Passion in Peter Shaffers Equus Essay -- Peter Shaffer, Equus

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... ...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.