Tony Kushner: Angels in America
Directions: After reading the lecture, answer one of the main questions, which will appear in bold. This question is due no later than Thursday, Mar. 2. Following that will be other questions which you should read and think about--they may help you answer the main question. However, you are not required to answer these questions in writing.
Your responses to other students' answers are due by midnight on Sunday, Mar. 5. In order to get the full 20 points, you MUST respond to at least 2 other people's postings.
This set of discussion questions is worth a possible 20 points. Remember: late answers receive 0 points, so post early :)
We will be using the ETUDES Discussion Board for this class. Click on the link below to get to the ETUDES portal, sign in, and then click on the tab for this class. You will find the "Discussion and Private Messages" link on the left side of the screen:
Tony Kushner: Angels in America
WARNING! These discussion questions will reveal plot points. If you don't want to know what happens, wait until you have finished the play to read them.
1. 1. Why did Kushner choose to set Angels in America during the Reagan Administration? How is it significant that Roy Cohn, who is better known for his role during the McCarthy Era, is one of the main characters?
2. In Act III, Scene 2 of Part One, Millennium Approaches, Louis says, "...there are no gods here, no ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels in America..." (98). Does the play, on the whole, support his statement or not?
3. At the end of the Epilogue, Prior says, "The Great Work begins." What does he mean?
The following questions are about Part One, Millennium Approaches:
1. In the Playwright's Notes, Kushner says, "The moments of magic...are to be fully realized, as bits of wonderful theatrical illusion--which means it's OK if the wires show, and maybe it's good that they do..." Why should the wires show?
2. What is the meaning of the epigraph from Stanley Kunitz's "The Testing Tree" before the beginning of the play?
3. What themes does Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz's eulogy in Act I, Scene 1 introduce? Why does the play begin with a funeral?
4. What does Harper see about the world that Joe doesn't? Is Harper crazy, or is her vision accurate?
5. In Act I, Scene 5, Joe says to Harper, "The devil, everywhere you turn, huh, buddy" (30). Is there a devil in this play?
6. Why is Act I, Scene 5 split between Joe and Harper, and Louis and Rabbi Chemelwitz?
7. In Act I, Scene 7, why do Harper and Prior appear together in the dream?
8. What issues is Act I, Scene 7 raising about reality and the imagination? Does the play ever resolve these issues?
9. In Act I, Scene 7, Harper says to Prior, "Deep inside you, there's a part of you, the most inner part, entirely free of disease" (40). What does she mean? Is she right? Can the same be said of any of the other characters in the play?
10. At the end of Act I, Scene 7 (pp. 40-41), who is speaking to Prior?
11. Why is Act I, Scene 8 split between Louis and Prior, and Joe and Harper? How do the interactions of the two couples relate to each other?
12. In Act I, Scene 8, Joe tells Harper that as long as his behavior is correct, he is a good man (46). In the context of the play, is he right?
13. Why does Prior tell Louis the lifeboat story? (See Act I, Scene 8, p. 47.)
14. How does Roy Cohn feel about his homosexuality? (See pp. 51-52.) Is he lying about or to himself?
15. In Act II, Scene 4, Roy advises Joe to leave Harper; he says to Joe, "You do what you need to do, Joe. What you need. You. Let her life go where it wants to. You'll both be hetter for that. Somebody should get what they want" (60). Why is it significant that this is Roy's advice? In the context of the play, is he right?
16. In Act II, Scene 4, Louis tells the man that he needs to be punished. Does Joe feel the need to be punished, too?
17. In Act II, Scene 5, the Voice tells Prior that they will abolish a great Lie (p. 68). What Lie?
18. Why does Roy really want Joe to take the job in the Justice Department? (See Act II, scene 6, pp. 73-75 ff.)
19. Why does Louis worry about Reagan's kids? How are they his concern? (See Act II, Scene 7, p. 77.)
20. In Act II, Scene 7, how is it symbolic that the Hall of Justice is empty? (See p. 78.) What comments is the play making about justice?
