Dysart Juxtaposition In Equus By Peter Shaffer

This passage is from the play Equus by Peter Shaffer. Martin Dysart is a child psychiatrist. Dysart converses with his colleague, Hesther, about Dysart’s patient, Alan Strang. Alan created a religion in which he worships horses as gods, Equus, resulting in Alan blinding six horses. Hesther believes that Dysart should cure Alan and remove his pain. However, using juxtaposition, metaphor, catalog, repetition, and simile, Dysart conveys his concern that curing Alan will deprive Alan of what is meaningful in his life. Dysart worries about the removal of Alan’s feelings of devotion. Dysart asks Hesther, “Do you think that feelings can be simply reattached, like plasters? stuck on to other objects we select?” (Shaffer 108). Dysart uses a similar

Dysart continues, “My desire might be to make this boy an ardent husband—a caring citizen–a worshiper of abstract and unifying to God. My achievement, however, is more likely to be a ghost!” (Shaffer 108). Dysarts juxtaposes his goal of making Alan an "ardent husband” and a “caring citizen" to his more likely transformation into a "ghost." The juxtaposition reveals that Dysart thinks if he successfully treats Alan and removes his devotion to Equus, to make him into the “husband” and “citizen,” it will make Alan a shell of a human as if he is a ghost. Dysart's point is that if he treats Alan, he will not benefit but will instead be turned into a ghost of himself. Alan’s feelings for Equus are so strong that nothing can replace Equus, and removing them will make Alan a

“I’ll set him on a nice mini-scooter and send him puttering off into the Normal world where animals are treated properly: made extinct, or put into servitude, or tethered all their lives in dim life, just feeding it!” (Shaffer 109). Dysart catalogs the various ways horses are treated in the world to indicate how they are treated in the “Normal world,” where they are not worshipped. Dysart will send Alan back into the world on a mini-scooter and not on a horse as Alan may never touch a horse again and, instead, he will ride motorized vehicles. Dysart believes that once Alan is treated, Alan will be able to go back into the “Normal world" and treat animals how they are supposed to be treated. Dysart continues, “I’ll take away his field of Ha Ha, and give him Normal places for his ecstasy — multi-lane highways driven through the guts of cities, extinguishing Place altogether, even the idea of Place!” (Shaffer 109). Dysart juxtaposes Alan’s “Field of Ha Ha” to “multi-lane highways.” The Field of Ha Ha is Alan’s sacred space where he holds his ritual for the Equus. The catalog indicates that Dysart will take away this sacred place and replace it with impersonal, urban spaces that suffocate