APOCALPYSE & MILLENNIUM | marisoldramaturgy

The word "apocalypse" popularly refers to a cataclysmic event that results in the devastation or total destruction of humanity.
The more technical definition is reserved for a genre of literature found in the the three religious traditions based on the Bible: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Apocalyptic literature usually surfaces in periods of anxiety or when a community is experiencing great change or persecution. The authors use evocative imagery and stock literary techniques to encourage their readers to remain true to the faith as the day will soon come when God will intervene and restore order.
The key elements of apocalyptic literature are:
- pseudonymous authorship
- an otherworldly journey (x)
- an overview of history (x)
- eschatology (description of “end times” including destruction and rebirth) (x)
- elaborate imagery (x)
- a promise of personal salvation (x)
Marisol contains 5 of the 6 elements, so it can be considered apocalyptic literature in response to the cultural anxiety produced by both the AIDS epidemic and widespread social changes of the 1980s and the upcoming paranoia and fear around the changing of the millennium in the year 2000.

The word "apocalypse" popularly refers to a cataclysmic event that results in the devastation or total destruction of humanity.
The more technical definition is reserved for a genre of literature found in the the three religious traditions based on the Bible: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Apocalyptic literature usually surfaces in periods of anxiety or when a community is experiencing great change or persecution. The authors use evocative imagery and stock literary techniques to encourage their readers to remain true to the faith as the day will soon come when God will intervene and restore order.
- These are key elements of apocalyptic literature. Those with an (x) are found in Marisol:
  - pseudonymous authorship
  - an otherworldly journey (x)
  - an overview of history (x)
  - eschatology (description of “end times” including destruction and rebirth) (x)
  - elaborate imagery (x)
  - a promise of personal salvation (x)
Marisol contains 5 of the 6 elements, so it can be considered apocalyptic literature in response to the cultural anxiety produced by the AIDS epidemic, the widespread social changes of the 1980s, and the upcoming paranoia and fear around the changing of the millennium in the year 2000.

Winged messengers of mythological origin date back to Mesopotamia and popped up in Greek and Roman Mythology.
The original Angels of the biblical religions were impressive but inhuman with four faces and hooves like calves. The addition of wings did not come until much later and resulted from a mash up of Christian and Ancient theology.
Over time, society's depictions of Angels changed from fearsome guardians to either diminutive baby cherubs or benign, blond winged young people who humans could call on in times of trouble.
- During the Renaissance, it became acceptable to portray Angels as women or children.

"Angelic symbolism has been appropriated from traditional religious systems in order to shape new strategies of individual and collective behavior in a period of social transformation." - Amy Schindler
Angels are spiritual and can allow one to grapple with deeply entrenched religious beliefs (like Catholicism) but, unlike God, are generally non-judgemental.
During the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, there was a sense that traditional religion no longer served a necessary new way to mourn, so society turned to Angels.
- Schindler writes, "Angels provide a theodicy that the more traditional religions lack, but they also provide a collective mortality and an integrative social structure for marginalized members of a society who are undergoing great stresses."
From a Marxist view, which seems similar to Rivera's view in Marisol, the boom of popularity of Angels in the early 1990s arises from the "inability of human beings in a capitalist society to judge their own place in the flawed system and how to fix it." These modern Angels may serve the purpose of fixing:
- Relentless urban poverty
- Loss of confidence in the capitalist system
- End of belief in upward mobility
- Crisis of the middle class

Humanity harbored extensive fears during the decade leading up to the year 2000, but they can be categorized as two-fold: Y2K Economic Fears and Millennial Religious Fears.
- Y2K: In September of 1999, The Economist published an article with the subtitle, "The main impact of the millennium bug will come not from faulty computers, but from the measures that are being taken to avoid trouble." Corporations and individual across the globe feared that due to early financial software's reporting years with two digits instead of four, the entire interconnected system of our global economy would fail all at once on January 1, 2000.
- Apocalyptic Religion: Millennial belief is the concept that the current time is flawed, tainted, and evil, and that an event will occur (at the Millennium) that will destroy the structure of the current time and replace it with a form of utopia. This belief has been held by both religious and secular groups throughout history, but the roots grew from Judaeo-Christian mythology. Movements are categorized by a fear of technology and hope for social, political, and environmental change.
  - For more information about Millennialism, which has potential connections to every element of Marisol, please click the button below to open an informative article by Andrea Hoplight Tapia in Enculturation.

Rivera on the Millennium:
- “ I don’t particularly believe that the year 2000 has an apocalyptic resonance, but it’s certainly a historical moment… [In Marisol] I was trying to examine my Catholic upbringing and feeling in a lot of ways that we were just abandoned by God”
- “I have been struck in the last few years by the enormous violence we live through on every level. There’s a feeling that people have lost their way, that the basic rules of civilization have been suppressed. The millennium has a big role in that”
Examples of Rivera's conflicted feelings about the millennium are evident in his references to its ominous presence in the text:
- The Angel tells Marisol that when the Angels win the war against God, "we crown the new God and begin the new millennium” (19). Rivera ties the fall of the old, senseless regime with the rebirth of a better world together with the coming of the Millennium.
- Just a few lines later, June assures Marisol that, “Your dream is like the moon’s disappearance. It’s all a lot of pre-millennium jitters” (22). Here Rivera diminishes the importance of the millennium as a realistic source of fear or even as a catalyst of change.