How Peter Shafer uses 'Equus' to portray religion

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How Peter Shafer uses ‘Equus’ to portray religion

The book Equus, gives its audience a deeper view on religion by relating it to a series of scenes in the play.  Religion as a whole is mainly a person’s belief and what they do in life depends on this belief. If, within a religion, a person is told that something is the right thing to do then that person will try in as many ways as possible to live up to this. Religion can mean anything anyone wants it to mean and be anything they make it.  It does not have to be believed in by many people, it can be a personal belief of one person.

‘Equus’ proves that religion can be anything.  Alan, one of the main characters of this play, finds belief in horses. He worships them, just as many people worship God, Allah and Buddha.  He has strong feelings for them and spends as much time with them as possible. Much the same as strong Christians do when at church. But as the play goes on, he starts to feel more than a spiritual love for them and becomes sexually attracted to them as well. He has such an overwhelming passion for them that he spends all the time he can with them.

We learn that the main causes of his actions in the play are caused by his parents. His mother is a strong Christian and his father an atheist. His mother had tried to educate him about sex but failed to tell it with the correct details. She tells him that when he falls in love with someone that that is the right time to have sexual relations. But Alan took this literally and believed he fell in love with the horses. His father on the other hand had not educated him any better either.  When he met Jill, a girl who worked at the stables with him, this was the closest he had ever been to a real, human relationship. When they go out together Alan realises and is shocked on how different their views on sexual activity are. When they are together in the barn, where the crime happened, Jill is very open about herself and when Alan becomes impotent she reassures him that it is a very common thing.  

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Dysart another important character in the play talks about Alan’s religion as ‘his worship’.  This implies that it is the spark that makes Alan different not strange. Martin Dysart can relate to this because he knows what it feels like when something that it important to you is taken from you. His work was his spark but recently he has not been enjoying the rest of his life. He feels that when he is not at work then he is not himself.

He refers to his wife as a ‘woman he has not kissed in 6 years’ when ...

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