Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Responsible AIDS and Becoming Human:

Exposing Identity in Angels in America and The Line of Beauty

Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of
Supervisor: ―Master in de Taal-en Letterkunde:
Engels‖
Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens By Matthias De Poorter

August 2010
Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

Responsible AIDS and Becoming Human:

Exposing Identity in Angels in America and The Line of Beauty

Paper submitted in partial fulfilment of

the requirements for the degree of
Supervisor: ―Master in de Taal-en Letterkunde:
Engels‖
Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens By Matthias De Poorter

August 2010
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1

2. AIDS/HIV .............................................................................................................................. 4

HIV is not AIDS, AIDS is not a disease, HIV and AIDS do not equal death ........................ 5

AIDS is not a synonym for the eighties ................................................................................. 8

AIDS cannot be AIDS, AIDS is always already a metaphor in discourse ........................... 12

AIDS is not the result of moral decrepitude, sin, or divine retribution, nor does AIDS instil

innocence or guilt ................................................................................................................. 15

AIDS is not a gay disease. AIDS is not a black disease. ...................................................... 18

3. Humanity/Identity ................................................................................................................ 21

Human/Inhuman or Intelligible/Unintelligible ..................................................................... 21

Self/Other ............................................................................................................................. 27

Performative Identity............................................................................................................ 29

AIDS/HIV ............................................................................................................................ 33

4. Angels in America ................................................................................................................ 38

AIDS..................................................................................................................................... 38

PWAs ................................................................................................................................... 47

5. The Line of Beauty ............................................................................................................... 58

AIDS..................................................................................................................................... 58

PWAs ................................................................................................................................... 69

6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 77
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 81

Primary Sources ................................................................................................................... 81

Secondary Sources ............................................................................................................... 81

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Dr. Gert Buelens, and my two readers, Dr. Alise

Jameson and Dr. Johanna Wagner, for their patience, which I must have tried more than once

this past year. A special thanks, also, to Dr. Johanna Wagner, for helping me through a

‗performative crisis.‘

With an enormous sense of gratitude, I would like to thank the library of English Literature,

whose staff was always extremely helpful, especially since the books I needed were almost

always located at the other side of the library.

For her continued support and insatiable zeal, I am severely indebted to my fellow student,

Annelies Colpaert, without whom this dissertation would not have existed.

I would also like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, Professor Dr. Kate Macdonald for a

wonderful year, enriched by her presence. Although she might not know it, her frankness gave

me the vigour to muddle on.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the lives of all people living with AIDS/HIV, past,

present, and (alas) future. Their lives are infinitely more valuable than the following text.
 De Poorter 1

1. Introduction

AIDS disrupts lives. People with AIDS lose any claim, if they ever had any, to the

future. AIDS equals death. These ideas have been accepted far and wide since the beginning

of the AIDS epidemic in the eighties, and are still commonly acknowledged in the 21st

century. The disruption that is AIDS, however, is not the result of an impoverished health or a

resignation to die in the person living with AIDS, rather it is produced by a society that

decides to differentiate between human lives, those worthy of living and those whose death is

tragic but not of any consequence. It is produced by a society which distinctively says ―AIDS

is the problem of others‖ (Crimp 2002: 260). It seems redundant in the ‗enlightened‘ 21st

century to stipulate that AIDS and HIV are not issues solely afflicting others, and yet the

prejudices about AIDS that were created in the early eighties are as prevalent now as they

were back then, even if some of those original prejudices disappeared in order to resurface in

a different form. One needs but to look at the requirements of blood donation in many

Western countries to notice supposedly outdated prejudices against people living with AIDS,

or at the stigmatisation process connected with AIDS which still prevents people from getting

tested.

AIDS, not surprisingly, does not have the power to disrupt lives, as long as the person

living with AIDS does not allow it do so. It does have the potential, however, to disrupt the

worldview and opinions of the person living with AIDS. Moreover, the tenacity of the

prejudices connected with AIDS urged people with AIDS and scholars to contemplate the

nature of society and identity, and how these two notions were interconnected. Literature,

however, also explores the ability of AIDS experience to disrupt and influence society and

identity. In People in Trouble, for example, AIDS is represented as a transformative process,

 De Poorter 2

affecting not only people living with AIDS, but also their closest friends. It is precisely

through AIDS that Kate experiences a change in her identity as an artist; AIDS exposes the

futility of her political art and urges her to consider activist art instead. Like her activist work

(―burning installations‖), Kate feels as if she herself is ―burning‖ (Schulman 225, 217). This

dissertation also attributes the potential to disrupt to AIDS, but in its appropriation of

disruption, reinterprets it in terms of exposing the performative construction of identity. The

focus of this essay lies not on the effect of AIDS as disruption of identity, but on the process

of AIDS in disrupting and exposing identity. Angels in America and The Line of Beauty both

utilise AIDS to deconstruct supposedly fixed identities and expose the creation of those

identities.

I will analyse the stigmatisation process in the chapter ―AIDS/HIV‖, whilst the theory

surrounding identity and AIDS is dealt with in the chapter ―Humanity/Identity.‖ The

following two chapters, ―Angels in America‖ and ―The Line of Beauty‖ are each subdivided

into two parts: ―AIDS‖ and ―PWAs‖, respectively looking at how AIDS functions in the work

(by means of the first chapter) and how identity is disrupted and exposed by AIDS (using the

second chapter as a guidance). I chose Angels in America and The Line of Beauty because

they both look back on AIDS and people living with AIDS during the eighties from a moment

after the climax of the ―AIDS crisis.‖ Despite this similarity, the two literary works are

distinctively different. Angels in America, part one performed in 1991 and part two in 1992,

looks back on Reaganite America, but is still entrenched in the political activism of AIDS

activist groups like ACT UP New York and in the sense of community during the AIDS

epidemic. The Line of Beauty, published in 2004, depicts Thatcherite Britain but disregards

the sense of community amongst people living with AIDS during the eighties. Regardless of
 De Poorter 3

these differences, AIDS is still able to expose identity construction, although the result of

those exposures are decisively influenced by the different representations of AIDS.

 De Poorter 4

2. AIDS/HIV

Almost thirty years after the discovery of the opportunistic infection, Pneumocystis

Pneumonia, in previously healthy ―active homosexuals,‖ AIDS (Acquired Immune

Deficiency Syndrome), ARC (AIDS Related Complex), and HIV (Human Immunodeficiency

Virus), are firmly established in history, medical science, and the public mind.1 The thirty

years of activism since then, however, has had depressingly little impact on the prejudices

accompanying AIDS and HIV. Whether or not a population is informed by the specific ways

of transmission of HIV, PWAs (Persons/People with AIDS) are still stigmatized by their

surroundings, because of the ―fear of contagion‖ and ―negative, values-based assumptions

about people living with HIV [and/or AIDS]‖ (UNAIDS 2008 Report 78). The assumptions

about PWA are manifold and often contradictory, a person with AIDS, for instance, must be

gay, must be a prostitute, must be promiscuous, must be an IV (intravenous) drug user, must

be black, . . . and the list goes on and keeps growing. These prejudices depend on a system to

exclude the PWA from the ―general population‖ (Treichler 64). AIDS/HIV itself cannot

escape a similar set of values, created to reassure the fear of contagion in the general

population. AIDS thus becomes a gay disease, originating in Africa, or in the case of

European countries, ―born . . . in the USA‖, in other words, an external disease (Gilman 101).

Unsurprisingly, the diagnosis of HIV or AIDS is still feared and kept secret.

The following issues are only a few problems in the experience of AIDS/HIV, but all of

them are significant in understanding AIDS in the literary works discussed later on. These

three literary works try to undermine popular assumptions about PWAs or try to depict PWAs

humanely, yet sometimes they (inadvertently) subscribe to those prejudices and worsen

intolerance rather than expose it. It comes as no surprise that Angels in America, written

1
Published in the American Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, June 5, 1981, Vol. 30, No. 21.
 De Poorter 5

during the latter part of the eighties but published in the early nineties, has a much deeper

commitment than The Line of Beauty to exposing the stigma surrounding AIDS/HIV. Rooted

in the AIDS activism of the late eighties, this play tries to keep alive the activism that

constituted its origin. The Line of Beauty, on the other hand, looks back on the eighties from

the 21st century, and values the experience of AIDS differently.

HIV is not AIDS, AIDS is not a disease, HIV and AIDS do not equal death

Cindy Patton argues in Inventing AIDS that HIV and AIDS are ―not synonymous‖, but

two distinct concepts that might have a relation to each other, but not necessarily a causal

relation (141, original italics). HIV and AIDS, Patton adds, are terms embedded in two

different medicinal ―subdisciplines‖, respectively virology and immunology, even though

they are influenced by each other (59). Virology stresses with the term HIV that the resulting

illness is caused by a single virus, in this case a retrovirus, whereas immunology does not

research why immunodeficiency is caused, but how it progresses, and what the result may be.

The two notions, then, represent the ―multiple and contradictory logics modelled variously on

virology and immunology‖ (Patton 59). When HIV and AIDS are conflated, AIDS takes on a

virological characteristic and the term ―AIDS virus‖ is created (Grover 21). Grover stresses

that the use of this popular term ―equates infection with death‖ (21), but this conflation also

attributes communicability to something that is not a disease, but a status. The similarity to

the terms ‗flu virus‘ or ‗poliovirus‘ is not coincidental, and it turns the syndrome AIDS into

the ―disease‖ AIDS (Grover 19). As a result, the visible symptoms of AIDS, which are

actually the symptoms of opportunistic infections, support, precisely because of their

visibility, the popular notion that AIDS is highly contagious. On the other hand, it would also

reinforce the notion that if there are no visible signs of illness, one cannot be ill, infectious, or

contagious. The ―AIDS virus‖ not only ―kills‖ people who are still perfectly healthy (or as
 De Poorter 6

Cindy Patton argues, it supports the view that ―‗testing positive‘ on the HIV antibody test . . .

means you will soon ‗die of AIDS‘‖ [141]), it also creates the risk of unintentionally (and

unwittingly) transmitting HIV.

Since ―AIDS virus‖ creates an immediate and causal link between the ―responsible‖

virus and the ―disease‖ AIDS, it erases the latency stage in between infection and viral

activity. This also means that anyone who does not have the culturally specific symptoms of

AIDS, people who have ARC for instance, are not recognized to be ill.2 Practically, this may

result in barring these people from drug trials, insurance, or AIDS discrimination laws. But it

also ignores the presence of seropositive people, who do not have any opportunistic

infections, eliminating the possibility of seropositive people without AIDS or ARC. This way

of thinking enforces the binarism: either you have the ―AIDS virus‖ and you have AIDS, or

you do not have the virus and you do not have the disease. As a result, being ―infected-but-

healthy‖ becomes impossible, even though ―the body ‗harbors‘ many infections‖ (Sontag

118). A less extreme version of Grover‘s and Patton‘s view of equating infection with death,

it still vehemently equates infection with disease. In other words, the HIV positive person can

never be perfectly healthy,3 but is always in some state of disease, even before opportunistic

infections occur.4

2
―In the US, a severe immune deficiency results in a fairly invariable set of symptoms—in this case diseases as
symptoms: PCP, KS, severe cytomegalovirus and herpes infections, and so on. In poor, tropical countries, the
frequency of particular infections is different. In Central Africa, for example, tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis are
more common than they are in the US.‖ (Grover 19, original italics). AIDS is more than just a disease, it is a
syndrome, ―a pattern of symptoms pointing to a ‗morbid state‘‖ (ibid.). This syndrome, moreover, is socially
constructed, as its presence is indicated by a certain set of opportunistic infections, which differ from region to
region. Cindy Patton convincingly argues in the chapter ―Inventing ‗African AIDS‘‖ that the AIDS epidemic in
African countries is not only the result of ―underfunded [medical] systems‖ but also of the substitution of the
western-defined ―AIDS‖ for the local concept of ―slim disease‖ (79). The diagnosis of ―slim disease,‖ perceived
as ―quaint‖ by western medicine, was considered less scientific and less objective (ibid.).
3
The question ―What is healthy?‖ remains. Are physical symptoms necessary to distinguish between healthy and
ill? Is the mere presence of a ―foreign entity‖ in the body reason enough to be ill? Is an imbalance in the immune
system a symptom of disease? All of these notions of health are inscribed in certain scientific and popular
discourses, and cannot be seen apart from those terrains. Suffice it here to say that ―healthy‖ in this context
means able to perform and survive in society. I am indebted to Cindy Patton‘s discussion of ―disease‖ in a
 De Poorter 7

The term ―AIDS virus‖ ultimately leads to the conclusion that AIDS must be a disease,

rather than a syndrome. The symptoms of the opportunistic infections are transformed into

symptoms of AIDS itself, and consequentially the infectious nature of opportunistic infections

like PCP or KS (albeit a non-existent threat of infection for people with a functioning immune

system) becomes characteristic of AIDS itself (Grover 19-20). AIDS, however, is not a

disease but a syndrome, the state of a lowered immune system. The diseases that ―invade‖ the

body because of this immunodeficiency are the indicators of the syndrome, not the syndrome

itself. Hence, AIDS is not a disease in that once cannot ―acquire . . . or transmit it‖ (Patton

82).

Nor does AIDS conform to the ―rules‖ of disease. Once a disease has been beaten, and

its symptoms (like fatigue, coughing, sneezing, and so forth) have disappeared, the formerly

ill person is no longer troubled by those factors. AIDS is at this moment still incurable, a

reality often forgotten in contemporary society, but the PWA can have remissions and at

intervals have none of the AIDS-related symptoms. AIDS is typified by ―repetitions,‖

symptoms may (re)emerge on a daily basis (Patton, 55). An opportunistic infection may be

cured, but there is no reassurance that the disease cannot return. In typifying AIDS as a

disease, healthy intervals during the ―AIDS-stage‖ are ignored and the PWA is continuously

perceived as about to die.5 Even though this is also true for many other long-term diseases

(like cancer), the unique position of AIDS as a state which permits other diseases to infect the

body, rather than as a disease itself, sets it apart. The episodes in between active infections,

short though they may be, are all in all infection- and disease-free periods.

virological and immunological context, as well as her discussion of health in a seropositive status to make me
consider this question. (pp. 58-64 and 150, note 20)
4
This ties in with the notion that people with a high ―risk‖ of getting AIDS/HIV are always in some manner
already pathologised. See Kruger‘s discussion on how ―the gay man, the IV-drug user, ―high-risk‖ communities
show their true—―unbalanced,‖ ―perverse‖—colors in being unable to separate themselves from the pathogenic‖
(1996: 40).
5
Note in this context the common depiction of PWAs in popular press as extremely ill and ―resigned‖ to die, and
the demand by activists to depict PWAs as people enjoying and living their lives. (Crimp 2002: 86)
 De Poorter 8

Although the consequences of equating AIDS with HIV, or with a disease instead of a

syndrome are dire, the most devastating assumption about AIDS/HIV is that it always ends

with death. Depicting AIDS as the terminal and last phase of HIV is one of the most visible

contributing factors to this. This does not mean that death is not a harsh reality for many

people with HIV or AIDS, but that people with HIV or AIDS are still alive. The dominant

premise that HIV results in AIDS, and AIDS always ends in death is fundamentally

ungrounded. There is no proof that every HIV case evolves to AIDS, even though the causal

relationship between AIDS and HIV is well-established.6 As Cindy Patton demonstrates:

―HIV . . . apparently requires some set of co-factors to produce its various chronic or fatal

sequelae‖ (64, original italics). Due to recent Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART)

in western countries, moreover, ―non-AIDS malignancies loom particularly large among . . .

HIV-related morbidities‖ (Palella et al. 34). The substitution of an AIDS-related cause of

death with a non-AIDS related cause, however, does not change this destructive attitude. The

PWA is like any other person with a chronic disease, at times ill but still very much alive.

AIDS is not a synonym for the eighties

A major occupation of the popular AIDS science during the eighties (and after) was the

search for the source of HIV, primarily in non-western countries. The attempt to trace

AIDS/HIV back to Africa, or any other non-western country for that matter, is more than the

simple wish to locate AIDS/HIV as ―foreign‖ to western hegemonic society, and hence not

the result of that society (Sontag 137).7 Patton suggests that ―African AIDS‖ constructs AIDS

as ―old‖ and ―naturalized,‖ ―reinforcing the view that [western] science solves the problems

6
In fact, this causality is so firmly rooted in science that any other explanation of AIDS is refuted. I do not wish
to argue that HIV is not the causal agent of AIDS, but that ―a full acceptance of HIV as the cause of AIDS limits
research options‖ and undermines scientific objectivity by foreclosing other possibilities. (Crimp 1996: 238)
7
The same can be said about the belief that AIDS has an American, African, or European origin. For an
excellent discussion on the concept of AIDS as foreign, see ―The Narratives of AIDS‖ in Kruger 1996
(especially pp. 73-81) and Gilman‘s ―AIDS and Syphilis.‖
 De Poorter 9

thrown up by nature‖ (69). The trope of ―patient Zero‖ has the same rationale, first of all it

personifies AIDS as a ―sexually veracious, murderously irresponsible‖ man infecting

unsuspecting (but never innocent) gay men (Crimp 1996: 244). Secondly, the problem AIDS

is a result from an infection somewhere else and ―patient Zero‖ introduces it in (white)

society. Lastly, the AIDS epidemic must have been present and prevalent in another part of

the world, and is thus ―often identified with foreignness‖ (Kruger 1996: 80). Even though

both tropes, which likewise dominate AIDS narratives (see ―The Narratives of AIDS‖ in

Kruger 1996), try to sever the association between AIDS and the ―here and now,‖ they simply

try to place the blame somewhere else. The association between AIDS and the eighties, in

present times, does exactly the same.

The AIDS epidemic was not only active during the eighties, but began before the

official discovery of AIDS-related PCP (Pneumocistic carinii pneumonia) in 1981 and is still

active today. In order for PCP to be discovered in those five men during the early eighties,

these men had to have been exposed to HIV in the seventies. This ties in with the

phenomenon of ―junky pneumonia‖ in the late seventies (Patton 27). Naturally, other

opportunistic infections may have passed as unexplainable diseases or have been

misdiagnosed. AIDS, as its initial name GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency) shows, was

discovered precisely because those first five PWAs ―shared a demographic trait [i.e.

homosexuality]‖ (Patton 27). Scientific research established that a common factor lies at the

basis of those various diseases, and that this factor is present in the gay lifestyle of these men.

Limiting AIDS to the eighties not only disregards AIDS and PWAs in the previous and

subsequent ages, but also reinvests in the belief that AIDS is a gay disease.
 De Poorter 10

Although HIV might have been present in the human population before its official

discovery in 1981, and AIDS/HIV is still commonplace in present-day society, AIDS did play

an important role during the eighties (and afterwards). AIDS should not be disconnected from

this decade, instead the equation between both concepts should be overturned, since it invokes

the problematic mentality that ―AIDS is not my problem.‖ (Crimp 2002: 259) In associating

AIDS (solely) with the eighties, HIV and AIDS are posited as a historical problem, or at least

as a foreign problem. AIDS becomes a strange entity that is no longer of major influence in

contemporary society, and is not even considered to be active in one‘s own society, despite

contradictory statistics. HIV and/or AIDS do not lose their power to ―scare,‖ nor is AIDS/HIV

education thwarted, they are just forgotten as being present in society. Paradoxically, then, the

decrease of HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths in the immediate personal sphere,

precisely due to safe sexual practices, resulted in a general disavowal of being at risk.

