In the play Equus worship and passion are seen in many contrasting
lights. In the example of Alan, the boy in the centre of the play,
worship and passion are the same thing. What he is devoted to inspires
excitement in him, in this case the God Equus. With his parents, it is
the same, but in different ways of worship. Alan’s mother is a devout
Catholic, and also has worship with a passion, but she is so devoted
to this single cause she is unable to experience passion for anything
else. With Alan’s father, he is not a religious man and has nothing to
idolize, and this creates a lot of passion inside of him with no way
for it to escape. Finally, in the case of Dysart, Alan’s psychiatrist,
he has lost the way to reach his passion and has become distanced from
his wife. He envies the way that Alan can worship a being openly and
feels it would be better to leave this boy with his pain but intensity
rather than ‘cure’ him and leave him alone with no enthusiasm for
life. From this we can see that passion and worship are inextricably
linked, however they can be substituted for each other when needed but
require each other to exist.
In the play Equus, Alan Strang is a boy of 17 who has been sent to a
psychiatrist for blinding six racehorses. Through the course of the
play, we find out that he has been worshipping a new kind of god, a
horse-god he calls Equus. He devotes himself blindly to this horse,
transferring to it all the worship he used to have for Jesus and
Christianity. This is revealed to us by the fact that Alan replaced a
poster of Jesus he once has with a poster of a horse’s head. “DORA:
Well, do you remember that photograph I mentioned to you. The one Mr
Strang gave Alan to decorate his bedroom a few...
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...n a nice
mini-scooter and send him puttering off into the Normal world where
animals are treated properly: made extinct or put into servitude or
tethered all their lives in dim light, just to feed it! I’ll give him
the good Normal world where we’re tethered beside them – blinking our
nights away in a non-stop drench of cathode ray over our shriveling
heads.” Dysart feels that a life without passion and worship is
worthless. By the end of the play he is now that is haunted by Equus,
and feels the need pay homage to it.
To summarise, in the play Equus passion and worship are linked. One
cannot fully be expressed without the other. When a character is
deprived of either, they feel empty and need to search for it through
other methods. Worship and religion are also the main ways that
passion is expressed throughout the play and rely on each other to
exist.
Comparing and Contrasting Relationships in Hurston’s Novels, Their Eyes Were Watching God and Seraph on the Suwanee
Before reaching his destination , John begins to allow nature to be his mentor. “The three deer passed in the valley, going east….I followed them”(Benét 77). He travels alone, relying on the fauna to guide him the right way. John arrives to the place of the gods where his ignorance comes into play again. He sees a variety of appliances but is not aware of their names. “There was a cooking place but no wood, and though there was a machine to cook food, there was no place to put fire in it” (Benét 82). He is describing an oven but living from an isolated world for decades, John is a stranger to all things modern. After more investigating, he falls asleep and dreams about the past. John is perplexed by the new things he had never seen before, “When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and mist that poisoned” (Benét 84). It is noticeable to the audience that John is again envisioning technology that he is not familiar with. He then encounters a “dead god” and soon realizes something life-changing about the gods, “...they had been men neither gods or demons….They were men” (Benét
One of the most important things in life is finding one’s self. Although this may be difficult to achieve, it is necessary. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the protagonist, Janie, struggles with finding her true identity. This led to her round and multi-layered character. Janie has trouble finding herself due to other characters depriving her from the opportunities she has; she allows other characters to take advantage of her. Although Janie has a very independent personality in the novel, she is dependent on others to make important decisions for her.
