A question about 'Angels in America' — Page 2

Well, aren't you lucky.

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The reason for not resolving Joe is because of Kushner's message about acceptance and truth. Joe is not honest and truthful to himself, even though he knows deep down what the truth is. Roy Cohn, though somewhat evil, is honest to himself. He is not honest to other people but he accepts his homosexuality, which is why Roy is forgiven and Joe is not. Joe is a tragic figure, but in the end he never makes the choice to accept himself as he is. I think Kushner is telling us that accepting ourselves for what we are is most important.

Roquat you're not asking yourself what the play is about. It's not about everyone being nice and forgiven. It's about homosexuality. Dealing with it head on, watching those who can deal with it intereact with those who can't deal with it. Both in themselves or in other people. With any play one MUST consider the THESIS. What is this about? What is the message? And I believe the message is stay true to yourself or it will destroy your soul. Joe is the only one left unsettled because he's the only one who is not true to himself. Everything in the play points towards that.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 01:20 AM

I am quite confused here...

I played Joe in college. If I recall (and I don't have the script in front of me, so don't flame me...), Joe goes off with Louis at the end of AIA:Part I. (I assume that we are discussing part one?). If not, just correct me and don't bother reading below.

So, why am I reading all of this stuff about him out with his mom and 3 out and proud gays at the end?

Help, please.

We're talking about the end of part two.

I think the reason why Joe doesn't get resolved is because, like many others have said, he rejected himself and tried to hide his homosexuality. He just wanted to use Harper in the end to help him live his lie without any consideration for her happiness and what she needed. His conflict with Louis just made him scared and confused and go backwards. I think many people are looking at his end as the absolute end, but I don't. I think Kushner was saying that at that point, Joe does not deserve redemption or closure because he is still hiding and rejecting who he is and would continue to use the people in his life to help him hide. I don't Kushner really is that unforgivable to Joe because it is still possible for him, it's just Joe isn't at that point where he can get closure.

I also don't think that Joe should be unforgiven or treated horribly either. He's afraid, scared, confused, and in major conflict with himself. Not everyone can be brave or strong like Belize (who I think is the most unrealistic or at least unrelatable character of the play).

It would also be very out-of-character of him to be hanging out with 3 totally out gay men in the end because Joe still needs to deal with himself.

Uh...does not compute. Roy Cohn ruins the lives of everyone he touches and is responsible for the deaths of the Rosenbergs, but he can be forgiven for "accepting himself?" And Joe can't because he fumbles and makes mistakes?

Well, in the end of the play, Roy Cohn is still despicable (yeah I know I butchered the spelling) and people still view him as evil and have a hard time forgiving him (if they can). I don't think it was Kushner's intention for us to forgive or like Cohn in that sense, but making him accept himself helped him be closer to redemption than he was before.

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"I've got to get me out of here This place is full of dirty old men And the navigators and their mappy maps And moldy heads and pissing on sugar cubes While you stare at your books."

I guess unrealistic isn't the right word because you're right that there are a lot of people like him. But for me personally, it was hard for me to relate to him or at least enjoy his character.

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Updated On: 10/21/05 at 02:07 PM

Sorry to poke back into such intense discussion, but I was I was talking to a friend about this all, and she said this:

"I think that Joe's story is unresolved because he left. He left New York and his old life after years of feeling trapped there and I imagine him to be off 'finding himself', for lack of a better term. In the end, Joe is no longer confined to the story and has become a symbol of freedom. I like that I don't know exactly where he is, just that he's learning to live."

Just something else to throw into the mix.

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Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:05 PM

Well, there's no suggestion of the fact that he's particularly satisfied, either, and doesn't see fit to go finding himself. There's so little either way.

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This might be in scientific and medical naivety, but could Prior have had it from a previous relationship, and been lucky to have a *very* long incubation period? That doesn't do anything to the assumption that Louis isn't sick as well, being that if Prior was unaware, he'd still have passed it on.

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I almost just made a comment that I'm going to keep quiet.

But with a play like AIA, I like to think that there's purpose in everything -- that every bit of info given or even not given was done so with purpose. Maybe we're not supposed to know.

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I felt bad, thinking in a way that dumbed the play down to tops/bottoms.

Well said.

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"It's possible that after all of that he decided to go to Washington after all."

Nothing in the play supports that idea or that he went back to his old ways. He left his wife and was upset when louis wouldn't come back to him- what inclination does that show to go back into the closet? Joe also knows from Roy what kind of people are in Washington and they clearly don't fit his ideals. It wouldn't fit at all with the play's closing tone of hope- it's all about moving on, making changes and learning to live. Kushner wouldn't pour so much into Joe and then send him off and expect us to assume he went to Washington.

Okay.

(a) I agree with insomniak's evaluation -- the whole idea of Joe being lost, but on the way to becoming a new person, and discovering that new person. The man is left without the fibers of his life as he knew it. He has to go on and find what's right for him.
(b) There isn't any concrete indication that he goes to Washington. He disappears -- drops out of the plotline. We don't KNOW where he does. Just as you say there's nothing suggesting him wanting to find himself, I pose to you that there's nothing directly suggesting that he goes specifically to Washington. He just goes... away. Maybe this is similar to what Kringas and I had said about not knowing specifically whether or not Louis has AIDS because ultimately for this small piece of what we get of their lives, it doesn't matter all that much. Perhaps the specifics of what happen to Joe aren't imperative, so they aren't there. Maybe we're meant to assume certain things, but only know that of the grand scheme. I think to say that we can safely assume he went to Washington simply because there's nothing to indicate that he didn't, or to indicate where else he might have gone is a bit narrow. It sort of kills the notion of a play being very open to interpretations -- works like AIA probably aren't so "well, if he didn't do option a, then he HAD to do option b." They're not so this-or-that.

Being that the play's message is one of hope, I'd like to be able to conclude that Joe does go off to do some self-exploring. Why it is perfectly possible that Kushner left him out to sort of "shun" his character in a way, to me, it jives better with the rest of the play for him to be lost to exploration. Kushner, as I see it, has sort of turned him lose in freedom to go find who he is supposed to be.

I've always found Harper to be the character possessing the most intriguing insight in the play. She says: "Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead." She has hope. And I think that's what the play displays overall, hence why I think what I do about Joe's outcome.

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