When the presence of AIDS/HIV is ignored in the present, and associated with the past,

AIDS is relegated AIDS to just one more ―item on a long list of supposedly intractable social

problems,‖ like poverty and criminality (Crimp 2002: 175). Slowly but surely, the AIDS

epidemic lost its ―emergency‖ and became a ―permanent disaster‖ (ibid.).8 A disaster,

however, which society tries to ignore in order to escape the paralysing sense of fear inherent

in epidemics. The absence of the diseased ―AIDS victim‖ reinforces the perception of

AIDS/HIV as a conquered disease, which no longer needs to be taken in account. In those rare

instances in which AIDS/HIV is dealt with, it is treated as a ―chronic illness,‖ with which one

8
Patton, however, points out the dangers of calling the AIDS crisis an emergency, a disaster, or an epidemic,
since invoking these concepts ―creates the conditions of blame and quarantine‖, but also creates ―a system of
control‖ and panic (108). Although I do agree with her warning, I hesitate to endorse it completely, since these
terms also invoke the magnitude of the AIDS crisis. Hence, I will continue to use these terms but with a sense of
apprehension.
 De Poorter 11

can live for an indefinite amount of time, provided with the right care.9 On the other hand,

AIDS/HIV is always accompanied with a mortality statistics, and is thus reinvested with the

image of death, or rather a slow, but inescapable death. Despite the AIDS activism of the

eighties, AIDS/HIV is still closely associated with death, but unlike the eighties, AIDS/HIV-

related death, in western countries, is a death that is far away, yet inescapable.10

Equating AIDS with the eighties also involves a mixture of attitudes, so what is true for

the eighties is not true for the 21st century. An AIDS-related death in the eighties, for

example, was believed to be fast, whereas nowadays, as mentioned above, death is a slow-

acting process (at least with the aid of western medicine). The experience of the AIDS crisis,

due to the dominant discourse of ―risk groups,‖ was a collective experience in the eighties.

Even though the mere possibility of having AIDS might have ostracised the PWA from the

―general population,‖ he or she could turn to a rich network of community support groups,

whether these were independently created or deeply based in pre-existing communities.11 In

the face of brutal intolerance and AIDS-phobia, these PWAs (but certainly not all, and most

definitely not all by choice) were united in and supported by communities. The slow

familiarisation of AIDS during the nineties and 21st century and in some respect the ―de-

communalising‖ of AIDS and HIV, however, caused the disappearance of these high-profile

activist groups, like ACT UP New York. Douglas Crimp intimates this sense of loss in his

9
Needless to say that this blatantly disregards ―the glaring inequity whereby the lucky few can afford to buy
their health while the unlucky many die of AIDS‖ (Crimp 2002: 2). One can argue that seropositivity is always a
―chronic disease,‖ due to the latency stage in between infection and the onset of AIDS. Yet seropositivity is
often only discovered with the first symptoms of opportunistic infections in countries where testing is not always
available or practised. I do not wish to conflate HIV with AIDS, but to stress that ―seroconversion‖ does not
happen at the time of infection, but when one discovers one is seropositive. This may be early on or never at all.
On the obscuring effect of medical terminology on the processes of HIV and AIDS, see David Román, especially
pp. 47-48.
10
This is not a proposal to do away with defining AIDS as a chronic and manageable syndrome, but to erase that
persistent equation of AIDS with death, as mentioned above.
11
For an excellent, yet somewhat subjective, discussion of the differences between ―gay AIDS groups‖ and
―black AIDS groups,‖ see Cindy Patton‘s Inventing AIDS, especially ―The AIDS Service Industry: The
Construction of ‗Victims,‘ ‗Volunteers,‘ and ‗Experts‘‖ and ―Inventing ‗African AIDS‘‖.
 De Poorter 12

discussion on Andrew Sullivan‘s 1996 article ―When Plagues End: Notes on the Twilight of

an Epidemic‖. He admits:

―Learning that you‘re [sic] HIV-positive after the demise of AIDS activism and

the general sense of urgency about AIDS, even within the gay community in the

United States, could indeed make you feel that you‘d [sic] missed the party—if by

‗party‘ you mean a system of support and a sense of community based on general

agreement that the epidemic constitutes a crisis.‖ (Crimp 2002, 5)

AIDS cannot be AIDS, AIDS is always already a metaphor in discourse

The discussion about AIDS/HIV is always biased, since the discussion itself always has

a goal or context which influences AIDS/HIV. Patton argues that all ―AIDS words . . are

never simply ‗facts‘ or ‗truth‘ but take on particular meanings at particular times, and are

understood differently by different people‖ (45). In the field of science, for example, Kruger

proves that HIV infection takes on metaphors normally attributed to homosexuality and

gender. Kruger first of all demonstrates that the use of linguistic metaphors in scientific

studies (―the translation of DNA to protein,‖ for example [1996: 9]) attribute a conscious

―intention‖ to the biological process (10). HIV, however, as a retrovirus is ―perverse,‖

precisely because it reverses the ―‗normal‘ biological process‖ and inverts the ―normal flow of

information,‖ that is from RNA to DNA (Kruger 1996: 15).12 The perverse intention of this

specific virus echoes the belief that one can only get HIV by ―perverse‖ activities. Moreover,

the virus itself resembles the image of the deviant PWA who defies norms set by society and

who continues to infect other unsuspecting citizens (cells).

12
On the perversity of the cell as already ―queer‖, see ―AIDS is not gay. AIDS is gay‖. For a more in-depth
analysis of this trope see the chapter ―The Battlefields of Masculinity‖ in Kruger‘s AIDS Narratives, especially
pp. 33-42.
 De Poorter 13

Kruger adds that the invading virus is not just perverse but perversely masculine. The

human cell‘s masculinity is opposed to the virus‘ masculinity ―in terms of male

homosociality, with two differently ‗armed‘ male opponents battling for dominance [of the

female cytoplasm]‖ (Kruger 1996: 37). The concept that AIDS is fundamentally a gay disease

resonates in this depiction of HIV infection. Kruger continues by stressing that this alternative

masculinity ―undermines, through a kind of homosexual rape, the gender hierarchy between

[the masculine] nucleus and [the feminine] cytoplasm‖ (1996: 39). The virus itself does what

the gay man is able to do in society, that is destroy heteronormative hierarchy. The fact that

the virus does not attack the cell as a whole but ―‗sneakily‘ insert[s] itself‖ into the masculine

DNA shows that the virus is not truly masculine, but some sort of perversion (Kruger 1996:

39). This language betrays the homophobia innate in many ―objective‖ scientific studies, as

well as the fear of involuntary ―homosexual recruitment‖ (Kruger 1996: 39).

Another metaphor often used in AIDS language, and less restricted to scientific

language, is the war against AIDS or fighting AIDS. The invading, foreign virus attacks the

body but in such a way that it does not destroy it but opens it up for other threats that will kill

the body. The body thus houses the enemy and has to fight itself in order to survive.

Regardless of the personal consequences of this metaphor, it is widespread and used in many

different contexts, ranging from the scientific (―fighting the virus‖ [Kruger 1996: 38]) to the

political (‗fighting the ―spread‖ of infection‘ [Kruger 1996: 73])13 and even into the personal

(‗the struggle with AIDS‘). Undoubtedly, this metaphor will have its advantages to raise

political awareness, but as Sontag argues ―it powerfully contributes to the excommunicating

and stigmatizing of the ill‖ (180). Carrying the so-called enemy and able to infect others,

13
AIDS in political discourses is not merely fought because of its spread. It also becomes a symbol for
dissidence and anarchy, as it echoes rebellious behaviour like homosexuality, promiscuity, or IV drug use. ―It
[AIDS] is indulgence, delinquency – addictions to chemicals that are illegal and to sex regarded as deviant‖
(Sontag 111). This discourse is abruptly reversed in AIDS activism, since it is the government which acts
irresponsible with regards to the AIDS crisis.
 De Poorter 14

PWAs become suspicious in the mind of the ―general population‖ and are banned from

positions of power (concerning AIDS). PWAs, Patton illustrates, ―are not supposed to become

actively involved in treatment concerns and are considered highly biased.‖ (51)

The plague metaphor, lastly, dominates AIDS language and decisively influences the

image of AIDS.14 Gilman in his article ―AIDS and Syphilis: The Iconography of Disease‖

demonstrates that AIDS, despite its fundamental differences, was (and is) inscribed into the

plague discourse of syphilis. For instance, the image of the female prostitute as a vector

infecting the population with HIV can, intuitively, not be associated with AIDS due to the

relative difficulty of female to male infection, in fact the risk is always higher for the

recipient. Yet, the female prostitute with AIDS is a recurring trope in AIDS narratives, for the

sole reason that it is a standard ―icon‖ in the STD-related plague discourse (Gilman 98).

Susan Sontag also discusses the effects of the plague metaphor and argues that the invocation

of the term ―plague‖ creates a sense of ―fear and . . . prejudice‖ (150). In other words,

―plague‖ permits the ―general population‖ to be scared of PWAs and to shun them, in a

fashion reminiscent of the treatment of ―lepers.‖ ―Plague.‖ as a last blow, gives a sense of

―infectiousness‖ to AIDS as well, which undermines the fact that HIV is transmittable but not

contagious.

These (and other) metaphors show that AIDS is never ―alone‖ in language, but always

accompanied by a set of assumptions in which AIDS is a gay disease or a sneaky disease, that

it should be fought, and so forth. Treichler supports this view and suggests that ―[w]e cannot .

. . look ‗through‘ language to determine what AIDS ‗really‘ is‖ (33). She goes on: ―AIDS is a

story, or multiple stories, read to a surprising extent from a text that does not exist,‖ ―AIDS is

14
Other metaphors are of course also present in AIDS language, such as the metaphors of time, mutation,
change, and so forth. For an interesting, yet not exhaustive, study into this matter, see Sontag‘s AIDS and its
Metaphors.
 De Poorter 15

a nexus where multiple meanings, stories, and discourses intersect and overlap, reinforce and

subvert one another‖ (42). AIDS is constructed in discourse in order to support a political

agenda or a personal belief, but even if there is no clear intention, AIDS remains constructed

in a language with a set of dogmas already in place: ―Any framework offered for

understanding ‗the AIDS epidemic‘ is laden with historical references and assumptions which

relate our lived experience to particular social institutions‖ (Patton 2).

AIDS is not the result of moral decrepitude, sin, or divine retribution, nor does

AIDS instil innocence or guilt

A dominant belief in AIDS logic is that AIDS creates ―innocent‖ and ―guilty victims,‖

in that the innocent victims are children (and perhaps the wives of bisexual men) and the

guilty victims (gay, promiscuous, IV drug using) adults. This promotes the mentality that

MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) and IV drug users are in some way responsible for

contracting HIV, unlike innocent victims who are perceived to be ―murdered.‖ A result of the

―risk group‖ logic, it sustains the notion that AIDS/HIV only infects those risk groups, and

that it is the malignancy of the members of those risk groups who intentionally infect the

―general public‖ which is the cause of the AIDS/HIV spread.15 The ―guilty/innocent‖

binarism not only allows the ―general public‖ to ignore high risk communities as being

responsible for their own problems, but at the same time condemn them for their risk

behaviour and, more controversially, for their introduction of AIDS/HIV in the general public

(Treichler 64).16 This mindset reverberates abovementioned images of AIDS/HIV vectors

intentionally infecting ―innocent‖ people. The ―guilty‖ PWA infects ―innocent victims‖

15
This, of course, rules out the possibility of infection by means of blood transfusion, but even in these cases the
contaminated blood is perceived to be from high risk communities, and its mere presence in the blood stock is
seen as ―negligence‖ on the part of high risk people, who do not care if the ―general public‖ remains ―safe.‖
16
Sontag notes in this context that ―[a] polluting person is always wrong,‖ but also that a ―person judged to be
wrong is regarded as, at least potentially, a source of pollution.‖ (Sontag 134). The PWA is thus always gay, but
a gay person could always have AIDS.
 De Poorter 16

because (s)he knows that (s)he is ultimately responsible for her or his condition, it is their own

―fault‖ that they have this ―disease‖.17

It should come as no surprise, then, that this twofold is closely connected with the

metaphor of the plague as a punishment for sin and moral decrepitude. Right-wing

polemicists have often invoked AIDS as divine retribution for the moral sins of gay men,

prostitutes and IV drug users.18 But the invocation does not end here, it also affects so-called

―heterosexual, African AIDS‖ because of the portrayal of AIDS as a disease of ―poverty‖, of

the ―poor‖. (Patton 82; Sontag 137) The obvious result of this metaphor is that people who

live according to western Christian values and in western countries are not at risk. This

dangerous statement not only covers up the fact that HIV can affect anyone, but also increases

the risk of HIV transmission, because of its so-called otherness.19 On the other hand, this

metaphor also implies that sooner or later all immoral (read gay, promiscuous, or IV drug

using) men and women will contract HIV and die, ―leaving the earth free from all sin.‖

Although this rhetoric prevailed during the eighties, it still enforces itself in modern

times. People dying of AIDS-related diseases are still associated with Africa or South-

America, with non-western countries, and are almost always considered to be ―foreign‖ and

―others.‖ The belief that AIDS, on the other hand, is a form of divine retribution for immoral

activity, has transformed itself over the last three decades, and the ―guilt‖ of PWAs is no

longer the result of moral sin but of knowledge. The person living with HIV/AIDS in the 21st

17
I am indebted to Steven Kruger‘s analysis of the dualism of guilty and innocent victims in the chapter ―Gay
and Other Subjects of AIDS‖ in AIDS Narratives.
18
Even if ―high risk‖ people practise safe sex, they are still considered ―morally derelict‖ (Patton 104). These
―high risk‖ people are not ―immoral‖ because there is a possibility that they have AIDS/HIV, but because of
their behaviour. Whether they have AIDS or not is unimportant, at best it is merely the externalisation of their
immorality.
19
Susan Sontag: ―That it is a punishment for deviant behavior and that it threatens the innocent – the two notion
about AIDS are hardly in contradiction. Such is the extraordinary potency and efficacy of the plague metaphor: it
allows a disease to be regarded both as something incurred by vulnerable ‗others‘ and as (potentially) everyone‘s
disease.‖ (149-150)
 De Poorter 17

century is perceived as guilty precisely because he or she knew how HIV is transmitted.

Patton, whilst discussing AIDS education, argues that ―‗communities‘ are educated on the

assumption that they have an obligation to know and protect the ‗public‘‖ (103). In other

words, although the members of risk communities have a supposedly higher chance of getting

HIV, it is their responsibility to avoid the transfer of HIV from high risk communities to the

general population.20 This modified form of reprimand is no longer the domain of the right-

wing moralist, but has invaded the entire society, including the ―gay community.‖ Douglas

Crimp, in discussing a friend‘s reaction to his seropositive status, analyses this new form of

reproof as a ―psychic defense‖ (2002: 300). ―If we tell ourselves that only irresponsible fools

still expose themselves to HIV, we allow ourselves to imagine that we are safe,‖ he proffers,

but then adds: ―[b]ut if even the educated, rational, and responsible among us can become

infected with HIV. . . then we have to think differently‖ (2002: 300). Crimp advocates that

―failing‖ to protect oneself should not be judged, instead it should be considered human, even

if the person is well-informed.

Crimp, here, exposes the real power of AIDS moralism, since dehumanising PWAs is

one of the most active process in many AIDS discourses. HIV is often perceived as an ―alien‖

intruder (Kruger), the PWA is popularised as the ―Other‖ (Patton), the popular depiction of

the PWA is almost always decisively inhuman (Crimp), these concepts conspire together with

AIDS moralism to undo the humanity of PWAs, and thus to distance AIDS/HIV from the

―human‖ population. Predictably, AIDS/HIV can only dehumanise those ―communitie‖‘

already prone to dehumanisation or otherness. The gay community, the black community, IV

drug users, and prostitutes were all in some manner already dehumanised before the AIDS

epidemic.

20
Cindy Patton continues this analysis and argues that the common opinion holds that in intercourse ―only the
HIV antibody positive person is responsible for ensuring the practice of safe sex‖ (104).
 De Poorter 18

AIDS is not a gay disease. AIDS is not a black disease.21

The two strongest prejudices concerning AIDS/HIV are also the most resilient, i.e. that

AIDS is a ―gay disease‖ and a ―black disease.‖ The problem with these two equations is that it

forecloses other possibilities such as AIDS being a ―straight disease.‖ That this was not even

considered possible until proven otherwise (by the AIDS crisis in Africa and the much-

published case of Magic Johnson contracting HIV) demonstrates the term ―heterosexual

AIDS,‖ since the fact that ―the ‗heterosexuality‘ of AIDS‖ had to be emphasised by the

marker ―heterosexual‖ (Kruger 1996: 41). More strikingly, however, is the fact that a

syndrome can adopt a sexuality or a race. Why then is AIDS attributed to first of all

homosexuality? In the previous paragraphs, I have already indicated some of the possibilities:

because of the ―pathologisation‖ of homosexuality, because of its perverse nature, because of

its visibility as an AIDS-stricken ―community,‖ as Cindy Patton argues. All these

explanations are necessary in order to understand the complex ―story‖ of AIDS.

Yet, one more reason has to be analysed: AIDS/HIV is gay, because it had to be gay.

Homosexuality in heteronormative society is defined by its relative otherness to ―normal‖

heterosexuality. Since the sexual transmission of HIV was greatly emphasised, in order to

characterise it as a ―sexually transmitted disease,‖ that sexuality had to be defined (Gilman

90). All STDs are transmittable via ―heterosexual‖ acts and ―homosexual‖ acts (whatever

those acts may be), and so is HIV. Yet, a specific sexual activity had to established as the

cause of the disease, in order to protect the hegemonic sexual form. In the case of syphilis, as

Gilman argues, the main reason of infection was attributed to the sexually active woman, the

21
Note that gay is meant as gay and lesbian here. Despite the low rate of transmission in lesbian relationships,
―lesbians along with gay men have been identified in the popular imagination with the threat of AIDS‖ (Kruger
1996: 59).
 De Poorter 19

―seductress‖ (98).22 History, however, lent a different possibility to characterise HIV as

distinctively other, not only because those five men were gay (or rather were identified as

gay) but also due to the gay community‘s ―visibil[ity]‖ (Patton 27). The innate pathology of

homosexuality is, therefore, externalised and the ―homosexual‖ is ostracised as the ―other.‖

The fact that AIDS/HIV is gay is consequently the logical conclusion of the belief that both

gay men and lesbians and PWAs are the ―others‖ of normative, rule-abiding, straight men and

women.

Designating AIDS as a ―black disease‖ works in a similar fashion. The fact that HIV is

much more widespread in African countries does not mean that black men and women are

more susceptible to HIV, or more often practise ―risk behaviours,‖ instead it is probably to be

attributed to the shortage of ―cheap condoms‖ in non-western countries (Patton 86). When the

main route of transmission in Africa was said to be heterosexual, accepted notions of African

sexuality had to change drastically in order to protect the ―general population.‖23 Black people

were ―homosexualised through their allegedly practice of anal sex‖ in order to conform to the

already established notion of AIDS as gay (Patton 91). Consequentially, black people are

triply ostracised as ―other,‖ first of all because they are black, secondly because they embody

AIDS, and thirdly because they perform sexual acts closely related to homosexuality.