it. At the end we find him that he had changed his old corrupted moral
Religion has an important impact on our everyday life. Society uses religion to express themselves through faith, God and worshiping. Sports is also a type of religion in today’s society. People worship their teams at games and pray before every game. Sports and religion ties directly into people’s lives every day, take for instance Herman Winston, a golfer in Roland Merullo’s Golfing with God. He is approached by God’s lieutenant and is asked to help God with the yips. Herman later learns he’s on a spiritual journey that evolves from saving his father’s soul through a golf match with the devil and later being reincarnated on earth for a second life to reach his spiritual destiny. Sports and religion relate directly to Herman Winston’s experiences
Here, Taylor envisions a different kind of God, not one who waved his hand, uttered some magic words, and pulled the universe from his Godly top hat (p.151). Taylor’s God is a working God surrounded by wood and iron, soot
While the overall theme and tone of Mankind had a religious tone, the author of Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, offers six objections to the ideas and themes of the miracle play. In the first objection, the author states that plays are not performed to worship God. Plays are created to create earthly pleasures for people. Plays make people laugh, bringing joy and distracting them from God. The second objection states that plays are considered a sin because it corrupted a whole community. Plays occupy the whole audience to focus on the vanities of life rather than focusing on faith or charity. The Tretise third objection is that people do not cry while watching the play because of the compassion and devotion that they have towards Christ. Rather, members of the audience cry due to their personal vanities not their own sins. Tretise states the men will not leave sin in order to worship and men will not convert to a more religious lifestyle after seeing the play. The fifth objection implied by t...
In both the plays the common theme that we can observe is that gods dont consider mortals important enough to either give them an important element that can make their lives easy, nor do they attach importance to a human life. The gods even amongst themselves have a complicated relationship. Their power has bounds amongst themselves but in the case of humans they exercise their power without any considerations or limitations.
In order to clearly understand a book, story, event, or action, it is necessary to recognize the people involved. Often times, the idea behind something is greater than what has essentially happened, and therefore makes the comprehension of Janie Starks, the main character of Zora N. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, that much more important.
has committed, and then finally the horror touches upon the priest, who insists on believing in
In the first part of the play Egeus has asked the Duke of Athens, Theseus, to rule in favor of his parental rights to have his daughter Hermia marry the suitor he has chosen, Demetrius, or for her to be punished. Lysander, who is desperately in love with Hermia, pleads with Egeus and Theseus for the maiden’s hand, but Theseus’, who obviously believes that women do not have a choice in the matter of their own marriage, sides with Egeus, and tells Hermia she must either consent to marrying Demetrius, be killed, or enter a nunnery. In order to escape from the tragic dilemma facing Hermia, Lysander devises a plan for him and his love to meet the next evening and run-off to Lysander’s aunt’s home and be wed, and Hermia agrees to the plan. It is at this point in the story that the plot becomes intriguing, as the reader becomes somewhat emotionally “attached’’ to the young lovers and sympathetic of their plight. However, when the couple enters the forest, en route to Lysander’s aunt’s, it is other mischievous characters that take the story into a whole new realm of humorous entertainment...
learns that he is just a frail being in a world much greater than his own
He realizes that he has great power and should use it to save others from dying from darkness the evil lurking around killing people
In this essay, I hope to provide answers to how the actions of Hippolytus and Phaedra relate to the gods, whether or not the characters concern themselves with the reaction of the gods to their behavior, what the characters expect from the gods, how the gods treat the humans, and whether or not the gods gain anything from making the humans suffer. Before we can discuss the play, however, a few terms need to be defined. Most important would be the nature of the gods. They have divine powers, but what exactly makes the Greek gods unique should be explored. The Greek gods, since they are anthropomorphic, have many of the same characteristics as humans.
Ezeulu has mixed feelings. He sends Oduche to the missionaries in order to gain access to their wisdom, but he fears the aggressiveness of the new religion. However, his devotion to his god, Ulu, is unquestionable, as is seen in his participation in the New Yam festival. Ezeulu, the main character of the novel, is sincere when he refuses to obey Winterbottom's summons to Okperi because such behavior does not befit his sacred role. Ezeulu stands up for what he believes is right, as his god reveals it to him, even when there is no profit in it for himself. He even loses much by saying the truth. Thus, he is like a saint.