ANGELS IN AMERICA:
CHARACTERS
Roy Cohn
Joe Pitt
Harper Amaty Pitt
Belize
Louis Ironson
Prior Walter
Hannah Porter Pitt
The Angel

"I’m not religious but I like God and God likes me."

Roy Cohn

A lawyer, used to power and privilege, he finds himself despised and helpless in the last days of his life. Roy contracts the AIDS virus and is being disbarred for his unethical conduct as a lawyer. Despite his former clout, he finds that the people who once followed his every whim actually turn against him. Roy recognizes that " you are booted out of the parade. Americans have no use for the sick. . .It’s just no country for the infirm" (62). Roy tries to sway the religious Joe Pitt to help keep him a lawyer to his last day, asking him to join the committee against him. He is disbarred before he dies, with his past haunting him. His passion for being a lawyer is summed up when he expresses that "Lawyers are. . . the High Priests of America. We alone know the words that made America. Out of thin air. We alone know how to use The Words. The Law: the only club I ever wanted to belong to"(89).

His main objective is to wield power over every individual. He tells Joe fervently that his hard work was never for the money but for the clout. He constantly asks people if they realize how powerful he is. It is his one claim in life, and he revels in degrading people and the possibilities of his every action. He humiliates Martin to prove power. He threatens others to feel the power that he wields. Even in his last seconds he uses the power of deception against the dead Ethel Rosenberg. He is ironically emasculated by disease and stripped of his position as a ‘High Priest’ at the end. However, Roy has changed throughout the entirety of the story. He is last seen making a defense for God’s desertion.

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"I pray for God to crush me, break me up into little pieces and start all over again."

Joe Pitt

A man torn between society’s standards and his own calling, Joe ultimately ends up alone because of his failure to stay true to anyone important in his life, including himself. Joe is an upright Mormon struggling against his homosexuality and struggling with his deteriorating relationship with his wife. He finds himself in Louis, but is still hesitant about moving forward though he claims that change is good. At the close he is alone, abandoned by Louis and Harper but perhaps redeemed by his suffering.

Joe’s objective is to be the most pious person he can while being happy. Unfortunately those two objectives do not meld well. Those are his conscious objectives. Inside, however he struggles to come to terms with his true self and how he has been raised. Joe is society’s pawn, always a follower, hence it is hard for him to shed his old skin and start anew. Though he is does not have bad intentions, he disregards people’s feelings and is ambivalent to the very end about his relationships. He leaves Harper and returns to her too many times until she finally goes. He admits "Only you. Only you love me. Out of everyone in the world. I have done things, I’m ashamed. But I have changed. I don’t know how yet, but. . . Please, please, don’t leave me now. Harper. You’re my good heart" (142). However, he tells Louis he is certain he is in love with him as well. He cannot let go of either because he wants to obtain happiness, while possessing stability all at once. His job in Washington is an opportunity he wants but cannot have. It is another event in his life that he must give up for Harper, he blames her for destroying him when in truth it is his inner struggle. At the close of the play, Joe is a different man as he has said. Though alone, he has changed for the better because through suffering, as the Mormon mother/dummy taught, people change and discover themselves.

 

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"God won’t talk to me. I have to make up people to talk to me"