Having said that, it would be wrong to disconnect AIDS from gay or black history

entirely, since it is such a major part of their personal histories. Crimp intimates that the loss

of close PWAs and the sheer magnitude of the epidemic are often so overwhelming that they

22 This attitude is still active in AIDS logic, as the trope of the prostitute as a ―source of pollution‖ shows
(Gilman 107). Leo Bersani expands on this theory and notes that any ―female sexuality,‖ regardless of
anatomical sex, is perceived as ―intrinsically diseased‖ and promiscuous female sexuality becomes a ―sign of
infection‖ (211, original italics).
23
The very act of defining ‗African‘ sexualities in terms of western categories disregards the different ways by
which sex is perceived in African communities, as Patton also argues in ―Inventing ‗African AIDS‘.‖
 De Poorter 20

induce a ―tendency to disavowal‖ within the stricken ―community‖ (2002: 9). The denial of

the presence of AIDS within these communities, and indeed within all communities, would

not only sanction a hierarchy between the lives of people who died of an AIDS-related disease

and those who did not, but it also prevents communities to mourn ―lost friends‖ (Crimp 2002:

138).
 De Poorter 21

3. Humanity/Identity

What makes a subject? What differentiates between the ―I‖ and the ―not-I‖ (so often

dismissively called the ―other‖)? How is identity formed? These questions are easier to ask

than to answer, and any answer to or any interpretation of this issue is tenuous and fraught

with personal preferences. In this chapter, I want to discuss some of the mechanisms I

consider important in identity creation, in order to show how HIV and AIDS in the three

literary works contribute to the destabilization of a uniform selfhood, and to expose those very

same mechanisms.

Human/Inhuman or Intelligible/Unintelligible

In every normative society24, regardless of the parameters of this normativity, each

―inhabitant‖ is required to either adhere to the norms of the community or to disregard them

and no longer be considered part of that community. The images put forward as the norms by

this society are considered ―regulatory ideal[s]‖ (Butler 1993: 22).25 Regulatory ideals, in this

manner, denote how society is constructed and perceived. The process of normativity does not

only indicate how a person sees (or has to see) oneself, but also structures the surrounding

24
The phrase normative society is, of course, a tautology, since every society is normative, in that it accepts only
certain individuals and behaviours. A (deceptively) straightforward example of this is criminality, since those
people breaking the rules (or norms) of society are safely contained, away from the centre of society. This
liminal space, however, is not just physical, it is also the result of a psychological process, as these criminals are
no longer perceived as ‗human.‘ Consider, for example, the relative ease of calling murderers, child molesters, or
rapists ‗monsters.‘
25
Like discourse or power, regulatory ideals ―construct the subject,‖ or rather, the subject according to the
hegemonic structure (Butler 1993: 9). It has, however, two advantages: it does not have agency and it does not
purport to be achievable. The fact that a regulatory ideal has no agency echoes Butler‘s warning in Bodies that
Matter that we should not see identity as an effect or a result of a single activity. Instead , the subject is a
performative activity (Butler 1993: 9). By reiteration of a certain set of actions and ideologies, the subject comes
into being (and is then obscured as the source of those very actions). See also ―Performative Identity‖ in this
chapter. On the other hand, the name itself shows that the norm is an ideal, and hardly ever reached. ―[A]n ideal
that no one can embody,‖ the normative image, like that of a masculine or feminine gender, is itself a copy of the
―real‖ (Butler 1990: 176, 187 [original italics]). Whether the ―real‖ can be imagined is the subject of a heated
discussion. Suffice it here to say that even what is considered as ―natural‖ in the normative society is but the
result of a normalising process. I adopt the term ―regulatory ideal‖ as introduced by Butler, yet its use as a
neutral form to refer to the normative process is my own viewpoint.
 De Poorter 22

world. The refutation of these regulatory ideals and the resistance to the process of

normativity is not just renouncing that structuring system, but also falling out of that system

and out of that worldview. Essentially, it means that one becomes a non-person, although still

perfectly thinkable in that structure as the opposite of normative: ―[T]here is no possibility . . .

of reality outside of the discursive practices,‖ which regulate reality, hence the non-person is

still very much within those discursive practices (Butler 1990: 189).26

The oppositional character of normativity implies that every single person either

conforms entirely to these normative rules, or subverts them entirely. This overly simplistic

logic does not allow for people to take on positions in between, but as Diana Fuss accurately

points out: ―most of us are both inside and outside at the same time‖ (5). Furthermore, the act

of subversion is not as easy as it is portrayed here, since ―consciousness itself may be

dominated and, indeed, constituted by hegemonic ideology‖ (Tyler 54). To claim, then, that

every person is in an either/or situation would reinvest in a structure of normative or non-

normative. On the other hand, these binarisms are results of the normative structure and

regardless of their efficacy, they do structure reality and subscribing to these twofolds

signifies either acceptance or rejection of regulatory ideals.

In her seminal work Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Sedgwick discusses the binarisms

present in contemporary society. Although not all of these oppositions are the direct result of

normative duality, they cannot be upheld without its omnipresence. In the opposition of

natural versus unnatural, for example, natural is considered to be adhering to the norms of

society and unnatural the repudiation of those same norms, even if the person refuting those

26
It is important to note that the rejection of the normative system can only take place after the acknowledgment
of and incorporation into that system. Indeed, as Butler argues, the subject cannot exist outside of the normative
system, as ―signification‖ is constructed by the ―regulated process of repetition‖ of regulatory ideals (1990: 185,
original italics).
 De Poorter 23

norms believes (s)he is following her/his own nature.27 Judith Butler argues in this context

that the ―heterosexual matrix‖ naturalises and normalises a certain set of ―bodies, genders, and

desires,‖ whilst at the same time denaturalises those bodies, genders, and desires that deviate

from the norm (1990: 194). The notion public/private, on the other hand, seems less attached

to normative duality, and yet this too is dependent on adhering to norms, as the public is

where one supposedly follows norms and rules, whereas the private is synonymous with the

obscurity of norms. This does not mean, however, that the individual, personal space is a

private place. ―[T]he difference between ‗public‘ and ‗private‘ could never be stably or

intelligibly represented as a difference between two concrete classes of physical space‖

(Sedgwick 110). The truly private, then, is not defined as the space that has no contact with

the public, with other people. Instead, it is the place where regulatory ideals are opposed. The

very act of denying norms, then, creates the private space, as is also apparent in the image of

―the [homosexual] closet‖, a deeply private sphere (Sedgwick 56).

Normativity lies at the heart of two powerful oppositions: human versus inhuman and

intelligible versus unintelligible. More than any other binarisms, these oppositions have the

power to structure reality and the perception of reality,28 and as a result to influence the lives

of people subjected to these binarisms. The first twofold, human and inhuman, is the most

striking since the notion of humanness has been established as a fixed notion of biological

characteristics. This, nonetheless, does not impede the process of dehumanising people who

break regulatory ideals, as the stressed inhumanity of many criminals indicate. A person does

not have to go as far as these criminals, however, to be the subject of a dehumanisation

process. A PWA (or any other individual suffering from a disease which is similarly strongly

27
Sedgwick remarks upon this ambiguity, as she interprets ―natural depravity‖ as a ―depravity [that] is
unnatural‖ and a ―depravity [that] is natural‖ (95).
28
Although both notions are represented separately, they do denote the same since reality itself does not exist
outside of language. The unintelligible is, like the inhuman, still thinkable. The truly incomprehensible cannot be
imagined.
 De Poorter 24

entrenched in normative discourses, like syphilis) is often depicted as a person who has

already given up on life and is imagined as the exact opposite of the human ―picture.‖ Often

lifeless, often alone, and often covered with ―alien‖ spots (the unmentioned and ignored

Kaposi‘s sarcoma), the PWA cannot be further away from the human.29

Butler argues in Undoing Gender that transsexuality and intersexuality are considered

inhuman, precisely because they do not conform to regulatory ideals (―‗failing‘ in normality‖

2004: 82). Intersex people, for example, undergo at birth sex reassignment surgery in order to

facilitate their ―passing‖ in society. The surgery to ―correct‖ a natural condition, however,

ironically reveals the ―constructedness‖ of human, since it cannot be natural as the surgery

changes nature in order to produce the person as human. The inhumanity of transsexual

people, on the other hand, is exposed by the sex reassignment surgery, since the natural is

changed into the unnatural. These two ―inhumanities‖ might seem the result of their ―un-

natures,‖ but are in fact their cause, since unnatural is perceived to be that which is not normal

in humans. Humanity and normalcy are produced within the matrix regulatory ideals, so

everything that is not in function of those ideals, cannot be natural or human.

Homosexuality is in the same manner dehumanised by means of denaturalising its

sexuality and its reduction to a specific sexual act. According to the abovementioned

regulatory ideals, sexuality is only allowed in function of ―compulsory sexual reproduction‖

(Butler 1990: 141). Each sexuality that does not have reproduction as its end (goal) cannot be

natural.30 Even more so, sex that does not have reproduction as its goal is considered to be

29
Illness, as the opposite of health, is indirectly related to inhumanity. The attribution of diseases to foreign
entities, such as bacteria and viruses seems to support this belief. AIDS, however, as a weakened immune
system, cannot as readily be seen as separate from the human. For a closer investigation of the disruptive power
of AIDS in normative regulations, see ―AIDS/HIV‖ in this chapter.
30
Note in this context that in vitro fertilization would be perceived as natural, were it not for the absence of the
penis and the vagina, two important loci for reproductive sexuality.
 De Poorter 25

pleasure-focused, instinct-driven, and animalistic. Not only sexuality is denaturalised but also

the place where specific sexual acts supposedly take place, since homosexuality is often

reduced to anal sex. This not only disregards any other sexual activity between two men, but

also posits sex between two men as outside the two libidinal spaces on the body, which are

the vagina and the penis. Butler points out that the ―compartmentalization‖ of the body into

different libidinal loci is a ―reduction of erotogeneity‖ (1990: 146). The heterosexual

regulatory ideal stresses that there are only two erogenous spaces on the body, the vagina and

the penis; anal sex is not considered to be inscribed in those two spaces. In ―Is the Rectum a

Grave?‖, Leo Bersani considers the popular (during the AIDS crisis) statement that the rectum

is a grave, which he sees as having the ―potential for death‖ of subjectivity (222). Bersani,

however, ignores that the equation of anal sex with death erases any indication of the rectum‘s

erogeneity. Hence, homosexuality cannot be any more human than necrophilia, even if in

reality not all MSM participate in anal sex.

The distinction between intelligible and unintelligible likewise regulates reality. An

extremely simplistic example is ―lesbian sex,‖ as the question ―What do lesbians do in bed?‖

indicates. Again this stresses that there are two necessary loci for ―normal‖ sex, the penis and

the vagina, but also that a penetrative act is essential to constitute ―normal‖ sex. This ideology

enforces a hierarchy on sexual relationships, in other words someone has to penetrate and

someone has to be penetrated. Even more so, any form of sex that does not include this

penetrative act is not perceived as a real sexual act. For example, oral or masturbatory sex is

not constituted as decisive in the act of losing one‘s virginity. These practices are more often

seen as ―foreplay‖ than actual intercourse (in the case of oral sex) or as autoerotic (in the case

of masturbatory sex). Yet, as Sedgwick demonstrates, sexuality and sexual acts are
 De Poorter 26

constructed by more aspects than the object of desire.31 Not all of these forms of sex are seen

as intelligible, precisely because they do not adhere to the conventions of ―normal‖ sex, which

affect every single formative aspect of sex. Even if some form of sexuality adheres to the

principles that structure the ―normal‖ object of desire, the ―normal‖ action, the ―normal‖ goal

of sex, as soon as this form of sex includes a third person, not included in sexual activities, but

clearly part of it, the possibility of comprehension is greatly diminished (if not obliterated).

Sexuality, however, is not the sole aspect of identification affected by dehumanisation.

Gender and the body, amongst other things, are as vulnerable to the human/inhuman

distinction as sexuality. A person, for example, who self-identifies as male, but is

anatomically considered to be female by normative society, will have a hard time explaining

to his surroundings why he wants to self-identify as male, or indeed why he should still be

treated as human. Indeed, the notion that anyone who has a vagina must be female or who has

a penis must be male is so firmly rooted in normative mentality, that even a chromosomally

different ―sex‖ cannot undermine this notion, as Butler demonstrates in her discussion of the

master gene (1990: 135-141). Likewise, the body that does not conform to the regulatory ideal

is often considered to be inhuman, and its humanity has to be accepted rather than presumed,

a process many people with disabilities have to undergo. It is in this context that Butler argues

to ―extend the norms that sustain viable life to previously disenfranchised communities‖

(2004: 225). The opposition human versus inhuman thus permeates the entire society and

successfully creates two classes: the ―normal human‖ and the ―abnormal inhuman.‖

31
See for example her exhaustive list of ―individual differences‖ on pp. 25-26.
 De Poorter 27

Self/Other

Although the regulatory ideal is decisive in the construction of humanity and subsequent

identity, the binarism self/other is equally vital for the perception of identity. Not surprisingly,

then, this binarism is also utilised within the normative process to create a normal self and an

abnormal other. My focus, however, in this part lies on the construction of an individual self,

whether or not this self is considered to be normative (although I will refer from time to time

to the mechanism of this binarism in normative processes). The other embodies everything

that the self is not, and is thus not an external essence disconnected from the self, but a

construction to externalise from the self those items perceived as ―different.‖ Within

normativity, the ideal self is disconnected from non-normativity, since this is precisely

represented by the ideal other. In the light of the heteronormative ideal, then, the gay person is

constituted as the other, and as the other, he or she is inhuman, abnormal, unnatural, and so

forth. In order to undermine this normative process, one has to show that the distinction

between self and other is a social construction, and that the notions of ―self‖ and ―other‖ are

socially constructed as well.

For the other to exist, the self has to create a fixed identity, a boundary between the

things considered to be part of the self (or ―normal‖) and those things considered to be part of

the other (―abnormal‖). This process does not have to be visible, and is in fact mostly

invisible, but is omnipresent. The other is an exteriorisation of everything ―abnormal‖ in the

self and needs to show what the self must not be, regardless of the presence of ―otherness‖

within the self. In this sense, the other is necessary to construct the self, to delineate it from

everything outside the self. The other is constructed as both the outside and the boundary that
 De Poorter 28

divides the inside from the outside.32 The other is as much a structuring force in the creation

of identity as the self, since both notions are created within the same process. This process is

also utilised within normative processes, since the other is used to represent the outside and

establishes what is perceived as non-normative in order to construct the non-normative.

The other, however, is more than the outside and the boundary of the self, but is also

within the self. The Freudian terms introjection and incorporation in the context of loss of the

(desired) other indicate that the distinction between self and other is not always clear-cut.

Judith Butler argues in Gender Trouble and ―Imitation and Gender Insubordination‖ that

melancholy exists out of an incorporation of ( ―attributes‖ of) the lost other, ―a response to,

and refusal of‖ that loss (1990: 73; 1991: 26) . The self can thus contain parts that were seen

as distinctively other before. ―Identificatory mimetism,‖ as envisaged by Mikkel Borch-

Jacobsen and Ruth Leys, is similarly concerned with deconstructing the self/other binarism

and its concepts of self and other. Butler argues that identificatory mimetism ―precedes

‗identity‘ and constitutes identity as that which is fundamentally ‗other to itself.‘‖ (Butler

1991: 26, original italics) She continues in stressing that identificatory mimetism is not a

result of loss of the desired object, like melancholic incorporation, but ―precede[s] and

constitute[s] desire (and motivation) itself‖ (ibid.). Hence, the self cannot be seen as separate

from the other, but as comprising out of many different aspects of others. Rather than the

theory of the self being influenced by an (unacknowledged) loss, as typified by melancholic

incorporation, this theory scrutinises the way the self and the other itself is constructed by

those appropriations.

32
For an excellent discussion on the outside as ―the transgression of the border which is necessary to constitute
the border itself,‖ see Diana Fuss‘ ―Inside/Out‖ (Fuss 3).
 De Poorter 29

Hence, the binarism self/other does include ―the contaminated other‖ precisely because

of its ―exclusion‖ policy (Fuss 3). It pulls the other from obscurity and posits it in the centre

of attention, but at the outskirts of thought. The revelation that homosexuality was treated as

an ―open secret‖ during the Victorian age, is in this mindset not as much a revelation as the

logical result of identity politics. The introduction of the other into the world of the self has

the power to transform the self into the other. Hence, the self can be constructed as the other,

but the other also as the self, indicating that both concepts are constructs that are in a

continuous balancing act, as Butler argues in her introduction to Bodies that Matter

(especially p. 8).

―The self only becomes a self on the condition that it has suffered a separation,‖ this

separation, it should be stressed, is performed in and during the construction of identity

(Butler: 1991: 27). The notions of self and other, and the distinction between them, are thus

not pre-existent but constructed and arbitrary. In order to expose this nature, the distinction

has to be deconstructed, by proving how self and other are concepts that need each other to

signify identity, by showing that the self is an untenable position, or by demonstrating that

―difference‖ between humans cannot lay the basis for a hierarchical construction of self

versus other. ―Difference‖ is ultimately an enacted notion, a person is different because (s)he

reveals and believes to be different, denying the presence of similarities in order to protect her

or his identity, even though that identity is constructed within dominant social discourses.

Performative Identity

A last notion vital to understanding identity and sense of selfhood is how it is

constituted. According to Butler, who also coined the phrase ―performativity,‖ an identity,

whether this is perceived as a gender, sex, sexuality, and so forth, are all in constant dialogue
 De Poorter 30

with its surroundings, precisely because it is created in those surroundings.33 The theory of

performativity argues, for example, that a person becomes masculine or feminine, precisely

because of the actions and discourses that person (unwittingly) performs or partakes in. The

constant reiteration of masculine or feminine ―behaviour‖ results in a sense of masculinity or

femininity. This result, however, is obscured and reinstated as the cause of said actions,

mentalities, and discourses. One is not masculine or feminine, one becomes it. This theory

may not seem so strange, since ―gender‖ is generally conceived as a social construction, as

something that is done. Yet, Butler stresses that identity, including gender, is not a status of

result, but a process of result, something that a person does (and through which that person is

constituted): ―[I]dentity is performatively constituted by the very ‗expressions‘ that are said to

be its results‖ (Butler 1990: 33). Identity is not a fixed notion, once constructed, no longer

open to change or influence. Rather, since the ―regulatory ideal,‖ or indeed any ideal, whether

it is normative or not, is unattainable in itself, identity is always striving to be, but has always

already failed in its attempt to be. It is exactly in this notion of becoming, according to Butler,

that the possibility to undermine normative processes lies. Not only due to failure being

inherent in this process with an idealised goal, but also due to the fact that ―reiteration,‖ a vital

part of performativity, is not a repetition of the same thing (Butler: 1993: 10). Rather, every

reiteration contains in itself small differences, ―gaps and fissures,‖ thereby making it

impossible to create a uniform identity, or a ―single‖ self, but put it into a ―potentially

productive crisis‖ (ibid.).

