Welcome to the Eighties

The eighties were significant years in the history of America. With a newly elected republican President and fifty two U.S hostages held by Iran set free after more than a year, America was getting ready to enter a new era. Just as we learned about the movement of the “New Journalism” in the late fifties early sixties that effected America’s writing style, the eighties went beyond journalism to touch every single form of art including literature, painting, film, fashion and so on. In his play Angels in America, Kushner tried to talk about various themes that deeply influenced not only America but the whole world. Religion was one particular theme that played a big part in the play just in time when conservatism made a heroic entrance into the White House.

With its diversity, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and liberty and justice for all, America seemed in a continuous struggle when it comes to all these issues since the end of World War II. As I mentioned before, religion was the source of many heated debates in the political arena as well as in the socio-economic one during those years. The characters of Joe and Harper in Kushner’s play were living an inner struggle, a complicated and a tough struggle that was tearing them a part every moment of their life. Both Mormons, raised by very religious parents, Joe and Harper endured a pain that was kept inside. Harper was described as an unhappy wife who was addicted to pills. Joe her husband, was taking nightly long walks, instead of being home with his lonely wife. Religion was the only obstacle that stood in the face of their happiness. It is because of religion that Harper doesn’t want to admit that there is something going on with her husband. Harper knows deep down that her husband might be a homosexual but refuses to admit it to herself since in her church they don’t believe in homosexuality. Instead she turns to pills to appease her pain and her loneliness instead of confronting Joe and make it easier on her and on him as well. Religion also haunts Joe, who just like Harper believes that homosexuality is evil and that the Lord doesn’t have a place in heaven for those kind of people. Instead he takes those long nightly walks in an area in Central Park known to gay people. Once again, his faith comes between him and his desires or rather between him and the peace he was looking for and hoping to find one of those days. It is very ironic how shifting away from religion would give Joe that peace, the joy of life not only to him but to Harper who was suffering and self-destructing. It was his confession to his mother on the phone that set him finally free.

Religion in Angles in America was one important theme that revealed how people pretended to live a life that was not meant to be theirs. Even the character of Louis was in a dilemma when he asked the Rabbi what he thinks about people who abandon their loved ones in times when they needed them the most. I would add cowardice as a trait of Louis whose uncertainty made him the evil person. The insistence of Joe that he was not a homosexual was also seen in his confirmation of his political views when he mentioned that he voted twice republican. Harper was more open to the idea of letting go of her suspicions about the sexual orientations of her husband when Prior told her in her hallucination that Joe was indeed a homosexual.