Does Alan Strang die at the end of "Equus"?

Question

I just finished reading Peter Shaffer's "Equus," and I was curious: does Alan Strang, the young boy who blinded the horses, die at the end?

Answer 1

Absolutely NOT...at least, not in a physical sense. After the final session with Dr. Dysart -- the session in which Strang finally reveals what happened that night at the stable -- Dysart knows that he has "cured" the young man. The irony, however, is that Dysart also knows that he has ROBBED Strang of the spirit and, most importantly, the PASSION, that has controlled his life for so long. Dysart knows that PASSION is sorely lacking in his own life, and he envies the fact that Strang has so much of it.

It's a gorgeous play. If anyone out there is producing it, I'd make a great Dysart.

Answer 2

No, he does not die, but it s not clear from the movie if he gets shock therapy or a lobotomy. There is NO cure for a person fixated sexually on something like this who has done something so insanely violent - and it is clear, at least in the movie, that he is sexually attracted to horses - he keeps seeing the horse instead of the girl, wanting the horse s hide and not the girl s flesh - and he can t sexually function with the girl because he feels Equus (the horses) are watching him. That is why he blinded them. That is not passion - and if the author thinks it is, then he s deluded. That s is NOT passion - it s insanity, like a psychotic break. Horrible what he did to those peaceful horses.

There is no cure for this. It s no different from pedophilia or the cravings of a serial killer - there is no cure - that plus the boy is violent in the extreme.

The other stuff in there, the doctor and his bland life - I think is a statement about WASP life in England at the time. It s not a question of apollonian versus dionysian at all, no no no not at all. The normal is a blend of these things, such as in Italian culture - you have the practical and logical life AND you have joy - you have both.

The boy was not dionysian. He was psychotic and delusional - and that s NOT normal passion; that s not dionysian. The doctor was not apollonian in the old Greek sense of the meaning either - the doctor was a product of extremely repressive WASP culture - that, plus his own personal choices to remain repressed. He was so repressed he apparently didn t even know he was not having fun on his trips to Greece.

Answer 3

It has been a while since I read this but my memory tells me that the end of the play si the beginning of the play...

Since most of what happens in the play is Alan relating it to the doctor in telling him what happened then the end he id just reliving the incident that got him to having to tell the story.

Fade to Black.....