In Bodies that Matter, Butler elaborates on the notion of performativity, and explains

how it functions with regards to the body. According to her, ―matter‖ does not exist before the

33
Note that Butler argues that ―[i]t would be wrong to think that the discussion of ‗identity‘ ought to proceed
prior to a discussion of gender identity for the simple reason that ‗persons‘ only become intelligible through
becoming gendered in conformity with recognizable standards of gender intelligibility [i.e. regulatory ideals]‖
(1990: 22).
 De Poorter 31

entrance into language or discourse, since the truly unthinkable cannot be fathomed nor exist.

When the body is created into discourse, the shape of body is a result of the dominant

discourse; matter, as Butler argues, is materialised in ―relation to the productive and, indeed,

productive effects of regulatory power in the Foucaultian sense‖ (1993: 9-10). In other words,

those privileged in the dominant discourse, those on who the ―regulatory ideal‖ is based and

who keep that specific ideal in place, have the ―right bodies.‖ The shape of the body is seen as

something natural, and its ―naturality‖ permeates other aspects of the ―regulatory ideal‖ and

assigns ―naturality‖ to them as well. Yet, ―naturality‖ is in itself a result of a ―reiterative or

ritual practice,‖ since that image of the body, assumed to be ―natural,‖ a tenuous notion which

is ultimately also the result of normative processes, is placed as the ―natural‖ body, the cause

of those normative processes (Butler 1993: 10). Hence, one is not born male or female, one

keeps on becoming it, since those two shapes are present from birth, but are reinforced and

have to be, in order for ―maleness‖ or ―femaleness‖ to continue their hold on a person.

It is important to stress that this is not a case of pushing matter through a certain shape,

but that in the shape, the body is materialised.34 Rather than the sense of losing a limb, for

instance, the body is perceived as complete within normative structures, but might be seen as

intrinsically flawed in non-normative surroundings. A crucial example of this, already

touched upon before, is the body as an erogenous space. Within the normative shape of the

body, only the vagina or the penis are perceived as the strongest erogenous zones on the body,

eliminating all forms of sex, except vaginal, penetrative sex. Butler, as mentioned before,

argues that the body in itself is erogenous, or rather that every part of the body can be

erogenous. It should come as no surprise that in this context any body that is ostentatiously

different from the normative shape is considered to be inhuman, or at least partly inhuman.

34
I am indebted to Professor Dr. Johanna Wagner for pointing this out to me.
 De Poorter 32

Butler thus argues that both aspects, like gender, already perceived as constructed and

aspects, like biological sex, which seem essentialist, are constructed within the normative

process of the regulatory ideal. Identity as a whole, then, is constructed. Yet, this statement is

not without its weaknesses, since it seems to argue that identity is easily reconstructed. Butler

stresses, however, that identity is created through its construction, not that a certain essence is

moulded into a particular identity: ―[A]gency conditioned by th[e] very regimes of

power/discourses cannot be conflated with voluntarism or individualism, . . . and in no way

presupposes a choosing subject‖ (Butler 1993: 15). That construction depends greatly on

normativity, as this decides what is normal and abnormal in an identity. The notion of a

―constructed identity‖ draws attention to the fact that the label of ―normality‖ (or

―abnormality‖) of an individual is socially created. This is, of course, true for homosexuality,

but also for other characteristics, like egotism. The label egotism reduces an individual to that

single characteristic, and changes the result of that egotistical action, i.e. the perception of

egotism, to the cause of that behaviour.35 A sexual act between two men or women is

similarly seen as homosexual, and this label is transposed from the result to the cause of the

action. A person can never be homosexual, but only become (and continue becoming)

homosexual. In this sense, sex between two people of the same sex is not homosexuality, if

the result of that action is not perceived as ―homosexual.‖ Naturally, this is equally true for

heterosexuality, one is not straight, but becomes it.

As a result, identity is open for any intrusion from outside, since the repetitive

―becoming‖ is influenced by external issues. A single act does not constitute identity, as the

previous paragraph might have implied. Rather, actions and discourses are vital in the

35
I do not wish to defend egotism, but rather to disclose the fact that ―egotism‖ lies both in the eye of the
beholder and the performer, and is constituted and perceived differently in different societies. The choice of
egotism is no coincidence, since it plays an important role in both Angels in America and The Line of Beauty
under the guise of responsibility/irresponsibility. Egotism is often considered to be responsible in the novel by
conservative individualism, whereas it is perceived as irresponsible by left-wing liberalism.
 De Poorter 33

creation of identity, and most of these are performed unconsciously or are imposed from

outside. A child becomes a boy or a girl by a mixture of internal and external forces, as Butler

argues. Identity is no exception to this ―rule.‖ A label, exemplified in this context by

egotistical or homosexual, is the result of these two forces, and the ―abnormal‖ label can be

willingly adopted by non-normative individuals, as the normative ideology might have

infiltrated and constituted consciousness, as mentioned before. An understanding of how

performitivity works allows the individual to disrupt the regulations of the regulatory ideal, in

order to either create a new regulatory ideal or in an attempt to create an ―open coalition,‖ an

ideal-free society (Butler 1990: 22). AIDS/HIV, as I will attempt to prove, has the potential to

expose identity‘s constructed nature.

AIDS/HIV36

AIDS/HIV exposes the normative process both in theory and in its imagery37, since it

constantly fluctuates between human or inhuman, self or other. According to the first

binarism, HIV is an inhuman invader of the human body, or rather inhuman body since risk

groups are always already dehumanised to a certain extent. AIDS is the externalised version

of that inhumanity, whether that inhuman aspect is intrinsic (―guilty victims‖) or acquired

(―innocent victims‖). AIDS thus lays bare the dehumanisation process of the regulatory ideal,

and provides the basis for ―rehumanisation‖ as well as the prevention of dehumanisation. The
36
The argumentation put forward in this part is a set of examples how AIDS/HIV can disrupt and expose
identity. Some of these examples also return in my analysis of the following works, but I wanted to demonstrate
that AIDS in itself has the potential to expose and disrupt the normative process, not just in literature. AIDS, of
course, does not need to disrupt identity in order to be taken seriously, nor is a PWA who does not perceive
AIDS or HIV as a disrupting factor in any way less than a PWA who does. Theory in general has the tendency to
ignore the humans about whom it is theorising, a feat of which I myself, unfortunately, am guilty as well. The
experience of PWAs or their friends should thus be honoured more highly than this theory about AIDS, which
merely tries to imagine one of the many consequences of seropositivity.
37
This ‗imagery‘ is profoundly western, since it is the image of the PWA depicted in the western media, notably
with Kaposi‘s Sarcoma. Similarly, it is also the image used and disrupted in Angels in America and The Line of
Beauty. The image of ―African AIDS,‖ for example, may differ from the western depiction, since the image
depends greatly on opportunistic infections. Nonetheless, the final image of any PWA, from the point of view of
the media and the ―general population,‖ is always one reserved to die, regardless of skin colour, gender, or
nationality.
 De Poorter 34

person living with AIDS or HIV stresses the fact that (s)he is a ―person with a condition‖, not

―that condition‖ itself (Navarre 143). The rehumanisation process of PWAs is clearly present

within the texts and within the AIDS activist movement, in their desire to depict PWAs as

active, living, and human. Dehumanisation, however, is not merely the result of dominant

normative processes. Within AIDS activism, despite attempts to counter it, normative

processes can still be active, as Patton demonstrates in her analysis of AIDS Service

Organisations, which tend to be dominated by a gay discourse (see ―The AIDS Service

Industry‖ in Patton‘s Inventing AIDS). Being seropositive is not necessarily synonymous for

being tolerant of other people, and seropositivity can cause a process of blaming and

dehumanising others as well as the attempt to undermine such systems. As potent as

AIDS/HIV might be in disrupting the normative process, it can equally be used to maintain

normativity by PWAs and by the ―general population.‖

HIV, as the ―inhuman intruder‖ represents the other penetrating the self, the outside

invading the protected and enclosed inside. This otherness, in the general sense of the outside,

within the self constitutes ―contamination.‖ The peculiar consequence of this mentality is the

fact that the PWA-aspect of the individual is perceived as the other within the self, a rather

grim externalisation of Foucault‘s phrase ―becoming other than what one is‖ (qtd. in Crimp

2002: 250). In order to overcome this feeling of duality, the PWA can acknowledge that

otherness is a part of her or his sense of self, even before seroconversion, since it is the denial

of otherness within the self that allows the process of blaming others for seropositivity. In

order to overcome the process of blaming others, the seropositive, or indeed any person can

accept that the self is a construction open to influence from outside, and hence constituted by

that otherness. It is the tolerance that might result from that openness that should be
 De Poorter 35

celebrated, since this can prevent dehumanisation.38 As Butler argues: ―We [are] undone by

each other, ‖ AIDS is merely one externalisation of this hidden process (2004: 19).

AIDS, finally, also plays an important role in exposing performativity in the process of

identity construction. A vital aspect of performativity, as mentioned before, is repetition,

which Butler argues has always already failed. AIDS is one of the factors that can propagate

and expose this failure. Yet, unlike drag performance which is done consciously, AIDS alters

repetition in a manner unknown to the PWA. The repetition becomes invested with AIDS

itself, AIDS ―infiltrates‖ the constructions of identity, and as Yingling would argue: ―AIDS

signifies a collapse of identity‖ (292). For example, egotism becomes allowed in light of

AIDS as a certain type of self-protection. At the same time, altruism is celebrated within the

―AIDS community‖ as a larger version of self-protection (in this case, of the community.)

These characteristics, once thought to be intrinsic in an individual, are now connected with

AIDS to such an extent that it almost seems that they are caused by the presence of AIDS

itself. The different perception of similar acts demonstrates that identity is constructed within

a society, and that a label is imposed on a person as a result of a certain action and situation.

Similarly, sexuality is slowly undone by AIDS as again AIDS penetrates the repetition

that establishes sexuality. The formative factor of sexuality is no longer perceived to be solely

desire, but possibility and ability. Kruger hints upon this in his discussion of Tangled up in

Blue, in which the recently diagnosed Crockett desires a young man, and then instantly

reflects upon his seropositive status. (1996: 93) In other words, PWAs are no longer perceived

by society as hetero-, homo-, bi-, or any other kind of sexual but as ―AIDSsexual,‖ despite

38
One could argue that AIDS literalises this ideology, since it is a status in which the body is open to any
opportunistic infection. Regardless of this logic‘s callousness, it misrepresents AIDS. Most opportunistic
infections are already present in the body in some form. The argument that these infections and HIV are
contracted from someone else, however right it may be, is an attempt to place a sense of guilt on the other, and to
distance oneself from otherness (both internal and external).
 De Poorter 36

their own feelings or opinions. The social construction of sexuality is laid bare in the presence

of AIDS, as the ―normal‖ sexualities are transformed into ―AIDSsexuality.‖ Paradoxically, it

is this pathologisation of the PWA‘s sexuality that exposes the construction of sexuality.

Since one sexuality is reshaped as a different sexuality, pathologisation draws attention to the

fact that sexuality is not innate, but constantly in dialogue with other sexualities and with

other aspects of identity. The resistance to this pathologisation, on the other hand, also focuses

on the fact that sexual actions do not define how a person self-identifies sexually, and points

out that risk is characteristic of an action, not of a sexuality.

Lastly, performativity is similarly perceived in the victimisation of PWAs, as the actions

and discourses of victimisation creates the notion of ―AIDS victim.‖ AIDS nor HIV are

intentional actors which try to victimise the PWA, rather society creates a discourse to support

this view. If a PWA refuses to be seen as a victim, he or she undermines the discourse that lies

at the basis of the ―AIDS victim‖ image, and exposes the social construction of ―AIDS

victim.‖ The dehumanisation process that is linked with this imagery is effectively

undermined because the actions and discourses denoting inhumanity are not performed nor

permitted, thus cancelling the ―victim‖ label. The wish to be perceived as human, not

surprisingly, draws attention to the fact that ―human‖ and ―inhuman‖ are notions constructed

in society. The speech act ―[w]e are ‗people with AIDS‘‖ creates humanity as well as combats

dehumanisation of PWAs (Crimp 1996: 148). PWAs choose to perform humanity, rather than

―victim-hood,‖ exploiting the very process of performativity.

This theory of AIDS/HIV plays an important role in Angels in America and The Line of

Beauty, even though they may not seem to invest in a constructionist understanding of
 De Poorter 37

identity. AIDS may not conspicuously disrupt identity, it nevertheless influences it to a large

extent and manages to expose the constructions of identity.

 De Poorter 38

4. Angels in America39

AIDS40

AIDS holds a prominent place in Angels in America because of its equation with the

―virus of time,‖ and its central position in two of the three concurrent plots, namely in Prior

Walter‘s struggle with AIDS and the Angel and in Roy Cohn‘s struggle with AIDS and power

(Frantzen 138). Nonetheless, AIDS is used differently in these two storylines because of the

different perception of AIDS by the two characters. AIDS, for instance, is not perceived as a

gay disease by Prior nor as the result of a gay lifestyle; the origin of Prior‘s HIV antibody

positive status is never revealed, even though the play stresses that a promiscuous gay

lifestyle is not the sole possible cause of Prior‘s seropositive status. Louis, Prior‘s (former)

boyfriend, wonders ―why [Prior] is the sick one,‖ since he ―fucked around a whole lot more

than [Prior] did‖ (Perestroika 43). Moreover, Prior‘s two (former) lovers introduced in the

play, Louis and Belize, are believed to be seronegative. Prior‘s self-diagnosis of AIDS,

confirmed by the medical institution, is valueless, since the play does not search for an

explanation why Prior has AIDS nor condemns him for his status. In other words, Prior has

AIDS because he has AIDS, and the search for an explanation of his status, according to the

play, is an exercise in futility.

Unfortunately, this does not mean that society (human or angelic) does not make

assumptions about Prior‘s ―condition.‖ The medical establishment, with the sole exception of

39
I treat Angels in America as a literary text rather than a performed play, so as to be able to do a close reading
of the text, as created by Tony Kushner. I do however use the HBO adaptation of Angels in America when
deemed necessary to point out differences between text and play. The play consists out of two parts, Millennium
Approaches and Perestroika, to which I will refer to in subsequent quotations (Millennium Approaches is for
economical reasons shortened to Millennium).
40
The distinction between AIDS and PWAs in this analysis and the analysis of The Line of Beauty is at best an
arbitrary one, and may at times even impede my intention to demonstrate that AIDS does influence identity in
these works. Nonetheless, I feel that AIDS (and HIV) need to be discussed separately from the experience of
AIDS, so as not to collapse these two aspects of the novel.
 De Poorter 39

Prior‘s nurse (played by the same actress as the Angel), treats Prior as a medical case, rather

than as a human. Whilst Prior is enumerating his ailments for the benefit of his nurse, Emily,

he intimates that his dentist is wearing ―little condoms on his thumb and forefinger‖ because

of Prior‘s ―fuzzy tongue‖ (Millennium 74). More alarming, however, is the degree of

negligence with regards to Prior‘s treatment. Prior‘s dermatologist, for example, leaves for

Hawaii without referring him to another doctor, and when Prior does reveal his hallucinatory

state to his doctors (even though he is hesitant at first, because of the ―concupiscence‖ he

experiences during the hallucinations [44]), they only check for toxins in his bloodstream, as

if the hallucinations must be drug-related, medical or recreational (Millennium 74). 41 Emily,

on the other hand, despite having a full waiting room, takes the time to ask Prior how he is

feeling, and warns him that ―loneliness is a danger‖ and to see a therapist (Millennium 75).

She also notes the ―stress‖ caused by being seropositive as one of the contributing factors to

Prior‘s hallucinations (Millennium 75).42 Belize, the other nurse in the play, performs a

similar task for Roy Cohn, a Jewish republican lawyer, after his doctor leaves him in the

hospital. Ultimately, it is Belize, not the ―very qualified, very expensive WASP‖ doctor who

advises Roy not to undergo radiation for his so-called ―liver cancer‖ since it would ―kill [his]

T-cells‖ (Perestroika 13).

41
The fact that Prior believes that the medical establishment will change his medication solely because he has
erections echoes the dominant fear of sexually active ―AIDS carriers,‖ who continue to infect others and spread
the ―disease.‖ Note also that the search for toxins in blood has a second implication, since it reinforces the notion
that HIV is solely active within the bloodstream, even though Harry, Roy‘s doctor, implies that HIV can cross
the ―blood-brain barrier‖ and cause dementia, a disorder of which Prior is showing initial symptoms, when he
forgets how many days he has been in the hospital and Belize unsuccessfully tries to ―jog [Prior‘s] memory‖
(Millennium 29, 43). The search for an explanation for Prior‘s hallucinations in his bloodstream is not only
ineffective, but also disregards Prior‘s other symptoms. By performing this test, AIDS becomes a disease of the
bloodstream, rather than a syndrome that allows opportunistic infections to affect vital organs.
42
This does not mean that Emily makes no other assumptions about Prior. When Prior is hospitalised for the first
time, Louis is sitting at his bedside, and Emily asks him if he is ―his...uh? [lover]‖ (Millennium 35). Rather than
taking into account the possibility that Louis is his roommate, brother, or close friend, AIDS allows Emily to
jump to the conclusion that Prior is gay and Louis his lover. In a certain sense, Prior is protected from this
equation because he already self-identifies as gay, unlike Roy who ferociously fights this notion but also
maintains it, by situating himself out of that equation.
 De Poorter 40

On the other hand, the Angelic society chooses Prior as their prophet to stop progress

because they think he has nothing to lose and everything to win. Due to the fact that Prior is

supposedly dying, the Angels find in him the perfect champion for stasis, ―the AIDS virus

[sic] is supposed to ensure his desire to stop time‖ (Frantzen 144). The two heralds, Prior‘s

ancestors, sent to him to prepare the way for the Angel, were chosen by the angels precisely

―because of the mortal affinities‖ (Millennium 66). In choosing these two ancestors as the

heralds, the Angels emphasise Prior‘s impending death. Even when Prior in Perestroika

returns the book and the prophecy of stasis to Heaven, the Angel Australia councils him not to

turn away from the ―Tome of Immobility,‖ since to ―drink from its bitter water‖ is to ―never

thirst again‖ (89). Yet, it is precisely Prior‘s act of defiance, the restitution of the prophecy,

that changes Heaven. The prophet who was supposed to stop progress in human society,

returns to Heaven to preach progress to the Angels, as the phrase ―[t]hus spake [sic] the

prophet‖ indicates (Perestroika 88). The transformation of Heaven is immediately

implemented; no longer is the word ―God‖ followed by a ―[t]hunderclap‖, but by a ―[s]ofter

rumble of thunder‖ (Perestroika 88, original italics). This initial change becomes more rigid

later on in the play, when the Angels do file a ―[p]aternity suit‖ against God, who as Roy

admits himself, is ―guilty as hell‖ (Perestroika 92).

