Prior Walter

“Prior Walter" - In the beginning of the play, Prior reveals to his boyfriend Loius that he has AIDS. Louis abandons him after this. Louis can not cope with the finiteness of Prior's diagnosis and the "hell" that goes along with his illness.The first part of the play is Prior coming to terms with his illness. He meets Joe's wife Harper and there is an immediate connection thanks to the "threshold of revelation". Both are suffering souls with lovers that cannot understand their pain. Part two continues the story, with the angel explaining to Prior that God has abandoned his creation, and that Prior has been chosen to somehow stop progress and return the world to the "good old days." Prior tells the angel he is not a prophet; he's a lonely, sick man. "I'm tired to death of being tortured by some mixed-up, irresponsible angel. . . Leave me alone." The Angel is drawn to Prior because of his illness, which inscribes a kind of ending in his bloodstream, and because of his ancient Anglo-Saxon lineage, representing the notion of being rooted and stable. But he proves wiser than the Angels in rejecting their doctrine of stasis in favor of the painful necessity of movement and migration. Prior is as genuinely decent and moral as Louis is flawed. His AIDS virus/infection renders him weak and victimized, but he manages to transcend that mere victimhood, surviving and becoming the center of a new, utopian community at the play's end.”(Spark Notes)

Work Cited

• "Kushner: Angels in America." Rev. of Angels in America. Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database. 23 Apr. 2006 literature annotations.

• Spark Notes-http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/angels/terms/char_2.html