Strong self-identity and self acceptance, are what stimulates large migration and, eventually, progress. Prior greatly exemplifies a character whom carries a disease, but feels resolved with every piece of his identity, oppressed and privileged, and is able to create change because of it. Early in the play, readers see the effect that Prior’s AIDS has on him. He states that in an ideal world, “One wants to move through life with elegance and grace,” but instead, “One does not. One gets fucked. Over. One .. dies at thirty, robbed of … decades of majesty” (31). The first quote creates a flashbacks with Louis, Prior’s lover’s, dialogue of a one way progression towards life, expressing that Prior doesn’t see himself within this ideal world of progress
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Prior feels stuck and awaiting just death in a world that has already oppressed him all his life. Left alone in the hospital and world by his lover, Prior starts to hallucinate deceased members of his family, characterized as other Priors. After introductions, Prior 1 quickly takes the AIDS pills from Prior’s hand, stating, “The pestilence in my time was much worse than now. Whole villages of empty houses” (90). Like with the Rabbi, readers see a historical relationship between illness and regression that affect all of humanity. The visit symbolizes to Prior that he is not alone in this battle against disease and illness, and that he shouldn’t just give up to death. Likewise, Harper and Prior are both rejected lovers, but realize that even within their desperateness, they are not alone as they are with other outcasts in society. The Priors aren’t only the ancestors of the play’s actual Prior Walters, but also foreshadow dialogue of a future character and another hallucination of Prior, the Angel, implying a interconnection between their …show more content…
The Angel in the play portrays a character who tries to stop migration, and does that by frequently visiting Prior in the hospital, not to save him from his disease, but to use it to against him. After calling Prior a prophet, she states, “On you in you in your blood we write have written: STASIS! The END” (174). The Angel is upholding Prior’s earlier beliefs of AIDS inevitably killing him by stating that it will be his end. She’s giving him a reason to be completely emerged solely his disease and nothing else. Belize, however, creates a different interpretation of the Angel, stating, “[She] is not real. This is just you, Prior, afraid of … Of what’s coming. Afraid of time. But see that’s just not how it goes, the world doesn’t spin backwards” (175). Prior has created two pieces of identities with his hallucinations. One that personifies the importance of history in relation to the present diseases it brings and another that denies any benefit from the progression that begets from the past and hopes to cease migration. When Prior realizes not only does disease help humans and their identities get rooted in the past, but also helps fuel progression and hope in the present, he is able to incorporate his oppressed identities within this movement to create change. While Roy is desperate to make a memorable legacy, Prior, uses his past to create a hope filled future for himself and
Prior feels stuck and awaiting just death in a world that has already oppressed him all his life. Left alone in the hospital and world by his lover, Prior starts to hallucinate deceased members of his family, characterized as other Priors. After introductions, Prior 1 quickly takes the AIDS pills from Prior’s hand, stating, “The pestilence in my time was much worse than now. Whole villages of empty houses” (90). Like with the Rabbi, readers see a historical relationship between illness and regression that affect all of humanity. The visit symbolizes to Prior that he is not alone in this battle against disease and illness, and that he shouldn’t just give up to death. Likewise, Harper and Prior are both rejected lovers, but realize that even within their desperateness, they are not alone as they are with other outcasts in society. The Priors aren’t only the ancestors of the play’s actual Prior Walters, but also foreshadow dialogue of a future character and another hallucination of Prior, the Angel, implying a interconnection between their …show more content…
The Angel in the play portrays a character who tries to stop migration, and does that by frequently visiting Prior in the hospital, not to save him from his disease, but to use it to against him. After calling Prior a prophet, she states, “On you in you in your blood we write have written: STASIS! The END” (174). The Angel is upholding Prior’s earlier beliefs of AIDS inevitably killing him by stating that it will be his end. She’s giving him a reason to be completely emerged solely his disease and nothing else. Belize, however, creates a different interpretation of the Angel, stating, “[She] is not real. This is just you, Prior, afraid of … Of what’s coming. Afraid of time. But see that’s just not how it goes, the world doesn’t spin backwards” (175). Prior has created two pieces of identities with his hallucinations. One that personifies the importance of history in relation to the present diseases it brings and another that denies any benefit from the progression that begets from the past and hopes to cease migration. When Prior realizes not only does disease help humans and their identities get rooted in the past, but also helps fuel progression and hope in the present, he is able to incorporate his oppressed identities within this movement to create change. While Roy is desperate to make a memorable legacy, Prior, uses his past to create a hope filled future for himself and