No Angels In America Quotes

7. Quotes-
“Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. No. 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? Not ideology, or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will pick up the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who

Problems like racism are not really about race, but about politics. Both Belize and the play prove him wrong, though. The play’s title refutes his argument that “there are no angels in America” (Kushner 98). Later we see that not only are there angels in America, but there is an angel of America. Politics play an important role in America, but only because it is backed by the history of spiritual and racial past.
Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then get up. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending. (Part 2 Act 3 scene

From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character’s villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.
Roy Cohn’s crooked beliefs reflect the beliefs of many people in America in the late 20th century.
He believes that your identity (political, social, religious, sexual, ect) defines everything that a person is, and the ones with the wrong identity (like homosexuals, liberals, the poor, ect) are not worthy of anything.
His foil is Belize. Belize is the most morally sound and respectable character in the play. Like Roy, Belize is more of a symbol of a group than an individual character. Roy represents the unethical elitists of America while Belize represents the liberal, oppressed, “inferior” people. Belize is truly happy with his life while Roy is miserable.

In this passage, Prior describes the natural instinct that humans have to survive and go on living even when things look bleak. Find the Literary devices used in the passage and explain how it helps Prior’s argument that he should be allowed more time to