Chapter 4 Transforming Anxiety II: Integration of the Broken Self
4.1 Mapping Uncertainty
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Chapter Four
Transforming Anxiety II: Integration of the Broken Self
In the previous chapter, I have shown that the therapy leads Alan Strang and Martin Dysart both to examining values they used to believe, and that the broken totality of their existence, subsequently, has been partially repaired, because they are given a chance to communicate with their own inner self and express their own ideal self. With the discovery of “Equus” being a symbol of their own identity crisis, which is caused by internalized dogmatic social values, Alan and Dysart achieve spiritual growth through showing self-acceptance and forgiveness of others at the end of the therapy. By applying Ernst Jentsch’s study on human’s psychological “uncertainty,” chapter four aims to analyze the scenes in which Alan and Dysart fulfill the notion of “becoming” as they learn to see clear the reason behind their own anxiety.
4.1 Mapping Uncertainty
In his “Psychology of the Uncanny,” Ernst Jentsch explains, “[w]hen one deliberately removes such a problem from the usual way of looking at it—for the activity of
understanding is accustomed to remain insensitive to such enigmas, as a consequence of the power of the habitual—that a particular feeling of uncertainty quite often presents itself” (218). At the beginning stage of the therapy, “Equus” is revealed as the god Alan worships and Dysart admires. As the protagonists’ inner divinity, “Equus” represents the
“habitual,” the values they are taught to believe. However, as discussed in chapter two, the ambivalent image of “Equus” perplexes Alan and Dysart uncomfortably. It actually is the “enigma” that causes them great anxiety. Nevertheless, Dysart’s therapeutic skills are
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effective, because they have helped Alan reexamine his own ambivalent affection for horses. Additionally, Dysart’s “doubts” about his own profession and private life revealed in Act I, scene I (Equus 18) are also resolved in the end of the play.
In his study, Ernst Jentsch concludes: “The human desire for the intellectual mastery of one's environment is a strong one. Intellectual certainty provides psychical shelter in the struggle for existence” (227). As I have shown in chapter three, Alan and Dysart resort to religious passion to fulfill their own ideal self. In other words, such passion provides a
“psychical shelter” for their shattered totality of existence. Peter Shaffer once states,
“[u]ncertainty within myself is something I prize... I rather believe my totem animal to be the Chameleon” (qtd. in Parvu 86). A chameleon changes its color to adapt itself into nature whenever it is aware of a pressing danger, even when the feeling is ambiguous.
However, it will change back to its original color as the danger is away. In this regard, a chameleon remains as what it is but has become more experienced with the world in which it survives. Similarly, Alan and Dysart are struggling to deal with their own identity crisis, the danger of losing their own totality of existence. The sensation of uncertainty they hold toward “Equus,” which is symbolic of their identity crisis, propels them to continue the uncomfortable journey of self-examination. An individual’s desire to understand him/herself, as Jentsch suggests, is human nature.
In the following analysis, I will see the therapy as the “environment,” namely the representation of the protagonists’ mental world in which they strive to comprehend themselves throughout the therapy. I will focus on scenes where Alan and Dysart perceive themselves and others in a new light as the result of coping with anxiety.
4.1.1 Alan Strang
As demonstrated in chapter two, the therapy reveals that Alan has developed an ambivalent affection for horses from listening to the story about a special horse named
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“Prince” told by his mother. His perception of the image of the horse is then muddled by the picture given to him by his father, on which there is a horse “looking over a gate.”
Also, in chapter three I have analyzed the scene where Alan displays an admiration for the wild beauty of horses and his detestation of his parents’ hypocrisy. Based on these
preconditions, close to the end of the therapy, through which Alan is guided by the psychiatrist’s therapeutic instructions, Alan discloses his sympathy for his father and the truth of the blinding. In chapter two I have shown the scene where Frank Strang bumps into Alan in a theater of pornography. Out of embarrassment, he leaves. In Act II, scene 31, Alan confesses to Dysart how he feels about his father then:
ALAN [to DYSART]: I kept seeing him, just as he drove off. Scared of me…And me scared of him…I kept thinking - all those airs he puts on! ...