Together with this change from stasis to progress, a more decisive change for AIDS

occurs. Despite a plenitude of warnings, the Angels do grant Prior‘s wish to be blessed with

more life. They no longer equate AIDS with death, since they themselves give Prior more life,

and he himself repeats this blessing to the rest of the world: ―And I bless you: More Life.‖

(Perestroika 99). The ―plague,‖ however, cannot be stopped, as Prior requests, since the

Angels ―[d]o not know how‖ (Perestroika 88). Prior transforms the blessing from a ―selfish‖

act to a necessary act; if the world is to survive ―Apocalypse Descending‖ we need to bless
 De Poorter 41

each other, we need to help each other (Perestroika 89). In this fashion, Angels in America is

a play about loneliness, none of the characters feel they have a place where they belong, a

network to fall back on. But the epilogue drastically changes this, with a circle of friends for

Prior from unlikely corners of the world, or as David Savran prefers to define it: ―[A] utopian

concept of erotic affiliation and a new definition of family‖ (16). The inclusion of Hannah

into this circle demonstrates that AIDS and suffering can frighten people (like Louis) but can

create a sense of community as well (like Hannah).

AIDS is refashioned from a solitary and isolating experience to an inclusive constituent,

one that transgresses so-called risk-groups and communities. Even though Prior is protected

from serious AIDS-phobia, because of his life within the (―high-risk‖) gay community, it is

the circle constituted by his having AIDS that redeems his wish for more life. The play enacts

what Prior posits by rejecting the Angels‘ prophecy of stasis. The Angel commands Prior: ―If

you do not MINGLE you will Cease to Progress‖ (Perestroika 29). By staying put within the

proscribed communities, angelic and human society would be saved from destruction,

according to the Angels. Yet Prior refutes this logic: progress and change are ―what living

things do‖ (Perestroika 88). More important, Savran notes, is the fact that Prior equates

progress with desire, a desire for ―being alive‖, a desire to be with the ―Other‖ (Perestroika

88-89; Savran 21). Prior, the play, and this vision of AIDS combine people from different

communities, destroying their bounds to specific communities, and create unlikely friendships

and networks. This network of friends supports Prior in his life with AIDS, and provides the

―hope‖ which Prior seeks but cannot find (Perestroika 89-90). Hence, this group of friends

gathers at the fountain of Bethesda in the epilogue for a reason, as the fountain is itself a

symbol of hope, being a cure for disease in the new millennium. Hannah, who was initially

distant to Prior, promises Prior to take him to the fountain in the new millennium, and
 De Poorter 42

provides a new beacon of hope for Prior. She, herself, also becomes a sign of hope for Prior,

proving that AIDS is not the end of Prior‘s life nor prevents him from leading a sociable life

and meeting (mingling with) new people. In this sense, Harper, Joe‘s wife and a valium

addict, is similarly endorsing Prior‘s theory, since she meets new people and migrates to other

parts of the world, when she travels to San Francisco. She even envisions this theory as the

basis of the ozone layer, which consists out of a ―great net of souls‖ (Perestroika 96).

AIDS, metaphorised as the ―Virus of TIME‖ in the Angel‘s prophecy,43 is ultimately

not the end of civilization but the means by which civilization progresses into a new society

(Perestroika 27). This civilization is no longer based on the ―Reaganite‖ irresponsibility

embodied by Louis and Joe both leaving their partners, but on the ties of friendship and

support, on ―radical human responsibility and action-for-the-other‖ promoted by AIDS

activist groups and personified by Belize and Hannah (Omer-Sherman, ―Jewish/Queer‖: 85).44

Gone is the fear that the destructive terminology of the virus induces, instead time as hope

becomes the new ideological power: the new millennium approaches, perestroika will take

place. This ideology undermines the metaphor of plague, often noted in dominant discourses

about AIDS. AIDS may still be perceived as a plague by Prior and the Angels, but ―not nearly

all [of us]‖ will die, again drawing on time as hope to undermine the sense of fear connected

with the plague metaphor.

43
The play uses two metaphors for AIDS, which are also mentioned in Sontag‘s AIDS and its Metaphors. The
metaphor of ―time‖ and of ―change‖ are in Prior‘s prophecy transformed from a negative symbol to a positive,
hope-giving symbol (Sontag 107, 154). Note also in this context Pearl‘s belief in AIDS heralding ―change,
argument, politics, complexity, and, paradoxically life‖ (775-776).
44
In this approach to ―Angels in America,‖ Joe, and to a lesser extent Louis, are perceived as ―conflicted
charlatans wallowing in their own hypocrisies‖ (Minwalla 114). I do not wish to argue that Joe is irresponsible,
nor that he has no means to become responsible (since AIDS is not a prerequisite for responsibility), but that he
is still in a process with an unknown goal. The film adaptation Angels in America shows Joe‘s progression more
clearly, as he is standing at a crossroads in his life, in need of companionship.
 De Poorter 43

The function of AIDS in Roy Cohn‘s case has a similar aspect but a very different

usage, since Roy is not protected from AIDS-phobia as Prior is, not being a part of a

protective ―high-risk‖ community. In ―Strange Angel: The Pinklisting of Roy Cohn,‖ Michael

Cadden argues that Kohn is ―pinklisted,‖ made gay, in the play in order to test ―[h]ow broad,

how embracing‖ the gay community can be (Kushner quoted in Cadden 83). This,

surprisingly, is enabled by the notion of AIDS as a ―gay disease.‖ Like the real homophobic

and AIDS-phobic journalistic reactions to Roy‘s death due to an AIDS-related opportunistic

infection, Roy is presumed gay precisely because he has AIDS. Were it not for Roy‘s

admission that he is a ―heterosexual man . . . who fucks around with guys‖ (acknowledged

only after the seropositive diagnosis), the non-prejudiced spectator would not have known that

HIV transmission between two men was the most likely route of transmission in this case

(Millennium 32).45 Roy thus epitomises Cindy Patton‘s notion of the ―queer paradigm‖

(Kruger 1996: 41). Patton argues that ―once you test positive for the HIV antibody, regardless

of how you contracted the virus, you become nominally queer‖ (ibid.). Hence, Roy‘s sexual

acts do not make him gay in the play (a notion that he himself strongly refutes), but the fact

that he has AIDS.

This prejudice is not only supported by official institutions but is also self-imposed. Roy

himself ―misrepresent[s]‖ AIDS as a ―disease‖ that only ―homosexuals have,‖ eliminating the

possibility of him having or accepting the fact that he has AIDS (Pearl 767; Millennium 32).

By renaming his condition, Roy postpones the moment he has to deal with AIDS and with the

consequences of having this syndrome. Consequences already implied by his doctor thinking

in terms of risk groups, since that would mean that Roy can no longer choose how he wants to

self-identify, but that an identification will be imposed on him by others. When the committee

45
It seems counterproductive for a play that tries to challenge common conceptions of AIDS, to base the
―queering‖ of one of its characters on the prejudice that AIDS is a ―gay disease,‖ but in doing so the play
exposes the stigmatising processes of AIDS.
 De Poorter 44

rules on Roy‘s disbarment, for example, ―[o]ne of the main guys on the Executive leaned over

to his friend and said, ‗Finally. I‘ve hated that little faggot for thirty-six years‘‖ (Millennium

74). AIDS forces a certain category on Roy and takes away the identity which Roy may have

had before his seroconversion, an issue Roy alludes to when he confides in Joe that the

American Bar Association will try to disbar him because ―[t]hey smell [he is] weak‖

(Millennium 50). AIDS is here clearly perceived as a destructive concept, rather than a

building stone for a new society.

The destructive force of AIDS is perpetuated in Roy Cohn‘s death, whereas Prior

survives with AIDS precisely due to its (and his) ability to construct a new society. In order to

exemplify this matter, AIDS is in the play equated with death, but at the same time this

equation is disrupted and the play shows that it is possible to live with AIDS. Roy, on the one

hand, embodies the demise to AIDS, since he is perpetually shown as worsening until he dies

at the end of Perestroika. From the moment he enters the hospital, the stage directions do not

allow the character Roy to experience any remission: ―The pain in his gut is now constant and

getting worse,‖ ―[h]is condition has worsened‖ (Perestroika 32,50). Roy can only suffer with

AIDS, he cannot live with it. In fact, from the moment Roy enters the hospital, the verdict

seems clear. In answer to Roy‘s question if he is going to die soon, Belize, his nurse, says:

―Probably. Probably so.‖ (Perestroika 12). Roy thus enforces the image of the PWA as

continuously hospitalized, without any hope of recovery or remission. Prior, on the other

hand, is depicted as Roy‘s opposite. Even though Prior is from time to time hospitalized, his

bouts of sickness are often transitory and unforeseen, nor are they introduced by stage

directions. Prior is said to be ―one of the lucky ones‖ and ―pretty healthy for someone with no

immune system‖ (Millennium 75). In a direct inversion of Roy‘s situation, Emily, Prior‘s
 De Poorter 45

nurse, tells him he will ―live for years, probably‖ (Millennium 75).46 Prior‘s bouts of

infection, moreover, seem to others and to himself to be incurred by his own actions. Prior‘s

collapse at the Mormon Visitors‘ Centre invokes not only Prior‘s comment that he ―overdid

it,‖ but also Emily‘s reprimand that he ―threw it [his recovery, or perhaps his life] away‖

(Perestroika 64, 65). Whereas Roy is the perfect ―AIDS victim‖ destined to die, Prior is the

person living with AIDS who controls his own destiny.47

Roy‘s situation, however, is not all doom and suffering, as AIDS does show a

constructive potential even in a situation as barren as his. When Roy is hospitalised, Belize

calls Prior in order to tell him ―who just checked in with the troubles‖ (Perestroika 10). Belize

ends this call with the phrase: ―Fetch me the hammer and the pointy stake, girl. I‘m a-going

in‖ (ibid.). Roy Cohn seems to have made himself unpopular with many people, but is, due to

his hospitalisation, confronted with two particular ―enemies‖: Belize, his ―negation‖, and

Ethel Rosenberg, a ghostly apparition, ―the little Jewish mama‖ who he wanted to get ―the

chair‖ (Perestroika 46; Millennium 82, 83). AIDS confronts him with these two characters,

but also provides Roy with the opportunity to be forgiven by them. Belize personifies in this

context the gay community, which Roy wronged and betrayed, and Ethel the victims of Roy‘s

continuous illegal interfering as well as his Jewish mother.48 Both have the power to forgive

Roy and effectively do so because of his long and painful death due to an AIDS-related

illness. Belize intimates this when he says: ―He [Roy Cohn] died a hard death. So maybe... A

queen can forgive her vanquished foe.‖ (Perestroika 82). Ethel undergoes a similar process

46
Note how ―probably‖ in both situations is used to support the notions of AIDS as death and AIDS as life
respectively. At the same time, however, it also introduces doubt into these statements. AIDS is a symbol for
incertitude, one is never sure how and when AIDS will develop. This doubt remains to the very end, even though
the uncertainty expressed about Roy‘s case proves to be ungrounded. When Prior hopes in the epilogue ―to be
around to see‖ the Bethesda fountain in the summer, this doubt resurfaces and casts a shadow on his desire
(Perestroika 99).
47
That Prior wrestles with the Angel in order to return the prophecy is a powerful reminiscence of the image of
the wilful human, ungoverned by any external force.
48
Omer-Sherman argues that Ethel says the Kaddish for Roy Cohn because he is the ―metaphoric son who
abandoned her‖ (―Jewish/Queer‖ 94).
 De Poorter 46

when she helps Louis say the Kaddish for Roy (Perestroika 82-83). This forgiveness,

however, is not the (sole) result of Belize‘s and Ethel‘s humanity, it is Roy‘s death that

invokes the act. When Ethel reveals to Roy her reason for visiting him during his last days

(namely to find out whether she can forgive him or not), she admits that she cannot forgive

him, but only ―take pleasure in [his] misery‖ (Perestroika 74). Only when Roy is actually

dying can Ethel find it in her heart to sing him a song in order to comfort him, and to say the

Kaddish.

The oppositional character of Roy‘s ―destructive AIDS‖ thus provides the background

for Prior‘s constructive experience of AIDS, and is moreover used to emphasise the positive

nature of ―constructive AIDS.‖ Nonetheless, this dualism, this structuring of constructive and

destructive AIDS, is shown to be as ineffective as any other valuation of AIDS/HIV. As

mentioned before, Prior‘s wish in the epilogue to see the Bethesda fountain in the summer is

not beyond doubt, a doubt which stems not only from the use of ―probably‖ but also from the

encapsulation of ―constructive AIDS‖ within ―destructive AIDS.‖ Indeed, one of the main

side effects of this opposition is that both perceptions of AIDS are influenced by the other.

The distinction made between these two types of AIDS, the epilogue suggests, conceals the

ambiguous nature of AIDS. The ―statuary‖ angel of the fountain best resembles this

ambiguity, since it ―commemorate[s] death but . . . suggest[s] a world without dying‖

(Perestroika 98). AIDS has the ability to destroy but also to construct. To call Prior‘s

experience of AIDS constructive and Roy‘s destructive would simplify the experience of

AIDS to one single emotion. In fact, Prior does experience the destructive side of AIDS, as

his relationship with Louis ends because of Prior‘s seropositivity, while Roy experiences the

constructive side of AIDS when Belize and Ethel forgive him. This dual pattern also functions

within the field of identity, whose construction is exposed and deconstructed in order to create
 De Poorter 47

a more egalitarian society without dehumanisation processes, in which all individuals will be

―citizens‖ (Perestroika 99).

PWAs

The constructive aspect of AIDS is not only the basis for a new society, but also

exposes and undermines the normative binarism human versus inhuman. AIDS in Angels in

America is represented as a truly human experience, as Hannah says about Prior‘s lesions:

―It‘s a cancer. Nothing more. Nothing more human than that‖ (Perestroika 68, emphasis

added). The concept of AIDS/HIV as a foreign and inhuman entity is thus undermined and

turned into something decisively human. At the same time, the equation of AIDS/HIV with

the ―Virus of TIME‖, which ―began‖ in humans, establishes HIV as distinctively human

(Perestroika 27). It would be wrong, however, to argue that AIDS/HIV in the play is solely

human, since the Angels ―suffer with You [humans]‖ (Perestroika 88). Even though the

origin of HIV is unknown, this does not make it any less human, or indeed inhuman. In

Prior‘s logic, moreover, what constitutes as really inhuman would be paralysis or stasis in the

face of AIDS/HIV. The person who ignores the fact that AIDS/HIV exists or who fails to

participate in a network of support for PWAs, is truly inhuman, not the person living with

AIDS. The irresponsible person, like Louis or Joe, is ultimately inhuman, and yet they too are

still human. Even though Louis ―fail[s]‖ in his love for Prior, he is still loved by Prior

(Perestroika 95). Joe‘s loneliness at the end of Perestroika echoes Harper‘s solitude in the

beginning of Millennium Approaches, and like her he needs help from others. Both characters

need a network of support, a circle of friends in order to reinstate their humanity.

As humanity and inhumanity are concepts that no longer function in Angels in America,

the dehumanisation process of AIDS/HIV is interrupted. The greatest potential for

 De Poorter 48

dehumanisation in the play for Prior and Roy lies respectively with Hannah, a Mormon, and

the medical establishment, symbolised by Belize and Henry, Roy‘s doctor.49 When Prior

collapses at the Mormon Visitors‘ Centre, Hannah has only to call a cab and send him to the

hospital in order to erase Prior from her life, instead she accompanies him to the hospital. This

act represents more than the ―altruism‖ that is required from middleclass women, a notion

Patton discerns in AIDS Service Organisations (21). Even though Hannah, as a Mormon, is

supposed to condemn Prior for his sexuality and perceive AIDS as the rightful retribution of

his sin, she refuses to do this. In fact, Hannah warns Prior not to ―make assumptions about

[her]‖ since she does not ―make them about [him]‖ (Perestroika 67). Moreover, Hannah does

not help Prior out of an altruistic compassion, since pity is ―just not something [she has],‖

instead she helps him out of a sense of identification, as both Prior and she are alone and ―not

needed elsewhere‖ (Perestroika 66, 68).50 Prior therefore becomes a replacement for

Hannah‘s son, Joe, and Hannah replaces Louis, Prior‘s former lover, as the person ―tak[ing]

care‖ of Prior, in order to alleviate their sense of loneliness (Omer-Sherman, ―Jewish/Queer‖:

94). Hannah and Prior break free from the restraints of their personal communities and

―mingle,‖ effectively becoming human, since migration is what constitutes humanity, in

Prior‘s (and the play‘s) worldview.

49
Note that two of the greatest sources of dehumanisation of PWAs, the government and the popular media, are
barely present in this play. Indeed, the government only plays a part in Roy‘s plot and because of his privileged
position, Roy is immune for any of its political processes. The popular media is mentioned only once, and again
in the context of Roy‘s situation, as they gladly reported about his condition and ―demise,‖ yet without any
obvious consequences for Roy. The most politically charged item for both Prior and Roy, however, is the AZT
drug, since this drug is incredibly hard to come by. Roy, unsurprisingly, has managed through his connections to
acquire the ―golden horde‖ (Perestroika 34). Yet, through Belize‘s theft of the drug, after Roy‘s death, it
becomes subject to personal judgement, rather than to the government, effectively undermining its political
status.
50
A vital question remains: Are pity and identification two different things, since pity cannot take place if there
is no possibility of identification? Pity implies that one person is in a better situation, but knows how the other
person suffers. Identification, on the other hand, is a copy of a specific situation, present in the lives of both
persons. Clearly Hannah identifies with Prior‘s loneliness, as she also experiences loneliness. ―Pity‖ would
undermine Hannah‘s sense of loneliness, and nullify her claim to it. Identification, however, is not an
appropriation of the other‘s identity, but the recognition of oneself in the other. ―[R]ecognition is a reciprocal
process that moves selves beyond their incorporative and destructive dispositions toward an understanding of
another self whose difference from us is ethically imperative to mark‖ (Butler 2004: 144).
 De Poorter 49

Roy, as the victim of the destructive power of AIDS/HIV, does have to counter the

dehumanisation process, from which Prior is relatively protected as mentioned before. In

pointing out to his doctor, Henry, that his diagnosis of AIDS constructs Roy as a member of a

risk group, Roy challenges Henry to articulate this assumption, thereby forcing Henry to

resort to the more neutral statement: ―You have had sex with men, many many times, Roy.‖

(Millennium 31). Roy exposes the working of the aforementioned ―queer paradigm‖ in his

resistance to the diagnosis of AIDS, yet in his discussion of ―clout,‖ Roy reveals another

stigmatising operation (Millennium 31). AIDS/HIV first forces Roy out of his assumed (by

him or by others) heterosexuality, because of the stigma that is wrongly attributed to AIDS,

but due to the fact that he has AIDS (and therefore must be gay) he is pushed back into

darkness, uncared for by the ―general population‖ since as a homosexual man, he can have no

―clout.‖ This attitude is, remarkably, not only licensed by Henry‘s distinction between risk

groups and the population not at risk, but also by Roy, as he does not believe that homosexual

men and women can have ―clout.‖ Roy self-identifies as a ―heterosexual man‖ who has sex

with men, in order to keep hold of his humanity, his identity as a person with clout

(Millennium 32). Hence, Roy escapes the dehumanisation process precisely by reinforcing the

dehumanising feature of AIDS in homosexual men and women.

