Roy Cohn

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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. From the Greek, hubris is usually defined as excessive pride and often refers 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, 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 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.

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Cohn might be compared to Oedipus. 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" (ll. 75-76). Oedipus 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.

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Cohn was chosen to be a part of this play because aided McCarthy during the anit-communist hysteria in the 50's and symbolizes power and selfishness. While aiding McCarthy in the Ethel Rosenberg trial, Cohn helped to secure the death penalty for this "little jewish [mama]" (Kushner 114). In the play, Roy states that he "fucking [hates] traitors" (Kushner 114), yet he disregards the law to make sure that Ethel Rosenberg dies. He uses her communist ties to justify his actions. He perceives her as a traitor, but he is the "Judas" of the play. In addition to speaking with contempt for her and other jews in the play, he is also derisive of homosexuals in spite of being one. He continues to declare that he is not a homosexual, but a "heterosexual man...who fucks around with guys" (Kushner 52). He was a contradictory man because although he was a "closet homo" he helped in the persecution of gays (Jacobus 1635).

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?

6. Explain Roy's statement "I fucking hate traitors." Is there irony in this statement?

7. What other characters in the play who act as traitors?

8. How does Kushner use these Characters to demonstrate themes of betrayal, justice and redemption?

External Resource

• Roy Cohn

• Roy M. Cohn

Works Cited

• Jacobus, Lee A., Ed. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. 3rd Ed. Boston: Bedford, 1997.