In the 1980s, during the apogee of the AIDS crisis, many conservatives came forward to blame homosexuals for the epidemic. For instance, according to Armstrong, Lam, and Chase, Kaposi’s sarcomas, along with other diseases, make up a list of conditions that serves as a guideline for the diagnosis of AIDS. In fact, its relation to AIDS is so remarkable that it became a label; in a society that is divided by pre-conceived ideas of morality, it became a visual representation of HIV as a punishment for homosexuality. However, in Angels in America: a Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Tony Kushner attributes a greater meaning to the lesions caused by Kaposi’s sarcoma – from death sentence to change, and finally, to redemption. These lesions symbolize the lethality that comes with AIDS, and how it has shaped the sense of community amongst homosexuals. …show more content…
For example, during Act 1, Harper makes a comparison between people and planets in the sense that people “need a thick skin” (Kushner 17), as planets need ozone layers as “shell[s] of safety” (16). Later on, she expresses her feelings of impending doom, and her fear of the end of the world, when she talks about “holes in the ozone layer” (28). Similarly, Prior shares the same feelings as Harper regarding his AIDS diagnosis. Such is the case when he reveals his health condition to his lover, Louis, by exposing his lesions and identifying them as “the wine-dark kiss of the angel of death” (21). In other words, these metaphors represent the fragility of humans from a micro and macro