Ultimately, this logic fails to save Roy from dehumanisation. Society has caught up

with Roy Cohn, and has decided that he can no longer be human. His disbarment is merely the

symbolic disintegration of his identity as a person with clout, of his humanity. Roy ―lost‖

(Perestroika 74). Yet, according to the play, this is hardly the result of his seropositive status,

but of his inhumane actions as a person who still had clout, even though ―clout‖ in Roy‘s

worldview classifies humanity. The characters in the play perceive Roy Cohn as not ―human‖,

not because he has AIDS (which is a closely guarded secret), but due to his actions as a right-
 De Poorter 50

wing (and irresponsible) lawyer (Perestroika 60). AIDS, illness, and weakness are the

conditions that allow Roy to be dehumanised, not the reasons of his dehumanization. At the

same time, however, AIDS is also the provision for the reinstatement of Roy‘s humanity,

albeit through a different register. Belize, Roy‘s nurse, and as a part of the medical

establishment in the ideal position to further the dehumanisation process, is the main

instigator of this ―rehumanisation.‖ As mentioned above, Belize, together with Ethel, forgives

Roy and ―manage to lend Roy a modicum of humanity,‖ proving the constructive ability of

AIDS (Minwalla 108). By forgiving Roy for his inhumane actions, Belize restores Roy‘s

humanity, not as a person with ―clout,‖ but as a responsible person, since his AZT drug will

save the lives of other PWAs. The fact that Louis, who initially questions Roy‘s humanity,

has to say the Kaddish for Roy Cohn, adds to the trope of forgiveness as giving humanity.

Dehumanisation is thus effectively undermined by identification via AIDS. Hannah

identifies with Prior in his loneliness and is able to see his humanity. Belize and Louis forgive

Roy Cohn, because of their identification with his ―hard death‖ from an AIDS-related disease

(Perestroika 82). The possibility of contracting or having HIV and die a ―hard death‖ (―AIDS

community‖51) as well as their shared sexual preference (―gay community‖) permits them to

identify with Roy and his situation. Ethel is, lastly, also able to identify with Roy‘s death in

miserable conditions, as she was sentenced to death, partly by Roy‘s interference.

Nevertheless, identification is not the soul deconstruction of the self/other dualism in Angels

in America. In a play in which almost every male character self-identifies as gay or has sex

with men (and in which women, as Savran points out and Meisner rather sweepingly argues,

51
Note that ―AIDS community‖ is not a pre-existing community, but a community created around a PWA (or
PWAs), and this may include everyone active in that community. The perception of the ―AIDS community‖ as
strictly gay would thus undermine its inclusive and constructive character, furthermore it would create the notion
that one is born into a community, rather than become part of a community. Every community is ultimately a
construction, and membership is not innate but something that is appropriated. This is also true for the ―gay
community,‖ since not all MSM or WSW self-identify as gay, and not every person who self-identifies as gay
wants to be part of a ―gay community.‖
 De Poorter 51

are grossly underrepresented), the main divide between characters is seropositivity.

AIDS/HIV is the boundary that constructs the outside apart from the inside, but at the same

time disrupts that boundary. The notion of a fixed self, detached from the other, is slowly

undone by the presence of AIDS, even though AIDS at first instated the division (―I have

AIDS, others do not; I do not have AIDS, others do‖).

Angels in America, as mentioned above, is a play about loneliness, but this loneliness

stems from a sense of otherness with regards to the idealised normative self. The white,

heterosexual male self has no part in this play, except for Martin, Roy‘s colleague, Henry,

Roy‘s doctor, and the American Bar Association. None of these characters or institutions have

a real effect on the play, as Roy dominates the two first characters, and the ABA‘s disbarment

and consecutive dehumanisation is similarly enacted (and revoked) by the other characters.

Even the true white, heterosexual male, God, is absent in the play, and is upon return sued by

the Angels. The play hence raises the question if a normative self can truly exist, and if we are

not all ―others,‖ or more correctly different, to each other. The play, as Tony Kushner himself

also admits, glorifies otherness: ―Identify yourself as other, and identify your determining

characteristics as those characteristics which make you other and unliked and despised‖

(quoted in Omer-Sherman, ―Jewish/Queer‖: 82). The epilogue together with Harper‘s final

soliloquy support this ideology. The network of friends in the epilogue helps not only Prior,

but also Louis, Hannah, and Belize; they are all in need of support to combat the loneliness in

an ―irresponsible‖ world. Nevertheless, their argument about the Gaza strip renders visible

their differences, and undermines the notion of ―same selves.‖ Their sameness, desperately

needed to construct a dominant inside and a subordinate outside, is always in the process of

being deconstructed by their difference. Likewise, their identification within the group

depends on the other members of that group, not only because their relationships are
 De Poorter 52

constituted in relation to each other, but also because they appropriate characteristics from

each other. This identificatory mimetism, or as Hannah calls it ―interconnectedness,‖ is most

apparent in Hannah, who effectively becomes a ―New Yorker‖ through her experience of

AIDS with Prior (Perestroika 98, 97, original italics).

If an indeterminate otherness deconstructs the twofold self/other, a desire to disrupt

difference is similarly active in the deconstruction of the private self. After leaving Prior

behind in the hospital, Louis goes to the ―Rambles‖ in Central Park to pick up a one-night

stand. When the condom breaks, Louis tells the man to ―[k]eep...keep going. infect me. I

don‘t care. I don‘t care‖ (Millennium 41). In a reverberation of Freud‘s theory of

incorporation, Louis equates Prior with AIDS, and desires to be infected with HIV himself, so

that the difference with and the loss of Prior would be annulled. Louis fails to ―avow‖ Prior‘s

loss, and creates the emotionless void in which he finds himself for the most part of the play

(Butler 1990: 87). Ultimately, the melancholic Louis remains invested within his desire for

Prior, and is therefore unable to commit to Joe. This interpretation is maintained further by the

fact that the man in Central Park and Prior are played by the same actor. Louis‘ bruises from

his fight with Joe can in this light be interpreted as an attempt to identify with Prior‘s KS. Far

from having a morbid wish to copy AIDS, Louis knows that the only way through which he

can ever reconnect with Prior is to experience the same pain of abandonment and betrayal, in

other words the pain which he inflicted on the other, Prior. Louis needs to give up his self and

become the other, the ―victim,‖ in order to ―atone‖ for his misdeeds. This, however, does not

result in complete restoration, since Louis‘ quest to become the other is again a sameness in

disguise. Prior does not allow Louis to ―come back,‖ so that there is no elite group within the

group of friends constituted by AIDS (Perestroika 95). Louis has to learn what Prior

discovered through AIDS and his prophesy of progress and migration, namely that otherness
 De Poorter 53

is innate in everyone, that the self is constructed out of many different others. A static self and

a static other is ―feeble‖ (Perestroika 78). People mingle, migrate, change, and progress; self

and other cannot stay the same nor apart.

Lastly, AIDS/HIV, as mentioned above, has the potential to introduce otherness into the

self, whether this self is normative or private, blurring the distinction between self and other,

but also demonstrating that the distinction was nonetheless imaginary. As discussed above,

AIDS in Roy‘s situation is equated with homosexuality, by both himself and the medical

institution. When Roy thus contracts HIV and develops AIDS, homosexuality enters Roy‘s

self. If homosexuality was merely another name for men who have sex with men, this process

would be superfluous, since Roy already self-identifies as a man who has sex with men. Yet

homosexuality, as Roy (rightly) points out, does not ―tell you who someone sleeps with‖, but

where ―an individual so identified fit[s] in the food chain‖ (Perestroika 31). Hence, with the

introduction of the ―other‖ (homosexuality), Roy loses his ―self‖ (a person with clout,

heterosexuality). But without Joe in the Justice Department in Washington, Roy had no clout

in the ABA, who already despised him for his otherness as a ―filthy little Jewish troll‖

(Millennium 49).52 Hence, Roy is even in his self confronted with his otherness, and his

distinction on the basis of ―clout‖ is proven to be a fallacy, as Roy never had enough clout to

protect himself from the ABA without Joe. His clout, moreover, is always restricted to the

people who allow him to have clout. Belize, for example, is not impressed by Roy (and to a

certain extent has power over Roy as his nurse), whereas Martin, even though he never knows

what Roy knows, compliantly follows his orders.

52
The irony of this issue is that Roy might have had more influence on Joe as a gay man than as a conservative
lawyer.
 De Poorter 54

Roy‘s clout, furthermore, is laid bare by AIDS as constructed, rather than inherent to his

identity. Roy depends on his clout to be considered human in Reaganite, conservative society,

and perceives his clout as an essential part of his identity; his entire world view is based on

this vision of clout: ―I see the universe, Joe, as a kind of sandstorm in outerspace with winds

of mega-hurricane velocity but instead of grains of sand it‘s shards and splinters of glass‖

(Millennium 4). It is his clout, his ability to negotiate the problems hurtling towards him that

allows him to be in the middle of that sandstorm.53 As mentioned above, Roy‘s separation on

the basis of clout is in itself a flawed system, seeing that clout was relatively unattainable, but

the little influence that Roy does have is disrupted by AIDS, demonstrating that the entire

concept of clout is constructed through actions, rather than the cause of those actions. On his

hospital bed, Roy still tries to exert his clout in order to influence the ABA‘s decision, but his

telephone calls are disrupted by ―abdominal spasm[s]‖ (Perestroika 32, original italics). Not

only his telephone calls are disrupted by these spasms, but also his attempts to outdo Ethel,

who merely laughs at his pain (Perestroika 33). Roy‘s pain worsen exceedingly, and he is

eventually given morphine to stop the spasms, the final blow for someone who believes ―pain

[i]s life‖ (Perestroika 11). As Roy slowly worsens, AIDS demonstrates that without his

continuous interference, Roy has no claim to clout. Consequently, Roy is disbarred by the

ABA and ―defeated‖ by Ethel. His last attempt to fool Ethel is equally his last attempt to show

any form of influence, and even though he succeeds in fooling Ethel, he dies soon after. His

last action, putting an imaginary telephone on hold, is an admission of his loss of influence;

unable to resist the onslaught of life, he puts life on hold and dies.

53
Roy‘s telephone system takes on a deeper meaning in this context, as it becomes a symbol for his ability to
―multitask‖ and withstand the constant barrage of telephone calls, or more poetically splinters of glass. His
demand to have a more elaborate phone system in his hospital room is ultimately a wish to hold on to that last
token of humanity, since Roy deems it impossible to ―perform basic bodily functions‖ on a simple telephone
(Perestroika 14). His gratuitous reaction to Belize‘s attempt to take the phone from him (―You touch that phone
and I‘ll bite. And I got rabies.‖ [Perestroika 33]) signifies his fear of losing his clout and humanity.
 De Poorter 55

AIDS disrupts not only Roy‘s sense of identity, but also Prior‘s identity, albeit with less

drastic consequences. When Louis tries to reconcile with Prior, he tells Prior he was ―too

much of a victim, finally. Passive. Dependent.‖ (Perestroika 52). This process of

victimisation, however, is precisely resisted by Prior but sanctioned by Louis. The fact that

Prior has not even thought of himself as a victim of AIDS until Louis mentions it indicates

that ―victimhood‖ is not a personal experience. The discrepancy between Louis‘ image of

Prior as victim and Prior‘s self-declared status of prophet emphasises the fact that Prior does

not consider himself passive or dependent, but active and with a mission and message for

mankind. ―Prior moves ahead, not in spite of AIDS but rather because of AIDS. The ‗virus of

time‘ has jolted him out of torpor and self-pity.‖ (Frantzen quoted in Omer-Sherman, ―The

Fate of the Other‖: 9) Louis‘ victimisation of Prior is the main reason of him leaving Prior,

since Louis cannot live with the image of Prior he created, but it is Prior‘s resistance to that

image that ultimately paves the way for Louis‘ return. Yet, Louis has to fulfil a specific

condition before he is allowed to return, Prior has to see ―bruises,‖ ―black and blue,‖ and

―blood‖ (Perestroika 55). As mentioned above, Louis needs to experience the victimisation

which he performed on Prior, in order to acknowledge the damage that he caused. This

victimisation cannot be self-induced, as ―bruises inside‖ are not satisfactory for Prior, but

needs to be seen (Perestroika 55). Louis and Joe‘s struggle, the ―victimisation‖ which allows

Louis back into Prior‘s life, literalises the need for an outsider to place the label of victimhood

on oneself, as it is a social construction placed on an individual.54 ―One is not oneself in

isolation but only in contrast to, in solidarity and negation with a variety of other selves‖

(Kruger 1997: 154)

54
One can of course self-identify as a victim of a crime, but it is important in this context to remember that
seropositivity is not a crime, and the label ―victim‖ that is given to PWAs creates an image of passivity, which
Louis does by calling Prior a victim.
 De Poorter 56

AIDS, finally, exposes the construction of identity together with, not surprisingly, drag.

In the dream sequence with Harper, in which Prior is ―in the process of applying the face,‖

Prior soliloquises about the goals of his drag (Millennium 20). ―One wants to move through

life with elegance and grace, blossoming infrequently but with exquisite taste,‖ yet AIDS

disrupts this desire, which is transformed into performance by its very utterance: ―One

wants...But one so seldom gets what one wants, does one?‖ (Millennium 19). His drag

performance fails utterly, and Prior believes he resembles ―a corpse,‖ or at best ―a corpsette‖

(ibid.). ―Even drag is a drag,‖ when its performance is impeded by the presence of AIDS

(ibid.). Whereas drag shows that identity and gender are constructed notions and appropriated

through a process of actions, AIDS demonstrates that the ideal result is unattainable, and the

performance, already given away by Prior‘s ―hands and feet,‖ is doomed to fail (Millennium

20). AIDS ultimately exposes the fallacy of identities perceived as static or complete, as Prior

wipes the ―make-up off with his hands, smearing it around‖ after the avowal that his ―heart is

pumping polluted blood‖ (Millennium 23). Any identity, inspired by drag or not, ultimately

fails, in this case realised by AIDS.

The disruption and exposure of identity in Angels in America is the logical consequence

of its depiction of AIDS/HIV. The powerful trope of AIDS as change and hope enables the

shift in worldview, as indicated by Prior‘s different perception of the world after he hands

back the prophecy of AIDS as stasis, and the deconstruction of identity in order to connect

with other human beings and retrieve a hope once lost. The other vital depiction of AIDS, its

power to construct and repair relationships, gives Prior the possibility to undergo the

disruption of identity and learn from it. Prior at the end of Perestroika is different from the

Prior in Millennium Approaches, since he no longer constructs his identity by being in

opposition with the other, Louis, but acknowledges that his identity is constantly constituted
 De Poorter 57

by the others in the epilogue, who all contribute to and disrupt Prior‘s final monologue. ―The

Great Work Begins,‖ Prior promises to the spectator, indicating that ―each and every one‖

takes part in the ―Great Voyage‖ of humanity (Perestroika 99, ibid.; Millennium 2).

Yet, the play argues that those who willingly segregate themselves from others, who

refuse to help in the AIDS epidemic, and who persist in their ―criminal neglect,‖ will

experience the destructive side of AIDS, and will not ―survive‖ the disruption of their

identity, as Roy tragically literalises (Yingling 295). His isolation is the result of his

identification in opposition to the other, both the ―gay other‖ and the ―Jewish other,‖ and his

reluctance to identify with anything other, even though the other, as demonstrated, is always

already part of Roy. This isolation also prevents Roy from surviving the shift in his identity,

caused by AIDS. As his identity is deconstructed by AIDS, Roy has no other possibility than

to ―die‖ in the presence of his two ―others,‖ Belize and Ethel, who may have helped him

through the shift in identity, if only he had let them. Their act of forgiveness, then, represents

a part of the abovementioned ―Great Work,‖ in that it counteracts Roy‘s irresponsible

negligence and enables ―interconnectedness‖ between these three characters despite their

differences. ―You are fabulous creatures,‖ Prior once again intimates, including those who

may have been despised before (Perestroika 99).

 De Poorter 58

5. The Line of Beauty55

AIDS

At first sight, The Line of Beauty does not treat AIDS/HIV as an influential,

consequential aspect of eighties society. In the upper class world of the rich and mighty in

London‘s fashionable Kensington neighbourhood, HIV is just one more item that is part of the

poorer part of society, with its lack of moral standards and decorum. AIDS/HIV, however,

appears in all parts of society, and the upper class in the novel is no exception to this rule. In

penetrating the world of the high and mighty, AIDS in The Line of Beauty exposes the

fragility of upper class society, as well as its double moral standards. In a manner similar to

Henry James‘ observations, AIDS allows high society to continue pretending to be

―wonderful‖ and ―beautiful,‖ unaffected by the epidemic as they are, but at the same time

enables the rest of society, the ―outsiders,‖ to look ―right through‖ its facade (140). In this

sense, AIDS and homosexuality, since there seems to be no clear distinction between these

two notions in the novel, have a tinge of dissidence, opposing the Thatcherite society of the

novel. AIDS/HIV helps construct the novel‘s themes of beauty and responsibility in an

irresponsible age, even though AIDS appears relatively late in the novel.

Like the mechanism of seroconversion, AIDS retrospectively rewrites the novel and

gives meaning to previous unimportant observations, such as Leo‘s ―chesty thing‖, a possible

indication of a repressed immune system (101). The novel itself can be divided into three

possible stages of seroconversion. The first part ―The Love-Chord‖ represents the public‘s

ignorance about the possibility of AIDS or HIV. Set in 1983, the chapter alludes to the

general ignorance of AIDS outside the small gay community in big American cities and the

55
For economical reasons, the quotations in this chapter, unless stated otherwise, are all from The Line of
Beauty.
 De Poorter 59

scientific world. Even if the British gay community was aware of its existence, obviously not

the case in the novel, the protagonist Nick Guest, in his protected ―heterosexual‖

surroundings, would have been blissfully oblivious of its existence. The first subdivision of

the novel is thus also a symbol for Nick‘s inexperience in the ―gay scene.‖ As Nick is

introduced to his homosexuality, in the strict sexual sense of the word, by Leo, Nick‘s first

lover, he is also introduced into the world of AIDS and HIV, an insight which is only gained

retroactively, after the discovery of Leo‘s HIV antibody positive status. The dramatic irony

between the knowing 21st-century reader and the ignorant characters is brought to a climax in

the character of Pete, Leo‘s former lover, who has ―not been well‖ (102). Consequentially,

this part of the novel relies on the notion that AIDS is a ―gay disease‖ in order to let dramatic

irony take place, since Pete‘s seropositivity is not confirmed until the third part of the novel.

If, on the other hand, the reader would ignore Pete‘s status (by obstinately refusing to equate

AIDS with homosexuality), he or she would miss the emotional effect of the scene between

Pete, Leo, and Nick. Pete‘s presence seems to give a sense of finality to the scene, which

portends the finality of Leo and Nick‘s relationship and dominates the rest of the chapter. At

the same time, Pete‘s presence, as the third other in the relationship, imitates the constant

threat of AIDS, present in the other two parts of the novel.

