay men carried the labels of mentally ill or psychopathic. Often times, gay men committed suicide from harsh judgement and criticism that always followed them. Even though population of homosexuality grew and had jobs, they were harassed and beaten by the police. There were a lot of disapproval and hostility of homosexuality. Anita Bryant, a singer, made a campaign to oppose the rights of homosexuals. Christian forces and activists withdrew gay-right legislation which lead to Proposition 6. The harshness from background of homosexuality back in the 1940’s and 50’s took the freedom away from the homosexuals. After the harshness, there came a little bit of hope for the homosexuals in San Francisco. Castro, a city in San Francisco, became the center of gay neighborhood. In 1964, gay men formed Society of Individual Right (SIR), and 1,200 members joined. Homosexuals started having good views when Sipple who was gay saved the president from a gunshot. Finally in 1972, Board of Supervisor banned the discrimination law for homosexuals. Even though in 1940...
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signified, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold but not clothed." There was never a war that this idea can be more correct applied to than the Cold War. According to noted author and Cold War historian Walter Lippman, the Cold War can be defined as a state of tension between states, which behave with great distrust and hostility towards each other, but do not resort to violence. The Cold War encompasses a period from the end of the Second World War (WWII), in 1945, to the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1989. It also encompassed the Korean and Vietnam Wars and other armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, that, essentially, were not wars for people but instead for territories and ideologies. "Nevertheless, like its predecessors, the Cold War has been a worldwide power contest in which one expanding power has threatened to make itself predominant, and in which other powers have banded together in a defensive coalition to frustrate it---as was the case before 1815, as was the case in 1914-1918 as was the case from 1939-1945" (Halle 9). From this power contest, the Cold War erupted.
to assume the role of dictator. This was a phenomenon which was to become a
The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had emerged eventually into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union was crumbling at this period both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government. The soviet economy was highly centralized with a “command economy” (p.1. fsmitha.com), which had been broken down due to its complexity and centrally controlled with corruption involved in it. A strong government needs a strong economy to maintain its power and influence, but in this case the economic planning of the Soviet Union was just not working, which had an influence in other communist nations in Eastern Europe as they declined to collapse.
“Plague! We are in the middle of a fucking plague! 40 million infected people is a fucking plague!’ Larry Kramer’s words rang across the room in a meeting for AIDS in 1990, 9 years into the US AIDS crisis. Before the epidemic Kramer was a gay playwright in New York born on June 25th, 1935 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Larry’s father was always disapproving of his interests in musicals and more “feminine” activities. In 1953, he attended Yale University, where he began to fall apart. His grades were failing and he found no others like him. The only thing that saved him from his attempted suicide was his brother. Later in life, he began working as a script writer for movies. One movie of his, Lost Horizon, was a commercial success but received extremely poor reviews. This was a signal for him to quit movie writing, and he began writing books and plays. Kramer’s breakout book was the novel “Faggots”. It was a critique on the lifestyle of gay men in the 70s and was quite controversial. “Read anything by Kramer closely, and I think you’ll find the subtext is always: The wages of gay sin are death,” said Robert Chesley, a gay playwright critiquing Larry Kramer.
Somerville, Siobhan. "Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 284-99. Print.