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‘Equus’: An analysis of normality by Christine
The play ‘Equus’, written by Peter Shaffer, is mainly about the concept of normality. It questions what is normal in human beings and to what extent individuality can remain ‘normal’. When a person is considered ‘abnormal’ it is the job of a psychiatrist to relieve that person’s pain and reshape that person so they can fit back in the normal world. When a psychiatrist removes a person’s pain and abnormality from them he also will be removing parts of their individuality and passion. This play considers if psychiatrists should destroy a person’s passion and meaning to their life just so they can be considered normal. It also questions if to be normal’ is a good thing for humans to be. Is it fulfilling enough for a person to be considered regular and ordinary or should they need some kind of passion or obsession in their life to make them complete?
The play also explores what makes a person become abnormal in the first place and how certain words and events piece together to form a person and their beliefs. These certain words and events can be considered as links in a chain that help to make up a person. However, which precise words or events are chosen to be major links and have a distinct impression on a person is unknown. They may even be chosen at random.
The role of a parent is very important in influencing a child and their psychological make-up. This play raises the issues of how much a parent influences a child and questions whether it would be partly due to them if that child were to be considered abnormal? Are children born with their own unique psychological make-up or is this created as a result of events and influences in their lives, the nature versus nurture argument. It is arguable that part of the role of a parent is to intervene when a child becomes too obsessive or crosses over the boundaries of what the parent considers to be normal behaviour. This play comes down empathetically on the idea of nature influencing that individual’s concept of normality.
My chosen section (p65-68) starts with Dysart talking about what normality is. He describes it as ‘the good smile in a child’s eyes’ but also as ‘the dead stare in a million adults’. He says ‘It both sustains and kills – like a God’. Here he means that the normal is innocent enough in children but can make adults seem blank and dead. It is enough to sustain a person and keep them alive but at the same time it can destroy their individuality and makes them just one out of millions of other average, predictable, normal people. He compares the Normal with a God and describes himself as this God’s priest, using delicate tools to cut away ‘parts of individuality repugnant to this God’. This shows how the God of Normal finds individuality repulsive and is using Dysart to cut these parts away. Dysart says that these parts are ‘sacred to rarer and more wonderful Gods’. Dysart finishes his speech by saying that ‘sacrifices to the Normal can take as long as sixty months’. These sacrifices are the removals of the individual parts of a person and it is show how long it can take to remove these parts.
Dysart uses a game with a pencil as a less direct method of allowing Alan to unburden himself of his secrets without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. Alan is asked about the events that happened on the beach when he first saw a horse and admits that he talked to the horse but he didn’t talk to him out loud. The whole concept of horses talking seems to relate back to when Alan was younger and Dora would read him a book about a talking horse called Prince. Alan ‘loved the idea of animals talking’ and would yell, ‘Say it! Say it! Use his voice!’
We then discover that the horse on the beach is in chains and Dysart relates this back to Christianity by connecting this with Jesus. Alan then confesses that his name is not Jesus but instead Equus and he lives in all horses. Still using the pencil game, Alan is then taken back to his bedroom when he is twelve and says that Equus is in chains ‘for the sins of the world’ and that he will ‘bear you away’ as ‘one person’. All of this has links with events or things that people have said in Alan’s past. The chains relate back to the picture of Jesus on his way to Calvary that was replaced by the picture of the horse. In the same way that the picture was replaced, Alan has substituted conventional, normal religion with his Equus religion-his new normality. The bearing away phrase seems to originate from when Alan was riding Trojan on the beach and the horseman said to make Trojan go faster all you have to say is ‘bear me away’. This phrase also suggests bearing away from the ‘normal world’ and arriving in a world of passion and Equus’ religion. When Alan was younger Dora told him that when Christian cavalry first appeared in the New World, the pagans thought that horse and rider were one person, even a God. These events from Alan’s past are links and have had a great influence on him. Many of these links appear to originate from things his mother had said to him about religion, clearly demonstrating the power of the role and influences of a parent on a child.
We then discover that the stable is Equus’ temple and his Holy of Holies and also that Equus didn’t teach Alan how to ride. Alan says ‘He’s a mean bugger! Ride – or fall! That’s Straw Law.’ This relates back to Christianity. Jesus was born in a stable in the straw. This is another example of how Alan has bridled conventional religion on a horse. We then find out the secrecy of Alan’s religion. He rode in secret, at midnight, once every three weeks and to get in the stables he stole a key and had it copied. This shows how Alan’s secret riding was not just a passing opportunity but how Alan had thought through and planned everything, from watching at the stables to learn how to ride, to copying a key.