The second part of the novel, ―To Whom Do You Beautifully Belong?‖, symbolises

Nick‘s emergence and membership of ―gay society,‖ as well as his first contact with and

discovery of AIDS/HIV. This section, set in 1986, focuses on Nick‘s sexual exploits within

the world of anonymous gay sex and with Antoine ―Wani‖ Ouradi, a closeted gay man, heir to

the enormous Mira supermarket fortune. Yet, the novel seems to suggest that this knowledge

comes with a prize, that is AIDS and HIV. In the Ponds, a gay cruising area, an ―old man‖,

the ―embodiment of the spirit of the place‖, says to Nick: ―George has gone, then. Steve‘s just
 De Poorter 60

told me, went last night‖ (182). Still permitting the reader to avoid the possibility of AIDS,

the novel takes away all doubt with Pat Grayson‘s death. The actor Pat Grayson, a ―silly old

queen,‖ close friend of the Feddens, the family with which Nick is staying, is the first

character of whom it is explicitly mentioned that he died of an AIDS-related illness (79). This

acknowledgement is nevertheless not easily made. In an attempt to cover up Pat‘s ―roguish‖

behaviour, the Feddens blame his death on ―some extraordinary bug‖ which Pat contracted in

the ―Far East‖ (334). It is Catherine Fedden, Nick‘s closest friend and rebel of the family, who

finally discloses the true cause of Pat‘s death: ―He had AIDS! . . . He was gay. . . he liked

anonymous sex‖ (335).

Finally, the third and last part of the novel, as the title seems to suggest, is death

―caused‖ by AIDS. ―The End of the Street‖, which takes place a year later in 1987, concludes

the process of AIDS/HIV and tries to finish any unfinished business. Every prominent gay

man introduced in the novel, and who actually partook in sexual activities between men, have

contracted HIV and have died or are in the process of dying. This part reveals that Pete had

AIDS and died, Joe had AIDS and died, Wani has AIDS and is doomed to die, and Nick

himself believes that he has HIV and that he is going to die soon as well. This repetition of

discovery of AIDS and subsequent acknowledgement of death implies that death is the sole

possible outcome for the PWA. Moreover, the process, represented by the subdivisions of the

novel, respectively contraction, discovery, and death, invokes the same ideology, namely that

HIV always develops into AIDS, which always results in death. The unmentioned intervals

between the three parts, together with the erasure of Joe and Pete from the novel until the

discovery of their death, further implies that living with AIDS is just not possible. Even

though the reader does not know when Wani contracted HIV and there are some indications

of Wani‘s situation in the second part of the novel (mainly weight loss), the announcement of
 De Poorter 61

Wani‘s AIDS provides a clear break with the previous energetic ―Wani.‖ Wani, in ―The End

of the Street‖, is depicted as the passive patient, ill and on the verge of dying.56 Nick similarly

disappears from the novel, and turns the corner of the street, because he suspects that he has

AIDS. A mere suspicion, enforced by the fact that Nick is gay, is thus evidence enough to

give up on life.

The Line of Beauty, as mentioned before, looks back from the 21st century to the

eighties, but in doing so, the novel inadvertently equates AIDS with the eighties itself. The

disappearance of all seropositive characters in the novel – not all of them die, Nick and Wani

simply fade away – suggests that AIDS also vanishes from the society within the novel.

Although the last part of the novel is set during the acme of the AIDS epidemic, Nick is oddly

unaware of AIDS as an epidemic. Instead, he still considers AIDS as an exclusive experience

happening to him and his friends. Walking down the street, in which he lived with the

Feddens for almost four years, Nick imagines how his friends will react to the news of his

death, which again seems inescapable. At this point in the novel, Nick‘s circle of friends

comprises both straight and gay friends, and yet he can only imagine ―bewilderment‖ at the

news of his seropositivity (501). Nick‘s idea of AIDS is a crisis that is under control, and only

happens to those few people who took risks. This belief is of course much more closely

related to the 21st century than to the eighties, during which the HIV spread seemed

unstoppable. The novel, however, combines this anachronistic image of the eighties with

prejudices active during the eighties, such as AIDS being a ―gay disease‖ or punishment for

56
It is surprising that Wani, with all his wealth and connections, could not get his hands on AZT, the first
antiretroviral drug, which was already ―widely available in the UK in 1987‖ (Taken from the website of the UK-
based AIDS activist group Avert, which has a reliable and annotated overview of AIDS history within the UK
[http://www.avert.org/hiv-treatment-uk.htm, last accessed on 4 August 2010]). The change from the
asymptomatic to the dying Wani in less than a year, furthermore, is incredibly harsh for someone with the best
medical care that money can buy. The rapid change seems to maintain the notion that any person with AIDS will
die sooner or later, and rather sooner than later.
 De Poorter 62

the sin of homosexuality, creating in this manner a damaging and wrong image of society in

the eighties.

AIDS as a ―gay disease‖ is an extremely powerful notion in the novel, not in the least

because it permits the upper class to continue living in ignorance, but also because it seals the

fate of any gay man in the novel. As mentioned above, all prominent gay characters contract

HIV and develop AIDS, or rather have AIDS, the novel does not mention HIV or its possible

relationship with AIDS. Accordingly, AIDS becomes the responsibility of ―homosexuals‖ in

general, who are ―going to have to learn‖ to practise safe sex (339). Safe sexual practices are

similarly thought to be only applicable to ―gay‖ sexual practices, and the use of a condom in

―heterosexual‖ sex is an indulgence rather than an obligation. Catherine discovers Nick and

Wani‘s secret love affair after an incident with her father about ―a rubber johnny floating in

the lav‖ (344). Although the point of blame is quickly placed on Catherine (since Jasper and

she are thought to be the only couple in the house), she concludes that the condom had

belonged to Nick, as Catherine did not use a condom and who else but ―gay‖ Nick would

have needed a condom. The sense that gay people are in general more at risk is further

strengthened by the news of Pat Grayson‘s death. This revelation results in Nick ―feeling the

AIDS question rear up, sudden and undeflectable, and somehow his responsibility, as the only

recognized gay man present.‖ (332) The gay man is always the person with AIDS, any other

possibility is highly unlikely.

The reverse is also true: the PWA is always gay. AIDS is used as the factor which

―outs‖ the closeted gay man, and not only destroys his future, but also his reputation. Wani,

who had most to lose by coming out and vehemently resisted the idea, was brutally ―outed‖

by AIDS in the novel. In the last part of the novel, in which the upper class (personified by
 De Poorter 63

Gerald) is exposed for its immorality, the press runs the story of Nick and Wani‘s ―Gay Sex

Romp‖ (469), along with the headline: ―Peer‘s Playboy Son [Wani] Has AIDS‖ (468). Wani,

whose lifestyle was never a closely guarded secret, is perceived as gay, because he has AIDS

(and perceived as a PWA because he is gay). The investigation into the possibility of Wani‘s

being gay is based on the revelation that he has AIDS, not because of any specific lifestyle.

The press is not interested in Wani‘s extravagant daily life (as there is no mention of his

cocaine addiction), but only in the fact that he is seropositive, which seems more than enough

to pull him from his pedestal.

The link between AIDS and homosexuality is so strong in the novel that a sense of

irony and sarcasm infiltrates any discussion of ―gay AIDS,‖ as with most aspects of this

novel.57 Leo, for example, would also have been ‗homosexualised‘ by AIDS, were it not for

the fact that his mother cannot believe that ―her son was [a] sinner‖ (408). AIDS and Leo are

almost ridiculed since Leo, according to her, must have ―got it off a toilet seat at the office‖ or

off ―a sandwich‖ (408). Moreover, Nick‘s discussion of AIDS as a ―gay disease‖ with Sally

Tipper is open to an extremely sarcastic reading, personified in the figure of Wani, who takes

on the image of a conservative polemicist, a firm believer in ―no sex before marriage‖ (340).

This sarcasm is merely one feature of the sarcastically inclined omniscient third person

narrator, who derides the London upper class, often judging them ―smug‖ (443). Even though

the book does allow this somewhat hopeful reading, it simultaneously undermines the sense

of ―tragedy,‖ which the book tries to confer (Flannery 297). Ultimately, the novel fails in

exposing the dire consequences of calling AIDS a ―gay disease,‖ since the gay characters in

the novel believe and continue to believe in this notion, even if the narrator‘s sarcasm is

57
Eastham in his article ―Inoperative Ironies‖ approaches the irony in the novel as a way to ―protect [one‘s]
independence from use value, ethics and social life‖ (510). This irony, however, functions predominantly in the
exposure of the upper class, rather than in a ‗rehabilitation‘ of AIDS or PWAs. Nick ―attempts to cultivate a
position of ironic detachment‖ in order to observe the political aristocracy from a position of artistic
independence (Eastham 511).
 De Poorter 64

effective in exposing the upper class. Nick still believes at the end of the novel that he cannot

escape AIDS, and laments his ―short life‖ without any diagnostic proof of seropositivity

(501).

A notion closely related to AIDS as a gay disease is the opinion that AIDS is a

punishment for the sin of homosexuality. Again, this belief is exaggerated to such an extent in

the novel that it collapses into sarcasm, with aforementioned consequences. Nevertheless, this

rhetoric is as widely accepted as the logic of ―gay AIDS,‖ with the sole exception of the gay

community, which, unsurprisingly, contests this point of view since that would mean that

homosexuality is indeed a sin. The denunciation of homosexuality in The Line of Beauty is

most clearly heard within the conservative upper class and the conservative Christian

community. The Tipper family, the epitome of the conservative upper class, note that AIDS is

the normal result of homosexuality, since ―[t]hey had it coming to them‖ (340), they ―brought

it on [themselves]‖ (339). Homosexuality is likewise perceived as a ―mortal sin‖ by Leo‘s

mother, a devout Christian (408, original italics). AIDS in her mindset articulates what the

upper class merely alludes to, as she clearly and blatantly calls AIDS a ―punishment‖ (ibid.).

AIDS as punishment, however, is also translated into guilt of contracting HIV, an aspect

which only appears in The Line of Beauty of the two literary works. The use of this mentality

in the novel, however, is an anachronism, since it is a product of the ―post-epidemic‖ era, in

which knowledge about HIV transmission is considered widespread.58 First considered in the

second part, set in 1986, only one year after the first International AIDS Conference in

Atlanta and one year before the (in)famous ―tombstone‖ AIDS advert in the UK, this

mentality presupposes a completely effective and unprejudiced information campaign, which

58
See the chapter ―AIDS/HIV‖, subchapter ―AIDS is not the Result of Moral Decrepitude‖ for Crimp‘s
discussion of ―AIDS guilt‖.
 De Poorter 65

was far from achieved in Great Britain in 1986. When Wani tells Sally Tipper that ―[t]here‘s

[sic] really no excuse for getting the thing now,‖ he cannot but speak from a position within

the gay community, of which he does not want to be part (340). The irony of the matter, if one

can call it that, is that Wani does contract HIV and thus demonstrates the ineptitude of the

AIDS information campaign, which is ultimately not mentioned in the novel.

The true irony in this denunciation of homosexuality as immoral lies in the fact that

those morally superior people are exposed as immoral themselves, and often to an extreme

extent. Maurice Tipper, for example, is exposed as an embezzler in his dealings with Gerald

Fedden, who not only resigns as a conservative MP because of the charge, but whose

extramarital affair is also discovered and publicised, but not broken off. Barry Groom,

depicted as a particular conniving man, treats Nick in an extremely foul manner, calling him a

―stupid little pansy,‖ a ―little cunt‖, and a ―little ponce‖ (473, ibid., 476). Barry himself,

however, is a ―multiple adulterer and ex-bankrupt‖ and as Nick says: ―[T]o be hated by him

was surely a mark of probity.‖ (477) Moreover, Wani, whose view of homosexuality is

always a mixture of a conservative background and a progressive lifestyle, is not entirely

―clean‖ either, as his addiction to cocaine reveals. The discrepancy between this immoral

behaviour and Nick‘s so-called immoral homosexuality accentuates the highly tenuous

position of the conservative upper class to judge other people. Homosexuality is used as the

scapegoat to place the blame on if something goes awry, a duty Nick compliantly performs in

the Fedden household. His dismissal allows the Feddens to continue their lives as if nothing

had happened and to believe that now Nick is gone, everything will return to ―normal.‖

Within this political landscape of blame and guilt, AIDS, in a fashion similar to Angels

in America, acquires the notion of responsibility, whereas the government, the upper class, is
 De Poorter 66

the symbol of irresponsibility. Nick admits that ―[v]oting always gave him a heightened sense

of irresponsibility,‖ because he not only gives a sense of power to the electoral candidate, but

he also feels he is throwing away his vote, as the ―Conservative was bound to get back in‖

(394). The Conservative candidates are indeed portrayed as alarmingly irresponsible, most

notably Gerald Fedden who, as Catherine points out, ―despised his constituents,‖ and would

have been ―completely happy‖ if he didn‘t have to be ―MP for somewhere‖ (270, original

italics). Gerald uses politics to gain power and influence (in Roy Cohn‘s phrasing ‗clout‘),

rather than to represent his constituency and its interests in the British government. Yet,

Gerald proves to be inept in his political role and his exposure as a fraud merely seems a

matter of time. It comes as a great shock to Nick‘s mother, a firm supporter of Gerald Fedden,

that Gerald ―relie[s] on briefings by hard-working secretaries and assistants‖ (277). Gerald‘s

shortcomings are further emphasised by a comparison with Morden Lipscomb, an American

politician, whose ―paper on SDI‖ Gerald did not read ―beyond those first few pages‖ (142).

His (temporary) resignation in the last part of the novel is the long anticipated poetic justice,

or as Flannery sees it: Gerald‘s ―ascent as a political star‖ is a ―stillbirth‖ (Flannery 301).

The novel, however, gives another reason for irresponsibility in the voting process, as it

is an ―eternal secret‖ (394). Nick‘s political dissidence (he votes for the Green Party) is never

fully known and the responsibility that accompanies this dissidence is drowned in the

irresponsible nature of the upper class. The secretive nature of the vote prohibits any public

action against the negligent government, and the irresponsibility of the upper class continues

undisturbed. AIDS, on the other hand, creates the possibility in the book to show

responsibility in an irresponsible age. In his confrontation with Wani‘s seropositive status,

Nick can choose between acting responsible or irresponsible. Not surprisingly, Nick chooses

to continue supporting Wani, even in the public frenzy which ensues after the tabloids‘
 De Poorter 67

discovery of Wani‘s seropositivity and gay love affair. This leads to the destruction of Nick‘s

private life and his expulsion from the upper class society, in which he previously circulated.

Nick‘s actions are juxtaposed with the negligence of the government and of the general

public, most notably in ―Gusto,‖ a restaurant which Wani and Nick helped make famous, but

which now believes ―Wani‘s presence [is] no longer good for business‖ (431). Moreover,

Nick‘s responsibility is reinforced as extraordinary by the protective circle Wani‘s family

draws around him. When Wani is escorted into his parental house, ―the sustaining social

malice of the past two hours [abandon] him at the threshold‖ (442). In the outer world, outside

the protective realm of the Ouradi family, only Nick cares for him and acts responsibly, and in

a sense is a family for Wani.59

Yet, Nick is guilty of irresponsibility as well, particularly in the light of Leo‘s

seropositivity. Although the true reason for the break-up is not entirely revealed, the fact that

―Leo was ill‖ played a part in their separation, more than Nick cares to admit (401). This

admission returns more poignantly later on in the novel in Nick‘s recollection of the last time

he had seen Leo. Even though Nick does recognise Leo, and recognises that he is ill from the

―gauntness of his features,‖ he refuses to admit the recognition and prefers to go home with an

unknown man (424). ―[Nick] was a coward. He was frightened of him – afraid of being

rebuffed and full of grim doubts about what was happening to [Leo]‖ (424). This cowardice is

allayed by Nick‘s responsibility towards Wani, who at that time already discovered that he

has AIDS. Nevertheless, the irresponsibility haunts Nick and affects the final scene between

Nick and Wani, since Nick already suspects that Wani will not return from his trip, yet

59
This peculiar arrangement in the novel is most likely a social criticism of the hypocritical conservative family
values of Thatcherite Britain in the face of the AIDS epidemic. This critique is echoed in Nick‘s reply to Wani‘s
aforementioned remark on premarital sex: ―But if we‘re never going to get married...‖ (340). The ambiguity of
this sentence, either it alludes to the fact that not all straight people marry or to the fact that gay men and women
are not allowed to marry, again focuses on the discrepancy of rights and privileges between straight and gay men
and women.
 De Poorter 68

abandons him in his time of greatest need, by leaving Wani alone with his nurse. Nick is thus

wedged in between liberal responsibility and conservative irresponsibility, echoed by his

ambiguous position in the Feddens‘ atmosphere: ―[A] loyal affirmation of the Feddens‘ and

Kessler‘s world, hedged with an ironic detachment which he believes grants him carte blanch

from associations with Thatcherism‖ (Eastham 513).

Wani‘s loneliness, however, is vital for the image of AIDS in the novel, as AIDS is

essentially an isolated and solitary experience. Unlike Angels in America which focuses in

part on the communal experience of AIDS/HIV, The Line of Beauty emphasises the fact that

AIDS excludes the PWAs from their communities and friends. Nick is the perfect example of

this process, as his inclusion in upper class society has always been as the ―odd man‖ at a

dinner party (122). The final scene of the novel uses the image of an ―empty street‖ as a

metaphor for Nick having AIDS, although as said before that is a belief not yet proven to be

correct (501). ―There was nothing this man [a neighbour] could do to help him. None of his

friends could save him. . . . He seemed to fade pretty quickly‖ (501). The novel portrays Nick

as part of an entirely different world, ―projected far forward,‖ no longer socially active in the

upper class society, or indeed in society itself (501). The neighbour and Nick‘s friends are

kept ―apart,‖ Nick yearns to ―know their affairs‖, but will never ―find out‖ (501).

This vision is echoed in the title of the last part of the novel ―The End of the Street,‖ yet

the final image is not a dead end but a street corner. The corner itself has multiple

explanations, of which the corner into a new road, into a new life, is clearly the most positive

one. This new road, however, does not need to be a new life, merely a new status, a new

world, one intrinsically connected with seropositivity. On the other hand, the corner can be

the liminal space between the two worlds, so that Nick is neither in upper class society, nor in
 De Poorter 69

the gay or seropositive community. The final sentence supports this viewpoint: ―It wasn‘t just

this street corner but the fact of a street corner at all that seemed, in the light of the moment,

so beautiful.‖ (501) Nick idealises and beautifies this moment, and thus allows beauty, a

powerful notion in the novel, to resurface once more. 60

PWAs

Humanity in The Line of Beauty is constructed by two concepts, beauty. Of these two

notions, beauty is by far the most present in the novel, as its title, an art term in itself,

demonstrates. Nick studies style in the novels by Henry James, Wani, together with Nick, his

―aesthete‖, creates the magazine Ogee, an ode to beauty (209). The Feddens‘ house in Notting

Hill is filled with ―beautiful things,‖ and Hawkeswood, Rachel Fedden‘s ancestral manor, is

filled with works of art ranging from paintings by Cézanne to desks ―made for Mme de

Pompadour‖ (7, 51). Beauty, however, is also attributed to people and constitutes their

humanity. Nick‘s ideal of homosexuality, for example, are ―aesthetically radiant images of

gay activity‖ (25). This Jamesian ―ironic aesthetic sensibility‖ is not only disrupted by the

presence of AIDS/HIV,61 but is also disrupted in other contexts of dehumanisation (Eastham

509). Catherine, despite being the daughter of ―two good-looking parents, does not have her

brother‘s ―sleepy beauty‖, instead her father‘s ―large confidence-winning mouth had been

awkwardly squashed into the slender ellipse of [her mother]‖ (8). The two disparate features

of her face almost embody her ―volatile‖ disposition, presumably bipolar disorder (6).

