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Louis Ironson

2006-04-27T02:44:17Z

Beasler: /* Commentary */

Though Kushner is critical of Louis, he in no way diminishes the gravity of what this character is forced to deal with. Louis has, after all, good reason for wanting to flee. His lover, Prior Walter, is diagnosed with AIDS and is enduring many critical and excruciating symptoms of the disease. When he confronts his lover on the floor of their bedroom, burning with fever and excreting blood, the full horror of this disease is conveyed in all its mercilessness and squalor. Louis's moral dilemma is compelling precisely because what he has to deal with is so overwhelming. Still, the playwright makes clear that all the talk of justice and politics will not free us from those terrifying, yet fundamental responsibilities that accompany human sickness and death (McNutty 3).

[[Image:Louis.jpg]]

Louis is determined to "maybe himself out of his unfortunate present reality.One of the more incendiary moments occurs at a coffee shop with Prior's ex-lover and closest friend, Belize. Louis launches instead into a de Tocqueville-esque diatribe: "There are no gods here, no ghosts and spirits in America, there are no angels in Americal, no spiritual past, no racial past, there's only the political, and the decoys and the ploys to maneuver around the inescapable battle of politics". Belize makes clear that he can see right through Louis's highbrow subterfuge: "Are you deliberately transforming yourself into an arrogant, sexual-political Stalinist-slash-racist flag-wavingh thug for my benefit" (McNutty 2,3).

Louis self-destructively yearns to be penetrated: "I want you to fuck me, hurt me, make me bleed" (Kruger 7). Later Joe encounters Louis, who is in desperate flight of fear from his longtime lover, Prior, who is suffering from the initial stages of full-blown AIDS. Racked with guilt at his faithlessness, the liberal Louis reflects on the era, which he sees as a metaphor for his cowardly behavior. He describes himself, and Joe, as "Children of the new morning, criminal minds. Selfish and greedy and loveless and blind. Reagan's children." Louis has a brutal, punishing sexual encounter with a stranger in Central Park. The stanger provocatively asks, "You been a bad boy? Louis can only sardonically reply, "Very bad. Very bad" (Layman 9).

==Commentary==

Louis is a frightened boy who runs from his problems and searches for answers and spends a great deal of time babbling about what he thinks he has found. Louis is quite wishy-washy and always full of guilt for changing. He is quite self-destructive and a glutton for punishment which is exemplified by his meeting in the park with Joe.

Louis is almost the antithesis of Roy Cohn. Louis always seems confused about what he wants, Roy knows without a doubt. Louis searches for a way to forget about his pain, Roy accepts pain and says that "life is pain". Louis is afraid, Roy says the Devil should be afraid of him. However, we must question Louis' moral character, just as we do Roy's, because Louis abandon's his loved ones in the greatest times of need - the difference between Roy and Louis' lack of morals is that Louis always let them get the better of him.

http://agenda.liternet.ro/imagini04/angelsinamerica7.jpg

==Study Questions==
1. Why do you think it was so difficult for Louis to decide who he wanted to be with, Joe or Prior?

2. Do you think Louis' actions are justified when he leaves Prior after discovering the severity of Prior's illness?

Roy Cohn

2006-04-27T02:28:58Z

Beasler: /* External Resource */

http://www.logoonline.com/sitewide/promoimages/a/angels_in_america/characters/roy/150x200.jpg

The character of Roy Cohn serves as vehicle for Kushner's most telling act of counterhistory. As a "Saint of the Right", Cohn represents a point of continuity between the anticommunism of the 1950's and the Republic ascendancy of the Reagan 1980s (Garner 5).

Kushner employs a quite different brand of humor with the character of Cohn, whose gleefully bitter corruption is both comic and frightening. Cohn is a rapacious predator who is first discovered in his command module juggling phone calls and wishing he had eight arms like an octopus. Roy's self-loathing is his most unsettling quality, vividly shown in his scathing denial of his homosexuality: "Like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain,in the pecking order?" Cohn represents a kind of trickle-down morality in ''Angels in America''; he is a symbol of Kushner's notion that if there is corruption, hypocrisy, and bad faith at the top, it will ultimately seep down to each individual in the society (Layman 10).

Like an incipient cancer, Cohn's corruption, however destructive, is nonetheless insidious. It infiltrates and draws on the body's internal systems to spread, eventually overtaking and destroying the host--Cohn or the law.Although he corrupts the method by which judges decide cases (by sleeping with them and the like), he does not try to have cases decided any other way (Quinn 3).

Cohn's deviation from the jurisprudential norm is indeed like that of a cancer, ravenous in its hunger, growing and operating at a rate independent of the rest of the body of which it is a part, destined to overtake and kill the very body that sustains it. But the corrupt, diseased, tumorous nature of Cohn's lawyering also has important textual and thematic links with the physical infection and ensuing "corruption" of Cohn's flesh and blood with AIDS (Quinn).

==Commentary==
One of the main characters in ''Angels in America'', Roy Cohn, exhibits Hubris[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/]" in its greatest form. By definition, hubris referred in Ancient Greece to a reckless disregard for the rights of another person resulting in some kind of social degradation for the victim.
Hubris is a common theme in Greek tragedies and mythology, whose stories often featured characters displaying hubris and subsequently being punished for it. In Greek law, it most often refers to violent outrage wreaked by the powerful upon the weak. Cohn uses his position and "clout" to get ahead.