'Receive my meaning. Improve your mind!'…All those nights he said he's be in late. ‘Keep my supper hot, Dora!' ‘Your poor father: he works so hard!'…Bugger! Old bugger!...Filthy old bugger!
[He stops, clenching his fists.] (Equus 95) […]
ALAN [to DYSART]: …I kept look at all the people in the street. They were mostly men coming out of pubs. I suddenly thought—they all do it! All of them!...They're not just Dads—they're people with pricks!...And
Dad—she's not just Dad either. He's a man with a prick too. You know, I'd never thought about it. (Equus 96)
Discovering that his father has been a liar makes Alan angry. He firstly points out that Frank has been lying to Dora, and then compares Frank with other stranger men he sees on the streets. Alan realizes that his father is not special, because there are other men behaving in the same way, looking for sexual encounters at night. Angry at this fact, Alan
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accuses his father as a “buggar” and as someone with a “prick,” implying Frank is just an animal driven by biological needs as many other men. Nevertheless, Alan shows
sympathy immediately afterwards:
ALAN [to DYSART]: Sorry. I mean for him. Poor old sod, that's what I felt—he's just like me! He hates ladies and gents just like me! Posh things-and la-di-da. He goes off by himself at night, and does his own secret thing which no one know about, just like me! (Equus 97)
Through observation and analysis, Alan further learns about his father’s dilemma. The importance of this observation is that Alan started this analysis before he began the therapy, and it is in this present moment of the therapy, under Martin Dysart’s therapeutic guidance that Alan feels free to reveal this secret. Applying Ernst Jentsch’s study on human’s psychological uncertainty, this moment in the therapy can be seen as Alan’s
“intellectual mastery” of his own life is increased. Whether Alan has had this insight that night with his father is not known, but the event he used to conceal and to be ashamed of is retold by him with a sympathetic tone. Alan’s ambiguous feeling of being pulled by an unnamed force (Equus 35), can thus be related to this discovery in a symbolic way. Both Alan and Frank internalized dogmatic values of society and have been manipulated by them, just like “Equus” has been “chained” and controlled by man.
After his father went away, Alan goes with his girlfriend to the stable he works at.
There they are ready to intercourse; however, just as they have both taken off their clothes, the sound of “Equus” rings and disturbs Alan significantly. He pleads to be left alone, asking her to leave (Equus 103). The blinding that comes afterward is recalled and performed by Alan in the therapy, in Act II, scene 34:
ALAN [in terror]: Eyes!...White eyes—never closed! Eyes like flames—coming—coming!...God seest! God seest!...NO!...
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[Pause. He steadies himself. The stage begins to blacken.]
[Quieter.] No more. No more, Equus.
[He gets up. He goes to the bench. He takes up the invisible pick. He moves slowly upstage towards NUGGET, concealing the weapon behind his naked back, in the growing darkness. He stretches out his hand and fondles NUGGET's mask.]
[Gently.] Equus…Noble Equus…Faithful and True…God-slave…Thou-God-Seest-NOTHING!
[He stabs out NUGGET's eyes. The horse stamps in agony. A great screaming begins to fill the theatre, growing ever louder. ALAN dashes at the other two horses and blinds them too, stabbing over the rails.
Their metal hooves join in the stamping.
Relentlessly, as this happens, three more horses appear in cones of light:
not naturalistic animals like the first three, but dreadful creatures out of nightmare. Their eyes flare—their nostrils flare—their mouths flare.
They are archetypal images—judging, punishing, pitiless. They do not halt at the rail, but invade the square. As they trample at him, the boy leaps desperately at them […]
[…]
ALAN: Find me!...Find me!...Find me!...
KILL ME!...KILL ME!... (Equus 106)
In this scene, Alan resists the calling of “Equus” and the feeling of being watched by someone he used to consider a friend. The “growing darkness” that appears when Alan is about to blind “Equus” indicates his increasing anxiety. However, this time his anxiety does not come from confronting his enemies, the unsympathetic customers and his
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parents. This time, his anxiety comes from confronting his own inner divinity, “Equus.”
