The play Equus is about a young boy who viciously blinds six horses with a metal spike in a stable and the psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, who investigates the boy’s mental state. It is a very complex, multileveled story, with many relationships effecting Allen’s (the stabber) behavior.
The relationship between Alan and Equus is a very complex one. His worship for the horse comes from his mother’s beliefs in God. She is very religious and pushes religion on Alan. His father was the opposite. He would not let Allen keep a picture of God in his room and forced him to replace it with a picture of a horse. Slowly, the horse became God in Alan’s eyes. Alan’s father seems to fear religion and in some instances he fears horses. He becomes belligeren...
shall firstly do a summery of the play and give a basic image of what
Schlegel, August Wilhelm. Criticism on Shakespeare s Tragedies . A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. London: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
DMD also known as muscular dystrophy is muscular disease that occurs on young boys around age four to six. Muscular dystrophy is genetically transmitted disease carried from parent to offspring. This disease progressively damages or disturbs skeletal and cardiac muscle functions starting on the lower limbs. Obviously by damaging the muscle, the lower limbs and other muscles affected become very weak. This is ultimately caused by the lack dystrophin, a protein the body produces.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star crossed lovers take their life” (I prologue 5-6). Romeo and Juliet is known by many as a love story, but what if it’s not a love story but a story of obsession and desperation. Romeo is from the Montague family, and Juliet is from the Capulet family. The two families have been feuding for many, many years. In this story, Romeo and Juliet become obsessed with the feeling of being in love. They will go to extremes to be together, such extremes as death.
Duchenne muscular dystrophy, also known as DMD, the most common type of muscular dystrophy, is caused by the incorrect information with the gene that generates a protein called dystrophin. The function of this protein is to help muscle cells keep their strength and shape. Without the presence of this protein, muscles begin to deteriorate and a person’s health becomes weaker. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is one of the types that affect boys, and symptoms of the disease begin to show between the ages of two and six. Most children with duchenne muscular dystrophy will require transportation by wheelchair by the age of ten or twelve. Patients with duchenne muscular dystrophy may experience heart c...
Peter Shaffer’s play “Equus” reads like a true tragedy blending religion and adolescence while questioning society’s “civilized norms”. Although Alan Strang seemingly suffers the most throughout the story, the true tragic figure in the play is Dysart, Alan’s psychiatrist. Dysart is forced to question everything that he previously accepted and his whole life is thrown out the window upon meeting Alan. Both Arthur Miller’s definition of a tragic figure and the traditional definition provided by Aristotle apply to Dysart.
It is estimated that 1 out of every 5,600-7,700 boys ages 5-24 have Duchene or Becker muscular dystrophy. (“Data & Statistics,” 2012 April 6) Muscular dystrophy is a group of genetic diseases defined by muscle fibers that are unusually susceptible to damage. There are several different types of muscular dystrophy some of which shorten the affected person’s lifespan. (“Muscular dystrophy: Types and Causes of each form,” n.d.) There is a long history of the disorder but until recently there wasn’t much knowledge of the cause. (“Muscular Dystrophy: Hope through Research,” 16 April 2014) Symptoms are obvious and can be seen as soon as a child starts walking. (“Muscular Dystrophy,” 2012 January 19) Although muscular dystrophy mostly affects boys, girls can get it too. (“Muscular Dystrophy,” 2012 January 19) There is no cure for muscular dystrophy but there are several types of therapy and most types of muscular dystrophy are still fatal. (“Muscular Dystrophy: Hope through Research,” 16 April 2014)
The most important emotions that we see in Macbeth are ambition, remorse, and fear. They are significant because they provoke Macbeth to do evil and cruel things. Ambition takes control of him earlier in the play when the witches tell him he is going to be king. After he already has done the deed, killed Duncan, he is remorseful for his actions. Out of fear for himself, Macbeth murdered Macduff’s family and killed Banquo.
Despite what many people think, Romeo and Juliet is not a love story; rather a story of desperation and obsession. People have been reading Shakespeare for hundreds of years and several people have mistaken it for a love story, due to the fact that Romeo loves Juliet so much he is willing to kill himself when he finds her supposedly dead; she does the same when she wakes up to find him dead. But in fact, Romeo is more taken aback by her beauty than he is in love with her. Juliet is intrigued by the fact someone could love her because her parents are very unsupportive of her. When the two find each other, they immediately become obsessed, mistaking this for love at first sight.
...itary conscription in the name of freedom is an illegitimate, criminal organization. A government that is willing to enslave people cannot be trusted to protect your liberty. A government that forces people to fight for its goals, its protection, and its benefit has created a morally perverse situation where there is no free society left to defend” (Boldin). Another thing we must look at is without an overflow of troops; “unpopular wars are very difficult to fight. The ability to use conscription actually encourages politicians to wage even more wars;the massive resources are a temptation that is hard for the war-lover to resist. When the draft was finally undermined in the 1970′s, for example, the Vietnam War ended” (Boldin).
Sophocles and Ibsen were masterful playwrights that could bring forth the elements needed for a tragedy. They could play upon the wealth of human emotions, engrossing the audiences in empathy and disbelief. Their tragedies, Oedipus the King and A Doll’s House has been revered and studied because of their inclusion of the basic structure of the tragedy, as well as their display of the complexities of the human psyche. They are stories to be reflected upon, and their true value can only be acknowledged by taking a look of the world around us.
...are evoked but against the divinely spun destiny and pity is felt for Oedipus, their play-thing, with no more power to change his life than to change his past.
The time period of Greek theater’s popularity was a very influential time in our world’s history. Without knowing what Greek theater was all about, how can someone expect to truly understand a tragic play and the history it comes with? The history behind the character of Oedipus, in the play Oedipus the King, is very complicated. His intricate past dealing with prophecies, family members, and murder is the main focus of the story. There are many characteristics that complete Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero; these being the presence of hamartia and peripeteia, a sense of self-awareness, the audience’s pity for the character, and the hero is of noble birth.
Esslin's book consists of eleven chapters each of which touches on a dramatic phenomenon or critical issue. His book is opens with a preface and is appended a general index of plays and secondary resources. There are three explanatory diagrams in the book through which Esslin clarifies his theory on suspense. The book discusses the common definitions of drama in the first chapter, goes over the theories and critical aspects of drama as a genre in the following chapters, and concludes by declaring some statements about the truth of drama in the last chapter. Esslin often follows a pattern throughout his chapters; he undermines a critical thought or unravels a common critical confusion then injects his own notions and critical thoughts.
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” explores a fundamental struggle of the human conscience. The reader is transported into the journey of a man who recognizes and acknowledges evil but still succumbs to its destructive powers. The character of Macbeth is shrouded in ambiguity that scholars have claimed as both being a tyrant and tragic hero. Macbeth’s inner turmoil and anxieties that burden him throughout the entire play evoke sympathy and pity in the reader. Though he has the characteristics of an irredeemable tyrant, Macbeth realizes his mistakes and knows there is no redemption for his sins. And that is indeed tragic.