『미국의 천사들, 제2부 : 페레스트로이카』에 나타난 토니 커쉬너의 복합적 낙천주의

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Tony Kushner, an American playwriter, reveals his political view about America through his play, Angels in America (1992). Based on serious pain and cynical humor, he not only shows his political ideas but also deals with various subjects such as politics, religion, sexual identity, and general life.
Angels in America is divided into two parts: the first part is Millenium Approaches and the second is Perestroika. This study analyses Perestroika in terms of the dichotomic energies, 'stream and stasis.' ‘Stream’ is the power of progressive movement, while ‘stasis’ is the constant sustaining power. As these two energies tightly confront each other, they sometimes bring to the surface in the shape of conservative or radical ideas in various fields such as politics, religion, sexual identity, and general life.
In the first chapter the main issue is stream and stasis in politics. Characters are divided into republic party supporters and democratic party supporters. Roy, who is dying of AIDS, takes a representative role of conservative republic party. Louis and Belize take the roles of democratic party supporters. In this chapter one more stream image, forgiveness appears. Characters who have different political view try to understand each other through forgiveness.
The second chapter deals with stream and stasis in sexual identity and religion. Gay individuals are in the group of stream and the rest are in the group of stasis. In the religious field, mainly dominant Christianity is stasis. A newly emerging Mormon is stream. The people who have different sexual identity and different religion come into conflict at first but they soon understand and help each other. Those examples are Hanna and Prior. Hanna was a hetrosexual and Mormon, but Prior was a homosexual and conservative in religion.
In the third chapter the main issue is stream and stasis in daily life. If life itself is a stream, death or unchangeable life is stasis. Prior Walter is also suffering from AIDS so Angel, a representative of stasis, asks him to die to end the pain. She asks him to stop moving and progressing. But he is more of insisting to keep going and accepting the pain naturally. He chooses stream rather than stasis, death. Prior Walter grabs the bull by the horn against life. He learns that the driving force of human history is not amusement but devastation.
The third chapter also examines Tony Kushner’s optimism which includes pain. So he uses the word 'hope', the power to make our lives sustain in severe pain. He says that hope is a remedy for the future and a will to live. He also counts forgiveness and tolerance. These virtues are especially necessary in America which is consisted of many different races. Apparently Kushner’s work looks like containing pessimistic features but he admits that we can not overlook existing pain in the pathway to the optimism. For an example he mentions wisdom teeth. He insists that the pain is necessary to get wisdom teeth. So his optimism can be called a kind of complicated optimism. In conclusion, Kushner’s optimism says that we can overcome our problems in this century but we have to understand and help and forgive each other to deal with pain successfully. He insists that we can finally reach to the optimism through forgiveness and tolerance.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ 서 론 1
• Ⅱ 본 론 8
• 1 정치에서의 흐름과 정지 8
• 2 성 정체성과 종교에서의 흐름과 정지 27
• 3 삶에서의 흐름과 정지 31
• 1) 삶과 이동 31
• 2) 유희와 고통 42
• 3) 고통의 감수와 희망적인 미래 56
• Ⅲ 결 론 62
• 인용 문헌 67