Oct 12 2009
The Personal Apocalypse
In Kusher’s “Angels in America,” the characters experience a more personal apocalypse than in Watchmen. Each character’s world is shattered on a very private level that is only recognized by others whose world as fallen apart as well.
All of the characters in some way are on the outskirts of society based on some aspect of their identity, mainly based on sexuality, race, gender, and/or religion. These characters come together and experience the apocalypse as a collective but it is not known to anyone outside of their group.
The three characters who are experiencing the most tragic of personal apocalypse have hallucinations that help them deal with their situation. Prior is visited by the angel after he loses both his health and his lover. Roy Cohn is fighting a disease as well but he is also fighting his own disbarment, which is arguably a more important battle for him since he places his reputation above all else. Harper is trapped in a marriage with a closeted homosexual and experiences drug-induced hallucinations because of it.
These characters’ hallucinations have different purposes and varied results. The angel that visits Prior comes with its own agenda to change the habits of humans in order to woo back God to heaven. Prior is confused by his hallucination but later rejects his prophecy for the chance at life. Roy’s vision of Ethel Rosenberg is spurred by his unethical behavior during her trial, which resulted in her undeserved execution. The ghost of Ethel gives Roy a chance at redemption but he rejects it completely and dies a miserable death alone. Harper has been hallucinating for some time in an effort to escape her loveless marriage but it is her vision that reveals that her husband is gay that allows her to later accept it and move on to San Francisco to start a new life.
The three characters are no doubt at the lowest points of their lives when they have these hallucinations that either present them an opportunity for renewal. The question stands: Does a person’s life have to be destroyed before they can experience a revelation?
I don’t know if a person’s life has to be in ruins for them to receive a revelation, but I think people definitely have to be in a low place to for their revelation to have any effect.
I’ve been thinking about daniel’s question on my post last week (http://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/doomsday/2009/10/06/symptoms-of-a-prophet/#comment-38) about whether it would make a difference whether a revelation was received by an individual, a community, or the whole world.
I would say it doesn’t matter – precisely for the reasons you outlined in your post. If the characters receiving revelations were happy, well-adjusted people in healthy relationships, I don’t think they would have needed to escape into drugs (Harper), visions of the dead (Roy), or supernatural prophesies (Prior).
For arguments sake, even if they were happy and well adjusted and they did still experience the revelations, I think they would have been much more likely to brush them off as dreams or their imaginations, instead of taking them so seriously. Just like in 12 Monkeys, when James Cole started to find happiness with Katherine in 1996, he began to discount his “visions” of the future as symptoms of a mental disorder.
I think the happiness factor plays a bigger role these days due to skepticism and science.
Back in the day I think prophecy was probably taken much easier.