Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on Religious Themes

          The title “Angels in America” alone provides an obvious foreshadowing for the reader by implying that the book will contain strong religious themes. Throughout the book, the religious themes of divination, salvation, change, and shame are boldly juxtaposed against the tenets of Judaism, Mormonism, and Puritanism; according to critic Frank Rich of the New York Times, the play opens “…with a funeral led by an Orthodox rabbi and reaches its culmination with what might be considered a Second Coming.”

1.      Divination

Prior’s divine communication with his ancestors and the Angel of America embodies the theme of divination. Here, Kushner craftily blends elements of Judaism with Mormonism. As recounted by Hannah later on in the play, Mormons believe that John Smith—the prophet who received a vision to create the religion—created an angel who would then prophesize to other chosen individuals. As argued by biblical scholar Dr. Lee Warren, Jesus states that angels do not have gendered bodies, for “the male and female principle exists separately only in the earth plane.” When Prior first encounters the Angel, he notices that they are intersex and cannot easily be categorized as male or female. Shortly afterwards, the Angel pressures him to fulfill a prophecy.

The theme of divination occurs once again when the Angel aggressively approaches Prior and Hannah. During this scene, Prior asks Hannah to help him confront the Angel. In an attempt to help Prior, she instructs him on how to reject his prophetic duties in a Mormon fashion, which ends up being successful.

2.      Salvation and Change

At the very beginning of the play, Kushner teases the reader with glimpses of salvation and change when he opens it with a “…rabbi who speaks of the immigration of the Jews from the Old World to the New.” The desire for salvation through metamorphosis from the old to the new shapes many—if not all—of the play’s characters. For instance, Joe, a successful man from a Mormon background, secretly wishes to liberate himself from the confines of forced heterosexuality by coming out as gay—thus shedding his old heterosexual skin, changing his identity, and transforming his relationships with Hannah and Harper—and having sexual relations with Louis. Harper, a valium addict, gets closer to creating the new haven she desires when she asks her Mormon Mother about how God changes people. While Prior seeks salvation from his debilitating condition and crumbling relationship, Louis selfishly seeks respite from Prior’s illness by cheating on Prior with other men and gravitating more towards Belize (who ends up attempting to save the lives of AIDS patients around him by stealing Roy’s pill bottles after he dies).

The angels, however, do not depend on progress for catharsis; they despise change and wish for permanent stasis. When the Angel speaks to Prior about God’s rejection of the divine realm, they resentfully blame human progress as the cause for God’s abandonment. In the divine realm, stagnancy is salvation. The plight of the angel correlates with Numbers Five and Seven of the Thirteen Articles of the Mormon faith, “We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof” and “…believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.” These otherworldly angels believe that Prior must be called by prophecy to bring God back; he must do so by interpreting the bitter tongues of the angels (e.g., I I I—which symbolizes the Jewish Midrash, or the beginning of the three oaths in the Song of Songs—and I I I I, which symbolizes the constant appearance of the number four in Judaism) and preaching the Gospel of lethargy.

3.      Shame

Kushner adds Puritanism to the fusion of Mormonism and Judaism by portraying characters who are ashamed of their identity and bodies. Joe, Prior, Harper, Hannah, and Louis are prime examples. While Joe is ashamed of his homosexual attractions, gay identity, and his father’s abandonment, his wife Harper is ashamed of her identity as a valium addict; consequently, Hannah is ashamed of Joe’s coming out. While Prior is ashamed of his uncontrollable bodily functions and outbreak of lesions, Louis self-deprecates (e.g., telling the mysterious man who has sex with him that he doesn’t care if the man infects him, crying about having the Mark of Cain, and believing that the injuries that Joe had inflicted upon him was divine retribution).

Although the angels believe that God has discarded them, God has, in fact, immersed himself in humankind, thriving off of the popular human impulse to create and advance. In the words of Octavia Butler, “all that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God is change.”