When confronted by his doctor, Henry, he explains his role as he saw it:

''"...Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men . . . Homosexuals are not men that sleep with other men . . . Homosexuals...have zero clout...I have clout" (Kushner 51).''

From this perspective, we see that Cohn not only dominates those around him, but he dominates the society in which he lives. He has the power to make and break the reputations of those around him.

Roy is the most frowned upon character in the screenplay and the character we all love to hate. Roy shows no compassion to anyone throughout the screenplay, even when he is on his death-bed. His cold-heartedness and manipulative ways help make him an easy target for hatred. However Roy was doing what he felt had to do in order to succeed, in order to accomplish his goals, in order to get what he wanted. It is for this reason that Roy Cohn is the most symbolic character in this play, for what he epitomizes - America, the capitalist land of the social cheeseburger.

http://www.hbo.com/films/angelsinamerica/img/photos/photo_roys_closer.jpg

One of the great comparisons of Cohn is to Oedipus in Oedipus the King [http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/myth.htm"]written by Sophocles [http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.maconstate.edu/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=maco12153&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13003395&n=10&docNum=H1200007651&ST=Sophocles&bConts=278191]. Oedipus for example, feigns compassion and understanding with his people suffering from the plague in order to maintain his political position. When he is addressing the crowd, he makes his own suffering seem far greater than any other:

''"Well I know you are sick to death, all of you, but sick as you are, not one is sick as I. Your pain strikes each of you alone, each in the confines of himself, no other. But my spirit grieves for the city, for myself and all of you." (Line 75-76)''

He believes that his triumphs exceed any of those made by his counter parts. This behavior is key to hubris; his arrogance allows him to believe that he is greater than any God.

Cohn has similar moments of superiority and feigned compassion. When discussing his clout, Cohn brags that he can reach the first lady in five minutes if necessary, showing his affluence and span of his reputation. Sometime after finding out that he has AIDS, Cohn goes to a bar to pick up a man with the intent of sex. This reckless behavior shows his disregard for others, putting his sexual needs above anyone else shows his selfish spirit. He had no regard for others, as long as he is able to use them.

As represented in all great Greek tragedies, hubris is the downfall of the character. As we read more about the progression of Cohn, we see how far his affluence takes him, allowing him to have access to ATZ during a clinical trial before anyone else. In the end, Cohn dies, cloutless and the same as everyone else.

http://www.hbo.com/films/angelsinamerica/img/photos/photo_roy_hospita.jpg

==Study Questiones==
1. Why would Roy find it necessary to have Ethel Rosenburg killed? Could Roy have felt threatened by the loss of power acheived with Socialism?

2. Do you think Roy could have changed, even if he wanted to?

3. Do we feel justification when Roy dies painfully and disembarred? If yes, isn't that kind of a "Roy-esk" quality, if you will?

4. Do you think putting his career at risk is the only reason that Roy Cohn would not call himself a homosexual?

5. Why do you think it is so important for Roy to live a life that is exactly like the life his father lived?

==External Resource==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn Roy Cohn]

*[http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.maconstate.edu/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=maco12153&srchtp=athr&ca=1&c=1&ste=6&tab=1&tbst=arp&ai=U13021098&n=10&docNum=H1000019341&ST=Roy+Cohn&bConts=2191 Roy M. Cohn]

2006-02-20T22:33:00Z

Beasler:

Genre is a French term for "a kind, a literary type or class" (Barnet 120). It is the literary device that tells what category of literature a work falls within. Harmon states that works are most commonly grouped according to three major characteristics--form, technique, or subject matter. Cudden says that the major traditional genres consisted of epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy, and satire. In modern days, the novel and short story were added to this listing. Genres have to allow for some flexibility as some works do not fit clearly into one category or another. Harmon states that many successful works are hybrids of different types of genres. He uses the prose poem, nonfiction novel, and television movies just to name a few.

“Yellow Woman” by Silko and “To Build a Fire” by London are both examples of fictional short stories. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' by Harper Lee is an example of a fictional novel.

== Works Cited ==

Barnet, Sylvan. ''A Dictionary of Literary, Dramatic, and Cinematic Terms.'' 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971.

Cudden, J.A. ''A Dictionary of Literary Terms.'' Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1979.

Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. ''A Handbook to Literature.'' 7th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Genre

2006-02-16T00:06:03Z

Beasler:

Genre, a French word translating into kind or type, is the literary device that tells what category of literature a work falls within. Works are characterized into a certain genre depending the type of subject matter they focus on. It can tell whether the work is fiction or nonfiction. Since many types of fiction and nonfiction exist, genre can also go deeper and specify types such as comedy, tragedy, epic poetry, and science fiction within those categories. Genres have to allow for some flexibility as some works do not fit clearly into one category or another.

“Yellow Woman” by Silko and “To Build a Fire” by London are both examples of fictional short stories. ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' by Harper Lee is an example of a fictional novel.

== Works Cited ==

Belton, Robert. ''Words of Art''. 2002.

"Genre." ''Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature''. 1995 ed.

Murfin, Ray. ''The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms''. 2003.