Equus, by Peter Shaffer

Peter Shaffer’s Equus:

The Echoes of a Century

Isaias Carvalho, 2000

Introduction

Having been written in the third quarter of the 20^th century, Equus, by Peter Shaffer, had to summarize, or at least include or echo, most of the major questions in vogue: how far could psychoanalysis and psychiatry go into ‘solving’ the nauseating feeling of being in this world? What could take the place of science and religion, when both had proven ineffective to fully explain the absurdity of everyday life? What could substitute for family values, when that institution showed clear signs of decadence?

Much and ‘almost enough’ has been written about these questions related to Equus. In this paper, a perhaps minor question that appears in the play will be tackled: how much influence does publicity in the media, particularly television, exercise over a society’s and the individual’s minds?

“The Other Side of Abandonment”

The question of the media influence over the minds of groups of people or of an individual is not at all a minor one. That qualification was given here due to the extent to which the issue was brought up in Peter Shaffer’s text. All sorts of possible causes for Alan’s blinding the six horses were looked into by the other characters of the play, mainly Dr. Dysart, naturally because he was the psychiatrist responsible for the boy’s treatment. Another reading of the play, though, could suggest that Dr. Dysart himself, or even psychoanalyses itself, was being under treatment, not the boy.

“The Other Side of Abandonment” is the title of an essay, by Rita de Cássia Aragão Matos, which will be used here as the main theoretical ground for answering the question proposed. In that essay, among other assumptions and conclusions, the author claims, after having conducted a survey in a city’s poor residential area, that “[...] a TV commercial does not exist abstractly, but is part of a concrete reality [...]” (MATTOS, 1997, p. 15). Therefore, one cannot believe that there is a central thinking power controlling the minds of a brainless audience through television.

That should be said apropos of what Frank - Alan´s father in the play – believes to be a major factor in causing his son’s mental illness. In act one, page 27, he says: “You sit in front of that thing [TV] long enough, you’ll be stupid for life – like most of the population. [....] It seems to be offering you something, but actually it’s taking something away”.

Frank thus represents a certain number of people who still assert that television is not part of our present civilization, but an evil force from another world. On the other hand, we must not forget that the media is perhaps the most important tool that Capitalism has used to keep the status quo:

Publicity became, in our times, one of the domineering discourse forms underlying every and each product of the mass media, especially that of most reach and influence in the capitalist societies: television. This dominant role solves one of the major problems faced by Capitalism in the contemporary world, that is, the never-ending search for involving the individuals around consumerism (MATOS, 1997: p. 7).

Peter Shaffer, regarding what was said of publicity above, seems to be aware of that importance and has his problematic character sing TV commercial jiggles mechanically in order to avoid answering questions when he is under pressure. The fact that Alan sings those jiggles, however, should not lead us to think that his mental disorder derives from watching television. Rather, his misery at home – with an atheist father and a fanatic catholic mother, among other features of his problematic upbringing – can be the main cause for his condition, but that should be an issue for the experts in the human psyche.

Metaphorically, that is the ‘other side of abandonment’ for Alan. He is left alone in the middle of a ‘holly’ war, so to speak. While his father believes in science and reason as the explanation for the mysteries of the world, his lenient mother prays for God. In order to illustrate that, let us take part in Frank’s speech:

But when it comes to dosing it [the Bible] down the boy’s throat – well, frankly, he’s my son as well as hers. She doesn’t see that. Of course, that’s the funny thing about religious people. They always think their susceptibilities are more important than non-religious (Act 1, p.34).

Alan’s other side of abandonment is a metaphor here because, in her essay, Rita de Cássia Aragão Matos refers to the poor people, ‘abandoned’ by the public authorities in their poverty and hopelessness. Alan is abandoned by the authorities he has in his own home.

Conclusion

It is Rita de Cássia Aragão Matos who again supports what is meant to be the main assumption here: “[...] the contact with publicity is much more dilute than it may seem at first glance” (MATOS, 1997, p. 12). Therefore, television and the mass media are not the (only) ones to blame for whatever disorder a society or an individual may face. The audience influences the media perhaps the same way the media influence our everyday life.

Although the title of this paper does not seem to fit perfectly its content, it was chosen for two reasons: the alliteration it brings, and the idea of the almighty power of television, which has been actually echoed throughout the second half of the 20^th century.

In Equus, the ‘echoes’ of the century that is now ending are heard and reinforced, “[...] an awareness of contingency as a disaster in the world of time: Yeat’s ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’” (BRADBURY; MCFARLANE, 1991, p.26). If one is unable to locate the center, and if the idea of a center itself is gone, how can we still believe that publicity or television can be a central controller of our minds?

IV - References

SHAFFER, Peter. Equus. New York, Penguin, 1987.

MATOS, Rita de Cássia Aragão. O Outro Lado do Abandono. In: Cadernos do Expogeo.

Salvador: Expogeo, 1997, p. 7-27.

BRADBURY, Malcom and MCFARLANE, James. The Name and Nature of Modernism. In:

Modernism: a guide to European Literature, 1890–1930. London: Penguin, 1991, p. 19-55.

poéticos acadêmicos parentéticos

isaiasfcarvalho@gmail.com

Itabuna/Ilhéus, Bahia, Brasil

Imagens dos temas na base desta página por: Wellington Mendes da Silva Filho