21. At the end of this scene, Louis says to Joe, "Everybody is in the land of the free. God help us all" (80). Explain.
22. In Act II, Scene 9, why are Joe and Harper's coversation and Louis and Prior's conversation overlapping? What does judgment have to do with it all?
23. How is Joe "the man with the knives"? (See Act II, Scene 9, p. 85-86.) What is the symbolic significance of Joe's bleeding in this scene?
24. In Act III, Scene 1, Priors 1 and 2 tell Prior to prepare for "the Infinite Descent" (95); how does this differ from the descent of power discussed by Louis in Act III, Scene 2, on page 95? Which "descent" relates more to freedom?
25. How is Louis similar to Roy Cohn? How is he different?
26. How is Joe's speech to Roy, in Act III, Scene 5 (p. 113) unintentionally ironic?
27. Why does Roy see Ethel Rosenberg at the end of Act III, Scene 5?
28. At the end of the play, the Angel says to Prior, "The Great Work begins..." What does it mean?
The following questions are about Part Two, Perestroika:
1. Look up "perestroika" and be sure you understand what it means.
2. In Act 1, Scene 1, Aaleksii says they must have a new Theory before they can move forward. What does he mean? How does this conflict with the Angel's message to Prior at the end of the same scene?
3. In Act 1, Scene 2, what brings realization brings Harper out of her imaginary Antarctica? What does Mr. Lies mean when he says she "overreached. Tore a big old hole in the sky"? (p. 151)
4. In Act 1, Scene 4, why does Prior want Belize to sing with him? Why "Hark the Herald Angels Sing"?
5. In Act 1, Scene 5, why does Belize give Roy Cohn good advice about the AZT? (p. 160)
6. In Act 2, Scene 2, what vision of the Creation does the Angel reveal to Prior? How does this differ from the version in Genesis? What was significant about the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906, according to the Angel? (p. 177).
7. To what does Prior compare God's abandoment of the Angels? (p. 177-8).
8. What does the Angel want humans to do? Why? (pp. 178-180). Does Belize agree with what the Angel says?
9. What does Prior mean when he says, "Maybe the World has driven God from Heaven..."? (p. 182)
10. In Act 3, Scene 2, why does Roy give the pills to Belize only after she calls him racist names?
11. In Act 3, Scene 3, why does the dummy in the diorama look like Joe? Why does Louis get so upset when he discovers Joe is a Mormon?
12. In Act 3, Scene 4, Joe says to Louis, "Fundamentally, we both want the same thing" (p. 205). In this scene, how are the personal and the political parallel? Does Louis accept Joe's statement?
13. In Act 3, Scene 5, Belize says she is Roy's "negation" (p. 210). What does she mean?
14. In Act 4, Scene 1, Roy says the truth at the heart of the world is "Stygian. How tragic, how brutal and short life is. How sinful people are. The immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through whatever we might become. All else is vanity" (p. 214). Roy says he's the only true conservative left. And he gives a blessing to Joe. What does all this imply about Joe?
15. In Act 4, Scenes 4 and 6, how do Hannah and Prior establish a connection?
16. In Act 5, Scene 2, why does Harper refuse to stay in Heaven?
17. Why does Belize want Louis to say Kaddish for Roy Cohn? Why does it have to be Louis who says it? What does Belize mean when she says, "Forgiveness. Which is where love and justice finally meet. Peace, at last"? (p. 256).
18. In Act 5, Scene 5, what decision does Prior make? And what does he advise the Angels to do if God returns?
19. In Act 5, Scene 6, why do people play cards in heaven?
20. In Act 5, Scene 8, why won't Harper let Joe come back? Why won't Prior let Louis come back? If these characters are symbolic, what might this mean on other levels?
21. In Act 5, why is Scene 9 optional?
22. Why does Act 5 end with Harper's speech? What does it imply about the themes of the play?
23. Why does the Epilogue take place with the characters sitting on the rim of the Bethesda Fountain, beneath the stone angel?
24. In the Epilogue, Hannah and the others have a conversation about "theory"; how does this relate to Aaleksii's speech in Act 1, Scene 1?
*All page numbers refer to the 1995 paperback edition.