Harper Amaty Pitt

She is Joe’s Mormon wife who is addicted to valium and a slightly deranged sociopath. She begins as a frustrated housewife deprived of sex, of contact with the outer world and reality in a whole. She retreats entirely into the delusions of her mind and drugs. Eventually through the threshold of revelation and with help from a few friends and Mother Pitt she is able to free herself from her unhappy marriage and her self-imprisonment inside her home. She is desperate for attention and empowering human contact and dialogue. She seeks a relationship only a little better than what her marriage has to offer her. As a result, she resorts to hallucinations. Her goal at first is to attract Joe’s attention. Perhaps that is the reason for her erratic behavior at times. She claims to be pregnant for him to care for her. Joe, however cannot offer anything beyond neutrality and forced affection known as pity. She burns his dinner and exclaims that "It just seemed like the kind of thing a mentally deranged sex-starved pill-popping housewife would do. . .So I did it. Who knows anymore what I have to do" (36). Craving attention desperately, she seeks it not only in Joe, but her imaginary friends. Eventually, she realizes pursuing the relationship is not the solution but escape from her position is the actual key. The remainder of the play, Harper struggles with her emotions and love for Joe. In order to find happiness she must leave him and all her former dreams behind. It takes a while as she gives him many chances, but she finally is able to leave and become an independent entity. Perhaps in San Francisco, the city of unspeakable beauty, she will find what she craves.

 

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"A queen can forgive her vanquished foe."

Belize

Norman Arriaga is called Belize, a drag nickname that stuck. Perhaps the person with the best moral character in the play, Belize summons compassion even in the most deplorable situations. He nurses the abandoned Prior. Though dry, sarcastic and acrimonious when he wants to be, he is a compassionate friend, and sympathetic human, he tolerates and humors everyone. He humors Louis, who annoys him, yet can see the good of everyone. His compassion is seen in his mild kindness towards the ailing Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn calls him every derogatory word defined, orders him around like a slave, and eventually in a disturbing scene invites him to bed.

Belize’s main objective in life is to forgive and to heal. Attentive and willing to listen, he serves as therapy for many of the main characters within the novel. He is quite passive yet not complacent about life. When outraged by Louis’ unintentional racism he makes the profound observation that "The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a not so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing sounds less like freedom to me" (Perestroika 96). However, he humors Louis incessantly, listening to his constant ranting. He does the same for Prior’s whining and even Roy Cohn’s bigoted raving. He is merciful, as he tells Louis that he smells forgiveness in the air. His obligations to heal compel him to tell Roy about treatments and give him advice. In fact, when Roy Cohn is dead he is willing to forgive the man because he has suffered.

 

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"If there was a God He would have clobbered me by now. I’m the incontrovertible argument against the existence of a just God, or at least against His competence or attentiveness or. . ."

Louis Ironson

Louis is a man destined to suffer, because the idea of suffering is noble. He states it succinctly that if he "failed to suffer the universe would become unbalanced" (33). He leaves Prior because he is afraid of death and loss. In order to survive himself, he shuns responsibility. Yet guilt overrides his quest for happiness. He cannot find fulfillment in his relationship with Joe Pitt and cannot resume his old life.

Louis’ search and reason is to find happiness and fulfillment without the burden of guilt. Joe analyzes him perfectly, by stating that Louis sees the world as perfectible and hence is easily disappointed. He is shaken by his inability to be perfect at everything and shattered by his inability to love. He cannot find happiness in his relationship with Prior simply because he cannot deal with death nor loss. His responsibility is a debatable subject. What is not is his lack of control in stressful situations. He loves Prior and misses him when he leaves but seeing him makes him guilty because he only wishes he could do something to alleviate the situation. He is man who does not like being helpless and is constantly rendered ineffective because of this desire. He eventually finds solace at the close of the play realizing that people can’t wait around for an idea but must move forward, act despite the consequences that may occur. Even though he and Prior do not live happily ever after a sense of resolution still is felt at the end.

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"Oh my queen; you know you hit rock bottom when even drag is a drag."

Prior Walter

Prior is a quirky and sardonic man dying of AIDS. He is abandoned by his lover of four years. An eccentric victim of sorts, Prior constantly alludes to death. He is chosen as a prophet and is terrified by his nightly visions. He is given the offer to live eternally in heaven and to be a prophet but chooses instead to live life on earth despite the inevitable death to come.

