In Peter Shaffer's Equus, A psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, is conducting
an investigation on Alan Strang. He is learning, through his
investigation of Alan's horrific crime, about what it really means to
make someone "normal" and what a psychiatrist really does.
It is the job of Dysart to find the motive of Alan's actions, but he
is not prepared for what he learns. After meeting Alan, Dysart has a
dream. This dream is of a ritual sacrifice in Greece. Dysart's passion
lies in Greece. He has always wanted to believe in something greater
than himself. He wants to be connected to a greater power and meaning.
As he tells Hester on page 82, "The finicky, critical husband looking
through is art books on mythical Greece. What worship has he ever
known? Real worship! Without worship you shrink, it's as simple as
that I shrank my own life." He is criticizing himself on not trying to
achieve that dream of passion he has always had. In this dream he
plays the high chief in the ritual. He is the most important person in
the ritual, signifying a psychiatrist. Slicing open children and
ripping out their intestines. This signifies taking out what makes a
person unique. This dream personifies what psychiatry is, its fitting
everyone into one mold, taking out their originality and destroying
their passion.
The next day he starts his investigation of Alan. Trying to piece
together his life to find out how he got to the breaking point. He
learns of the religion that Alan created around Equus. His mother had
brought him up to be very religious by reading to him from the bible
and Alan drew a connection between horses the Jesus. That was the
foundation for his religion. The picture of a horse had even replaced
a picture of J...
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...ther's
stories. The Chinkle Chankle in the horses' mouth was a reaction to
the memory of Trojan on the beach. All these things that Alan could
comprehend made sense in Equus. Dysart admits this on page 81 "I only
know that it's the core of his life. What else has he got? Many men
have less vital with their wives" Equus is the core of Alan's life,
and Dysart knows that. Equus is that heart of Alan's body. If the
heart is removed the body cannot continue to live.
Dysart was wrong to remove Equus from Alan. He was wrong to kill the
passions that he envied so much. All this for what? Normalcy. Dysart
did not heal Alan he ravaged him. In a world devoid of passion, it is
the most important thing one can have. Every day people go about their
ways passionless and now Alan joins them.
Work Cited
Shaffer, Peter. Equus. 1973. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.
knows that she enjoys it, and it makes her happy. It is as though he
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He acts as if he doesn't have a care in the world. He then starts to
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do with a bit of something different in his life and this is why he