Peter Shaffer’s stage directions in Equus are very important in understanding the play. He uses a chorus to make sounds described as the Equus Noise. This is performed by actors who hum, thump and stamp to herald or illustrate the presence of Equus as a God. The actors must never neigh or whinny though as this may suggest the concept of a pantomime horse. The Equus Noise is first heard in the beach scene when Alan has his first encounter with a horse. It starts faintly and grows until it is described as exultant before it stops abruptly when Alan gets on the horse. It is almost like the Equus noise is calling Alan to him. The Equus noise is also later cautioning Alan as he enters the stables with Jill. It is described a ‘warning hum’ and is showing that Equus is watching what Alan is doing and disapproves.
Lighting is also a key part of the stage directions. The lights are not described as bright or dim but often as warm, rich, darker or cold. The lights grow cold or darker when you are entering scenes to do with Equus and Alan’s world or when Dysart is being affected by the presence of Equus. This is to make these scenes seem dark and mysterious and to demonstrate how menacing and unforgiving the God Equus is. When scenes are set in naturalistic settings, such as at Frank and Dora’s house, the light is brighter and warmer to suggest safeness and normality.
The main feature of the set is that the stage is a square of wood set on a circle of wood. There is a saying that you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole and this stage is demonstrating that. This relates to the play as Alan’s world and the normal world cannot fit together. Parts of Alan must be removed for him to fit in and these are the individual parts that Dysart has to remove to make him normal. At times the set symbolises a boxing ring where Dysart and Alan try to find each other’s weak spots. At other times it symbolises a dissecting theatre where Dysart is trying to heal and remove parts of Alan. The set also has a resemblance to a Greek amphitheatre which links in with Dysart’s passion for ancient Greece.
When the actors playing horses have to get ready to go on the stage they do everything very ceremoniously. They move at the same time and lift their horse masks high above heir heads before putting them on. The horses never crouch on all fours or bend forewords and they create the animal effect by miming through the use of their legs, knees and the turn of their heads. This ritual complements the preparation and precision of any religious ceremony. It also links with the amount of preparation and attention to detail that Alan went to when he prepared Nugget for his religious ceremony. This secrecy and precision is also seen when we discover Alan had planned his secret riding at the stables and everything had been prepared.
Shaffer uses descriptive but also factual language to convey the drama in the play. He uses equestrian terminology when referring to the horse actors and is precise with his stage directions for example, ‘making the steel gleam in the light’. The language he uses is often menacing and displays the aggressiveness of Equus as a God, ‘Nugget retreats up the tunnel and stands where he can just be glimpsed in the dimness.’ When there is action Shaffer uses short, stabbing phrases to show the frenzy and quick pace of the events, ‘their eyes flare – their nostrils flare – their mouths flare.’
This section relates to the issue of the influences of the parents on a child. Many of the phrases that Alan has taken and used in his religion are connected with the Christian religion that Dora believes so devoutly in. We learn that when Alan was younger, Dora used to ‘ whisper that Bible to him hour after hour, up there in his room’. Frank says, ‘ It can mark anyone for life, that kind of thing’. We are left wondering if Dora is to blame for surrounding Alan in a world of devout religion. Alan’s interest in horses may have also had been sparked by his mother and her horsey side of the family. However Alan and Equus ride out against ‘ The Hosts of Jodhpur. The Hosts of Bowler and Gymkhana. All those who show him off for their vanity. Tie rosettes on his head for their vanity!’ This shows that Alan has taken these views from Frank who has strong views against ‘upper-class riff-raff’ and the world of equitation. Alan seems to be confused by his parent’s divided views on religion, horses and sex. However, it can be argued that this is not Alan’s parents’ fault as at the end of the day it is Alan himself who takes his parents’ views and chooses to use them on his own religion.
In his play, Shaffer demonstrates how something considered perfectly normal can become transformed into something abnormal through the world of Alan’s religion. The stables are transformed into Equus’ temple, his Holy of Holies. Equitation becomes an enemy and horses are worshipped as a God. All this would seem very abnormal and strange to us, as does Alan’s crime when it is first mentioned at the beginning of the play. However Shaffer creates a world where Alan’s world is understandable and his crime comprehensible. It is shown in this play how normal things, put into a different context can become considered abnormal and at the same time how abnormal things, in different circumstances can be considered normal.
It is also questioned why certain events in Alan’s life were chosen to be important links and have such a great effect on him. Was it fate that the picture of Christ was replaced by the picture of the horse? If the picture had been replaced with the picture of a different animal altogether would Alan still have created a God and his own religion from this? Links have all connected to build Alan’s character and have led to him being considered abnormal. Why is it that certain phrases and events have had such a distinctive effect on Alan and are these links ultimately chosen at random? These are questions that the play invokes and cannot be answered by Dysart, or indeed by anyone.