Catherine‘s partial dehumanisation in the novel is thus equally expressed in her partial beauty.

60
This border in between proves to Eastham‘s declaration that an ―independent space for an aesthete‖ cannot
exist (524). All art, all beauty is trapped in between the political world of the upper class and the aesthetic world,
represented here by the gay community. Rivkin responds to the question ―To Whom Do You Beautifully
Belong?‖ posed by the novel in a similar fashion, as the artist is forced to share his or her ―authorial rights‖ with
the ―highest bidder‖ (290).
61
I am indebted to Professor Dr. Buelens for pointing this out to me.
 De Poorter 70

AIDS/HIV has no place in this worldview of ―gay beauty,‖ as the PWA is depicted and

imagined as a person ―disfigured‖ by his or her illness. This ―debeautification‖ does not

happen in the novel, but a change in the perception of beauty occurs. Even though the PWA

no longer has the beauty he or she once had, another kind of beauty has usurped its place.

Beauty is consequently not a ―rare thing,‖ as Eastham attempts to argue, but ubiquitous in

Nick‘s Jamesian perception of the world (Eastham 525). Nick‘s first confrontation with AIDS

is in an unknown man at the Ponds, who ―had grown perceptibly thinner, into an eerily

beautiful, etched-out version of himself‖ (186). Leo also keeps a certain type of beauty, as his

image gives Nick ―the warmth of a blessing‖ (423). Even though Leo ―was much too skinny .

. . to excite him, and too odd,‖ Nick envies Leo‘s lover (423). Likewise, Nick thinks that

Wani ―still look[s] wonderful in a way,‖ even though the comparison between the ―two‖

Wanis was ―unbearable‖ (431-432). The Ogee magazine emphasises this notion as it is

Wani‘s beautiful ―masterpiece‖ and restores Nick as a ―mensch‖ (489). The magazine

redeems what is lost in the scandal surrounding Nick and Wani, and reinvests them with

grandeur and beauty. The change in appearance is always observed but never condemned, the

PWA remains beautiful and human in a somewhat different manner. It is, however, the

difference itself that acquires beauty, as the street corner does in the final scene. Precisely

because they, like Nick in the end, belong to that liminal place, they regain a lost beauty.

In spite of its treatment of Nick, the upper class, never loses its beauty, nor does Nick

ever debeautify the Feddens, unlike Russell, Catherine‘s former boyfriend, whose

photographs of Toby Fedden‘s birthday party at Hawkeswood Manor are ―purely malicious,

making everyone look like fools‖ (98). Nick distances himself from the tabloid press by

refusing to follow that blaming pattern, and continues to consider the Feddens ―old friend[s],‖

even though they have publically ―disowned‖ him (499). Due to his decision to return the key
 De Poorter 71

to the private garden, which he was tempted to keep, Nick amicably frees himself from the

family, saving himself from ―painful and pointless‖ returns to the house (500). Nick

nonetheless sees through the facade of the upper class and observes that the Nothing Hill

house is a ―house that encourage[s] the view its inhabitants had of themselves‖ (492). Rather

than plotting revenge, Nick poignantly kisses goodbye to the only link left with the house,

Toby‘s photograph taken in Oxford. In the photo, time is ―hold back‖ in a state of beauty, and

in this situation Nick remembers his time at the Feddens‘ home (494).

In contrast to his desire to be accepted in the upper class, Nick distinctively remains the

other, never part of that world. Seropositivity in The Line of Beauty externalises this feature,

since AIDS is treated as a ―gay disease‖ in the novel, and is thus always already a ―disease‖ of

the other.62 As mentioned before, Nick is the odd man out in the upper class society of the

Feddens. He fulfils the role of ―an obliging guest,‖ a ―servant‖ in the household, as he

normally looks ―after the house‖ while the Feddens are abroad, but more importantly looks

―after the Cat [Catherine]‖ (Eastham 524; Rivkin 290; Hollinghurst 280, 7). Guests of the

Feddens are often ―puzzled by Nick‘s presence‖ in the household, as if his presence is a false

note in a piano concerto, a recurring image in the book (119). ―His presence [is] not thought

necessary‖ at a ―posh white hetero‖ party, nor is it required at ―a noisy party with cans of beer

and trails of smoke,‖ to which Leo, his lover at that time, has been invited (130-131). Nick is

not considered part of the family but of the ―household,‖ and even Elena, the housemaid who

Nick expects will support him, judges Nick as ―no good‖ (Brooker 109; Hollinghurst 475).

Wani, regardless of his wealth, is likewise excluded from the upper class, not due to the

fact that he is seropositive per se, but because he is not white and British, or rather English.

62
Of course, homosexuality is the Other in this novel, but the focus here lies not on the normative self and other,
but the personal self. Homosexuality, according to Nick and Wani, is part of that self, even though it does
contribute to their perception of other by the upper class.
 De Poorter 72

Wani‘s foreign nationality continues to haunt him, despite the prominent position of his

family within the Conservative party and with the PM, mainly obtained by generous

donations to the party‘s funds. The concealed racism of the upper class prevails in their

private dealings and, surprisingly, affects the Feddens as well since they are Jewish. This,

however, does not hinder Gerald Fedden from calling Wani ―a bloody A-rab,‖ when he is

defeated at a game of boules (356). The racial stratification inherent in the upper class

condones their feelings of ―disgust at [Wani‘s] illness and remembered unease about his

origins,‖ even though he is ―a child of the fellow-rich‖ (490).

Nevertheless, both Nick and Wani believe to be part of the elite, and act as members of

the elite, as ―insider[s]‖ (Brooker 107). Although Nick longs to be the Jamesian independent

aesthete, observing the upper class but not part of it himself, he counteracts this desire by his

attempts to improve his social standing. Joseph Brooker alludes to Nick‘s mission to climb

the social ladder by drawing attention to the ―parallel‖ between Margaret Thatcher and Nick,

as well as to his his privileged status as a member of the ―public school‖ system (107).

Ultimately, Nick constructs a dominant self by expelling his ―otherness.‖ He alienates his

family in Barwick as they constitute the middle-class background that separates Nick from his

upper-class contemporaries at Oxford. His preference for ―nig-nogs,‖ as Wani so eloquently

states it, can consequently be read as a desire for the other, which he expels from his self but

also needs to define his self (191). Likewise, Nick‘s severance from and disdain for his home

town and his family indicate a wish to constitute it as the other, against which he can oppose

his self. Wani‘s sexual escapades with Ricky, a working class man from the Ponds; with

Tristão, a Portuguese waiter; and perhaps even with Nick suggest a similar desire for an

otherness, which he disavows in himself. Nick and Wani construct their identities in

opposition to expelled others in order to adhere to the rules of the elite.

 De Poorter 73

AIDS, thus, performs a vital function in the novel: to reveal the hypocrisy of the upper

class (which is also performed by irony, as Eastham suggests) and to demonstrate the

presence of otherness within the self. Due to his seropositivity, Wani is forced to withdraw

from the social scene in which he previously was an active and influential member. One of the

most poignant examples of this is the business lunch in Gusto, which makes him sick and

which forces him to go back home. More importantly, however, Wani is obliged to stop using

cocaine, in order to save his ―weak‖ heart (490). Cocaine, a symbol for the upper-class social

scene, is the last link between Wani and his upper-class identity, and losing this would destroy

his former identity completely. Yet the destruction of his identity is literalised in Nick‘s

imagination by a death due to a ―massive heart attack,‖ from cocaine use (490). Even though

Wani depends on cocaine to remain part of the upper class, using it would also result in his

death; in other words, Wani‘s former self has become unattainable, and despite Wani‘s

presence at Nat‘s wedding, AIDS prevents Wani from being completely part of that dominant

society, if he indeed ever was.

The scandal surrounding Wani‘s HIV antibody positive status influences Nick‘s

position in the upper class as well, although Catherine‘s role in the revelation of Gerald‘s

affair already affected his position within the family, as he was supposed to keep an eye on

Catherine. In contrast with Wani‘s situation, Nick has no wealth to protect him from the

recriminations of the upper class and his ―absence‖ from Nat‘s marriage suggests that any

attempt to reclaim his former identity would be futile (486). The disparity between Nick and

Wani, however, runs further than mere wealth, since Nick alienated his family, his otherness,

in an effort to conceal his background and gain status, whereas Wani‘s endeavour to conceal

his background was shared by his family. Nick is once again stuck in between a normative

self and a non-normative other, and this peculiar combination of identities results in a ―lack of
 De Poorter 74

surprise‖ about the disclosure of the two scandals, as his self considers such behaviour normal

in the upper class, and his other knows that these things are ultimately always revealed (472).

AIDS impedes a return to either part of the dichotomy, and Nick has to acknowledge that the

world and he have ―changed‖ (500). His ―drift[ing]‖ becomes a symbol for the liminal status

of his identity, he is neither self nor other (501).63 He simply ―fade[s]‖ out of memory (501).

The fact that Nick‘s identity fades away in the end is but partly the result of a

combination of self and other, important though those notions may be in The Line of Beauty.

A more important cause of the disintegration of Nick‘s and Wani‘s identities is the

introduction of ‗AIDSsexuality‘ into the novel. Sleeping in front of a ―heavy-duty video,‖

Wani is depicted as unable to show lust or sexual desire, whereas he used to be an avid

aficionado of pornography (484). Yet, ‗AIDSsexuality‘ has larger implications for

homosexuality in the novel. AIDS impedes the sexual desire and actions necessary to ‗be‘

homosexual in the novel, and in this manner exposes the construction of the label

‗homosexuality.‘ Wani effectively ―loses‖ his homosexuality once he discovers he is

seropositive and has full-blown AIDS. This loss is emphasised by Roy, Wani‘s nurse, and

Nick‘s flirting over ―Wani‘s stooping head‖ (485). The discrepancy between this scene in

which Wani is left out, and the threesome with Ricky, in which Nick is the outsider,

reinforces Wani‘s position as asexual, or rather ‗AIDSsexual.‘ Indeed, from a position of a

ferocious sexual predator in the second part of the novel, Wani becomes completely passive in

the third part, befitting for a true ―AIDS victim.‖

Interestingly, despite the exposure of the construction of homosexuality by AIDS, it is

still perceived as the most essential and decisive part of one‘s identity, and if that essential

63
Note that Nick does not merely take on a different form of otherness, now that he can no longer be part of the
upper class, since Wani did leave him a legacy, of which he can live comfortably, and he still belongs to the
Oxbridge elite.
 De Poorter 75

element is taken away, identity collapses. It is not surprising then that Wani ―fade[s] from

view in the middle of the day,‖ after he leaves Nick, his last link with ‗homosexuality‘

(486).64 Nick‘s identity is ultimately similarly subjected to this fading process after he ―loses‖

his desire for the motorcyclist living across the road: ―Nick gazed at him and then looked

away in a regret that held him and glazed him and kept him apart‖ (501).65

On the other hand, an important aspect of the novel is that characters are represented as

―play-acting‖ (18). The disruptive ―intruder,‖ AIDS, exposes this play-acting and deconstructs

the identity linked with this acting. The trope of the theatre is often used in the novel to

expose idealised identities in the upper class, as part of the more general irony, and is always

voiced by Nick in his privileged position of the outsider within (Brooker 107). During his

visit to the Ouradi family, Nick looks at the reflection of the room in a ―tilting mirror‖ and

observes the family like ―actors on a set‖ (211). Later on, Nick again discerns a degree of

―play-acting‖ in Toby and Wani, who share ―assumptions rather than lives‖ (293, 292). Even

the photograph of Toby, which Nick kisses, was taken during a play in Oxford, which not

only indicates Toby‘s ―play-acting,‖ but also the ―performed‖ beauty of the image, a fantasy

like the photograph itself: ―His face was . . . over-beautiful‖ (493). Nick elaborates on his own

play-acting concerning his homosexual experiences: ―His confessed but entirely imaginary

seductions took on – partly through the special effort required to invent them and repeat them

consistently – the quality of real memories‖ (26). According to Nick, play-acting creates an

identity that needs consistent repetition in order for idealized notions to become real, but these

―realities‖ do not hide a deeper, truer level of reality, as acting may imply. The performed

64
In every sexual activity in which Wani takes part, cocaine is used, establishing a link between the upper class
and homosexuality. Hence the loss of cocaine and homosexuality leaves Wani virtually ―identity-less.‖
65
This motorcyclist embodies the Chopin-like ―freedom,‖ which Nick never felt but desired to experience (521).
This freedom is a status lacking all conservative upper class values as well as the possibility to do anything, and
in this manner resembles ―dissident‖ homosexuality.
 De Poorter 76

―reality‖ is perceived as real by the character, in which otherness is affirmed but excluded

through play-acting.

In this aspect lies AIDS greatest disruptive force, as it interrupts and exposes the

character‘s play-acting, and as a result his or her notion of a fixed identity. Wani fades due to

his seropositivity, as does Nick, since their play-acting is revealed by AIDS. The exposure of

the other within the self is unbearable, and hence they have no choice but to fade away. The

Feddens have to expel Nick from their surroundings, in order to protect their own play-acting

and identities, already partly deconstructed by the novel‘s irony. Leo‘s mother similarly has to

disavow the true cause of his seropositivity in order to continue pretending and play-acting,

believing that her son is ―no sinner‖ (408). Despite the prejudiced view of AIDS/HIV in the

novel, even though irony might have undermined this specific depiction, AIDS exposes the

normative mechanism in the upper class as well as deconstructs identities, perceived as fixed

and stable.

The disruption and exposure of identity by AIDS creates a situation in which a different

identity becomes untenable, precisely because of the depiction of AIDS in the novel. Due to

the solitary attribute of AIDS, as well as its equation with death, the PWA cannot count on a

community or circle of friends to constitute an identity, the reason why Prior was saved from

―death‖ in Angels in America. Since Wani and Nick cannot accept the disruptive mechanism

of AIDS in their lives, they both cannot acknowledge the presence of the other within them

nor its decisive role in the creation of identity, they have no other choice but to give up their

identity in its totality. Death is thus, ironically, the inescapable outcome of AIDS in this

novel, as long as Wani and Nick are not able to recognise that identity is always constructed

within a specific society.

 De Poorter 77

6. Conclusion

Both Angels in America and The Line of Beauty represent AIDS in the eighties, in an

irresponsible world. It is not surprising that these two works of art, looking back on a situation

during which governments were perceived as ―criminally neglect[ful],‖ deal with

responsibility and agency (Yingling 295). PWAs and their friends are represented as the sole

responsible (human) beings in a society which desperately tries to ignore their presence, as

well as the presence of AIDS and HIV. In their attempts to act responsibly, then, the

characters in both the play and the novel are represented as dependent on each other. In

Angels in America, Belize, Hannah, Louis, and Prior are responsible because they take care of

each other and acknowledge that they are constituted by the others. The final scene in the play

depicts the four friends as complementing each others‘ identities and each others‘ words.

Responsibility, on the other hand, in The Line of Beauty is based on exclusion; Nick and Wani

ultimately depend on each other because they have nobody else to depend on, except for Wani

who still has his family, even though he has to conceal his homosexuality in their presence.

This situation is echoed in the relationship between Leo, Nick‘s former lover, and his partner

Bradley, who ―had been there‖ for Leo during his ―illness‖ (Hollinghurst 401).

Despite those acts of responsibility, Nick (and Bradley) are left behind in an isolating

and solitary situation. Wani, not surprisingly, is finally also alone at Nat‘s wedding, and even

Leo is depicted as isolated, as he went ―blind‖ (Hollinghurst 405). The trope of isolation is

ultimately more closely connected to the ―post-epidemic‖ period after the eighties than the

eighties itself, as Crimp demonstrates in his discussion of the disappearance of AIDS activists

groups in the nineties. Angels in America’s representation the AIDS experience differs

completely because it is still invested in the discourses of AIDS activist groups. AIDS in this

activist discourse is a communal experience, affecting everyone, not just a selected

 De Poorter 78

community in society. These communities affect the identity construction of PWAs, whereas

Nick and Wani (and Roy to a certain extent in Angels in America) are stuck within a

supposedly fixed identity, which is deconstructed by AIDS, and hence lose all sense of self

and identity.

A final dissonance between these two texts is the activism inspired by the communal

experience of AIDS. Through this shared experience, PWAs and their friends have the

strength to carry on fighting the prejudices directed against them, a notion clearly present in

Angels in America (the ―Great Work‖ [Perestroika 99]). Taking action is a vital part of Prior‘s

message in the epilogue in Perestroika, even if there is no theory behind that action. Hannah

argues in the epilogue that it is ―the going into [the world] that makes the idea [of the world]‖

(Perestroika 98). Activism, however, is absent from The Line of Beauty, since AIDS has

already taken on the image of a permanent disaster, intrinsic to the modern world. There is no

need for activism in the novel‘s society, since the crisis is perceived as detained and under

control, thus valuing some lives as more important than others, or rather ―heterosexual‖ lives

as more important than ―homosexual‖ lives.

Irrespective of the different ways in which AIDS is represented in these two works of

art, one process connected to AIDS is present in both novels: disrupting and exposing

identity. AIDS in both texts helps deconstruct the human/inhuman distinction, undermining

the normative process of the regulatory ideal. Angels in America destabilises the regulatory

ideal by ―rehumanising‖ PWAs and obstructing the dehumanisation process. In The Line of

Beauty dehumanisation is equally impeded, but the rehumanisation process is not completely

performed, since Nick and Wani both inhabit a liminal space in between human and inhuman

once they discover they are seropositive. This liminal space, however, equally disrupts the
 De Poorter 79

regulatory ideal, since it constitutes the border in between humanity nor inhumanity, thus

opposing any specific label.

The other binarism disrupted in these two fictional texts is the self/other twofold. AIDS

in Angels in America allows for a deconstruction of the twofold, because it not only shows the

presence of the other in the self, but it also demonstrates the processes through which self and

other are both constituted through each other. Ultimately, AIDS reveals the fact that self and

other are constructions in dominant discourses by indicating that a dominant self is a fallacy

and all selves are essentially others. The mechanism of AIDS in The Line of Beauty is slightly

different since it exposes that the self is constructed by expelling the other, proving the

fragility of the notion ―self.‖ When AIDS then uncovers the otherness within the self, the self

is no longer tenable and completely disrupted.

The final aspect uncovered by AIDS in the two literary texts is the construction of

identity. AIDS demonstrates in both novels the performative actions that lie at the basis of any

identity. The exposure of the performative mechanism is the greatest disruptive effect of

AIDS, as it lays bare how supposedly essential characteristics of identity are still constructed

through reiteration. By exposing the workings of identity, AIDS demonstrates in Angels in

America and The Line of Beauty that differentiating between people on the basis of self-

identification is an exercise in futility, and an attempt to reinstate the regulatory ideals which

AIDS has already disrupted. By indicating that both the supposedly dominant identities of

people who do adhere to the regulatory ideal and the allegedly subordinate and subversive

identities of people who do not follow its example are equally constructed within normative

processes, AIDS questions the discrimination between these two sets of people. Despite and
 De Poorter 80

due to the fact that many use AIDS to discriminate against and categorise people, AIDS has

the potential to disrupt identity and disarm discrimination and prejudice.

 De Poorter 81

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