Prior’s main objective is to come to terms with living a life that is almost unbearable. At first, he passively dismisses his lot with morbid remarks and incessant allusions to death. He is constantly whining and questioning why he is condemned. A man of little action, Prior cannot understand with his narrow view the world or his bad luck. He reasons that he is the only man lonely in New York and dying of AIDS without a friend to care for him. He never realizes what he has but only what he does not. Eventually he matures and realizes people are worse off than he, and they continue to live. He understands that he is living and hasn’t given up because he still has hope and there is something he has. Only when given the choice to live in heaven, does he realize the worth and value of life to him no matter how meager. Prior also understands that the things he complained about and longed for are perhaps not the root of his problem. Throughout the story he yearns for the return of Louis, but the underlying problem is not Louis’ abandonment. When Louis returns Prior cannot accept him, he has changed and grasps that he is an individual that desires life even if its offerings are minimal.

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"You Don’t Make Assumptions about me mister; I won’t make them about you."

Hannah Porter Pitt

Untypical of her demographic stereotype, Hannah is a caustic and cynical older Mormon woman. She is not without responsibility though, for she goes to New York at the first sign of trouble in her son and daughters in law’s life. Though harsh in words, she is with high moral standards and with great faith. She may sound cruel but she cares for Harper and even Prior, a virtual stranger. At the end of the play she is metamorphosed into a New Yorker and awaits the millennium with the rest.

Her initial objective was to reform and rationalize with her son Joe. Instead of finding salvation for her son, she realizes that her faith and beliefs are being challenged. She instead seeks to save Harper from her miserable and abject situation. Her strength helps her realize her the rigid structure of her beliefs without compromising them. The deterioration and even the fact that God has left does not shake her strong faith in the way she lives. Perhaps he faith is even reaffirmed with the Angel in an odd way. She is now certain of a higher powers existence though not of its worth. She still continues on believing as she always did and living a life that is not dominated by labels or stereotypes. She continues her journey to help when she rescues Prior and saves his life. Though harsh, she is not without sympathy. Her change only occurs in tolerance of others, she remains true despite all the forces of change surrounding her.

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"My wrath is as fearsome as my countenance is splendid. Open the suitcase."

The Angel

The Angel first manifest as a voice that heralds a great work to come. In Millennium Approaches she sends the ghost of Prior’s ancestors and finally enters at the close of the play by crashing through his ceiling. Her messages are backward. Vain and pretentious, she tells the prophet that he must tell people to stop moving. She is at moments splendid, but her appearance belies her grandeur. She is racked with an inhuman cough. She takes Prior to heaven after she has lost a struggle with him. Ultimately, the Angel tries to sway Prior but cannot make him stay nor want to fulfill his role as a prophet.

The Angel’s main objective is to stop humanity’s wrong doings. Her first goal is to sway Prior to join her cause. She manages in terrifying him instead. She is still clinging on to her former glory as God’s worker and servant. Unfortunately, without God, she truly has no entity, having not the ability to create or imagine. Like the antiquated radio, she is not adequate to convince the prophet. He rejects what she has to offer, perhaps not only because of the message but because of her execution of the plan. She forgets to deliver the prophetic instruments and cannot improvise. Finally, her inability is probably a result of an underlying fear of humans in general. After all, humans are the inferior creatures that scared Him away. In heaven, she tries in vain to convince Prior to stay and never taste death, but all the angels realize their sad station when he refuses. Even her tales of apocalypse and what is to come cannot stop his desire to live. His desire ignites their benign longing to ‘live.’ At the close of the novel, even the angels are no longer passive. They heed Prior’s advice and take a lawsuit against God.

 

Please sign my little book it would make me mucho happy.

 
There are Angels in America.

Please so not copy this word for word because it's actually part of an analysis I wrote in AP English (12th grade so I was NOT smart) so that would be plagiarism.  Oh, and also don't quote me because I am not a professional and I know nothing. If you want to use my ideas feel free and just e-mail me because I'd love to hear youropinions on Angels In America.  Oh yeah... this page is so unofficial it's not even funny.