Shaffer, Peter: 1926 - 2016

Equus, 1973 - Summary

A 17 year-old boy, Alan, is brought to a psychiatric hospital because he has blinded several horses with a hoof pick. A psychiatrist, Dysart, works to "normalize" the boy, all the while feeling that though he makes the boy 'safe' for society, he is taking away from him his worship and sexual vitality--both of which are missing in the doctor's own personal life. He actually envies Alan the sexual worship he has experienced. In spite of his own hang-ups, though, the doctor does help the boy work through his obsession, which identifies the horse Equus with God. But the doctor comments that "when Equus leaves--if he leaves at all--it will be with your intestines in his teeth. . . . I'll give him [Alan] the good Normal world . . . and give him Normal places for his ecstasy. . . Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created."
Donley, Carol
Excerpted, with permission, from the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database at New York University School of Medicine, © New York University.