Blinding the horse-god “Equus” equals blinding himself in a symbolic way, because he has already become an entity with “Equus” through the ritualistic riding at night. At this moment of the therapy, on the stage, which is symbolic of Alan’s mental world, the horses show up and reveal their fearful nature. This transformation of the representation of the horses implies Alan has realized “Equus” is not a friend but an enemy. The horses are shadows of “Equus” and they “trample” Alan.
Subsequently, this new knowledge that comes after his sympathy for Frank motivates Alan to fight. Blinding the horses can be seen as Alan’s inner self fighting against his social self, the sensitive, timid and hurt young man. Since the stage can be seen as an arena of his psyche, this fight can be seen as if his immune system starts working and killing the virus intruding his spiritual world, namely “Equus” and its shadows. According to Ernst Jentsch, the sensation of uncertainty appears when one perceives something in a new light other than seeing it in “the usual way.” In other words, the increase of one’s “intellectual mastery” of his/her surrounding world is manifested by a sensation of uncertainty. In this scene Alan learns to see the malicious nature of
“Equus”—the society’s manipulative mechanism. This realization poses a new sense of
“uncertainty” to himself: shouting “Find Me!...KILL ME!” Alan realizes he has internalized certain social values, which helped forming “Equus” in his own spiritual world. At this moment of emotional climax, Alan is no longer spiritually “pulled” by the shadows of nameless horses. More precisely, at the present moment of therapy, he understands that he and “Equus” are inseparable. He has to “kill” himself in order to eliminate “Equus.” By blinding the horses, Alan has symbolically destroyed his own poor self-image, the part of him that is constructed through internalizing social values but has previously become unaccepted by himself.
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4.1.2 Martin Dysart
Martin Dysart appears unaware of his own identity crisis in the former half of the therapy. This is shown in Act I, which ends with where Alan Strang recalls and performs the riding event at night. First, Dysart appears arrogant when he decides to take Alan Strang into his hospital. In Act I, scene 2:
DYSART [to audience]: What did I expect of him? Very little, I promise you.
One more dented little face. Once more adolescent freak. The usual unusual. One great thing about being in the adjustment business: you're never short of customers. (Equus 21)
Dysart’s assumption implies his tendency to look down on his patients, because he believes Alan is just another case of insanity in modern society. His claim that his profession is a good “business” is more cynical, because as a doctor he is supposed to help his patients with sincerity. In Act I, scene 18, Dysart speaks about his wife also in a cynical manner. Speaking to Hesther Saloman, he blames his wife for their unproductive marriage:
DYSART: […] We suited each other admirably. I see us in our wedding photo: Doctor and Doctor MacBrisk. We were brisk in our wooing, brisk in our wedding, brisk in our disappointment. We turned from each other briskly into our separate surgeries; and now there's damn all…we didn't go in for [children]. Instead, she sits beside out salmon-pink, glazed brick fireplace, and knits things for orphans in a home she helps with…You get the picture. She's turned into a Shrink. The familiar domestic monster.
Margaret Dysart: the Shrink's Shrink. (Equus 61)
This scene recalls an earlier one, in which Dysart is referring to his desire of finding an
“unbrisk” soul mate, which I have mentioned in chapter three. Dysart holds that his wife
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Magaret is responsible for their shortly lived mutual affection and that she distracted her attention from intimacy by working on something else. Furthermore, Dysart is being bitter by calling his wife a “monster,” and his usage of the phrase “shrink” indicates his intention to debase his wife to comfort himself.
However, after having understood Alan Strang’s desire to be free in the end of Act I, Martin Dysart’s attitude changes. The following scene follows the scene where Dysart is quarreling with Dora Strang, who visits Alan in the hospital but ends up unhappily at the beginning of Act II (scene 22). Dysart reveals his sympathy for Alan as he is having another conversation with Hesther Salomon after he has learned about the reason behind Alan’s strange affection for horses. In Act II, scene 25:
DYSART: Poor bloody fool.
[…]
DYSART [quietly]: Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship.
