Unnormality In 'Equus' By Peter Shaffer

Introduction:

The play entitled Equus was written by Peter Shaffer in 1973. It is play about a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man in the character of Alan Strang a boy who is a strange and has religious fascination with horses. In an age of 17 he was engaged with a crime blinding six horses with spike. The main theme of the play seeks to challenge the typical ideas of normal. “The word abnormal is used in several different senses and also in various combinations. The major dimensions of differentiation are: (a) whether it is defined as deviation from the ideal normal or as the statistical unusualality (b) whether the definition of abnormality is to be universal or to differ according to the culture; and (c) whether it is based on objective characteristic of behavior, or on the fact that a person is objectionable to himself or others. Satisfactory definition also depends on and is made problematic by studies of the development and health of personality of cultural norms, of the reaction of individuals and society to deviant behavior and so on.” (Coming, 1972 as cited in Zuern and Ashley 2012)

The play started with Martin Dysart, a child psychiatrist, who is the narrator of the story by saying that he feels like a horse reined up, his head held at the wrong angle so he cannot see anything but the path infront of him. This monologue of Dysart gives the audience or the reader the idea that he is in doubt of what he does to the children he treats us truly good or