[…]
HESTHER: Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
DYSART: I don't. I only know it's the true core of his life. What else has he got? Think about him. He can hardly read. He knows no physics or
engineering to make the world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. He lives one hour every three
weeks—howling in a mist. And after the service kneels to a slave who stands over him obviously and unthrowably his master. With my body I
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thee worship!...Many men have less vital[ity] with their wives! (Equus 81) He learns that Alan has been raised in a family rather closed from outside world, and that Alan has no friends but television programs as companion. Dysart’s description of Dora appears also sympathetic, because currently he perceives her as a “desperate” mother in need of help. After having made Alan to recall and perform the riding scene in the therapy, Dysart’s attitude toward Alan has changed. He understands that Alan was ignored by his family and by society, and that “Equus” is only a symbol of Alan’s twisted emotional response to the world as a traumatized young man.
The understanding of Alan’s suffering further prompts Martin Dysart to confess his own sense of guilt about his unproductive private life. The conversation given above continues into this following scene, where Dysart turns the subject of conversation to talking about his chronical sense of guilt in the relationship with his wife. In Act II, scene 25:
DYSART: Without worship you shrink, it's as brutal as that…I shrank my own (emphasis original) life. No one can do it for you. I settled for being pallid and provincial, out of my own eternal timidity. The old story of bluster, and do bugger—all…I imply that we can't have children; but actually, it's only me. I had myself tested behind her back. The lowest sperm count you could find. And I never told her. That's all I need—her sympathy mixed with resentment…I tell everyone Margaret's the puritan, I'm the pagan…And while I sit there, baiting a poor unimaginative woman with the word, that freaky boy tries to conjure the reality! (Equus 82) A new self-understanding is being formed within Dysart as he discloses that he has been treating his wife unfairly and living with lies. In other words, he himself is the person putting himself into years of nameless anxiety, which is epitomized by his curiosity about
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the ambivalent image of “Equus.” With the discovery that “Equus” represents certain dogmatic values that Alan has internalized, Dysart finally realizes that his own religious passion, including his profession ambition, is nothing but a disguise of his own “timidity.”
This is why he behaves cynically to the arrival of Alan at the beginning, because looking down upon his patients can help him alleviate his low self-esteem. If we apply Ernst Jentsch’s terms, developing sympathy for Alan can be seen as that the Dysart has gain more “intellectual mastery” of his own existence, since he has made a confession and comes to understand the reason behind his own year-long nameless anxiety. At the end of the therapy, Dysart has helped his patient and reviewed the lack of life he used to avoid thinking about.
With an increasing understanding about the reason behind his own anxiety, Dysart is able to accept his friend’s advice, taking on the fatherly role for his patient, Alan. After confessing his sense of guilt, the conversation between Dysart and Hesther Salomon continues. In Act II, scene 25:
HESTHER: That stare of [Alan’s]. Have you thought it might not be accusing you at all?
DYSART: What then?
HESTHER: Claiming you.
DYSART: For what?
HESTHER [mischievously]: A new God.
[Pause.]
DYSART: Too conventional, for him. Finding a religion in Psychiatry is really for very ordinary patients.
[She laughs.]
HESTHER: Maybe he just wants a new Dad. Or is that too conventional
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too?...Since you're questioning your profession anyway, perhaps you ought to try it and see.
DYSART [amused]: I'll talk to you.
Hesther: Goodbye. (Equus 83)
Throughout the therapy, Dysart is troubled by the expression in Alan’s eyes. He keeps Alan’s “stare” as a strong accusation about the immoral deeds he did. As discussed so far, the feeling of being accused results from Dysart’s own sense of guilt of having mistreated his wife and patients to hide his low self-esteem. Dysart used to defend himself whenever he had a conversation with Hesther; however, in this scene he stops arguing with her and
Throughout the therapy, Dysart is troubled by the expression in Alan’s eyes. He keeps Alan’s “stare” as a strong accusation about the immoral deeds he did. As discussed so far, the feeling of being accused results from Dysart’s own sense of guilt of having mistreated his wife and patients to hide his low self-esteem. Dysart used to defend himself whenever he had a conversation with Hesther; however, in this scene he stops arguing with her and