Book

The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 Nobel Prize recipient 

I chose Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher because it addresses certain psychological principles I'm interested in, including the struggle between instinctual desires and social obligations. I think it will be an interesting read that could potentially help inform my work.


Part I
Section 1     Erika, a piano teacher in her 30's, is scolded by her domineering mother when she returns home late from work.
Section 2     Erika's mother claims that Erika could have easily become a renowned pianist if she had listened to her and not yielded to other influences.
Section 3     Erika's mother discovers that her daughter has bought a new dress instead of saving money, and the ensuing argument ends with Erika pulling out tufts of her mother's hair.
Section 4     The two reconcile over coffee while her mother tries to convince Erika to give up her frivolity and obey instructions.
Section 5     Erika's mother has taught her that she is an individual who could not fit in anywhere, so Erika isolates herself with the egotistical belief that she is better than everyone.
Section 6     Erika looks upon everyone in the crowded streetcar with disdain, and uses every opportunity to kick a stranger's shin or hit them with her luggage when the car is too packed for her to be caught.
Section 7     Erika remembers her lonely childhood, a sexual attraction to her cousin, and cutting herself as a young girl.
Section 8     Erika's mother doesn't pick her up from work so she ventures to the bad side of town and visits a sex shop.
Section 9     Erika practices the piano and thinks jealously about the make-up and fashionable clothes worn by the other women her age.
Section 10     Walter Klemmer tries to engage Erika and separate her from her mother.
Section 11     Erika wants to buy new clothes but her mother refuses and insists that her daughter is "homely," but not beautiful.
Section 12     Erika considers herself a loner and looks down on everyone she passes in the street.
Section 13     Despite his effort and enthusiasm, Erika discourages a student from playing piano any longer and then goes to see a porno at a theater after the lesson.
Section 14     Erika compares the tamer to the wild animal, obviously paralleling her own sadomasochistic tendencies.

Part II
Section 15     Walter tries to get Erika's attention by impressing her with his knowledge of music and although Erika ignores him, she secretly follows him home.
Section 16     Erika lies to her mother about a private recital and sneaks out at night and spies on people through their windows.
Section 17     Erika's mother calls the police when she notices that she missing but they tell her not to worry and Erika returns latter in the night
Section 18     Walter stares at Erika while she pretends to ignore him and tries to control her jealousy toward the female students who flirt with him.
Section 19     Erika puts glass into a student's pocket who cuts her hand and destroys her future as a musician.  
Section 19     Walter follows Erika who demands sadomasochistic rituals before he can sleep with her.
Section 20     Walter is repulsed by Erika's violent fantasies but ultimately acquiesces.
Section 21     Erika sees Anna, Anna's mother, and Walter at a concert she is to perform at and then stabs herself in the shoulder before heading quickly home.

Book Review:

The Piano Teacher is an extraordinarily difficult book. It forces us to reflect on the darker side of human capability through the intense inner life of Erika Kohut, a repressed piano teacher who engages in self-mutilation, joyless sexual voyeurism, and masochism.

Author Elfriede Jelinek refers to Erika as a woman who has "closed everything about her that could be open." She is controlled by a psychotically possessive mother whom she sleeps in the same bed with. Her every decision is predetermined, planned, and enforced by the rigid hand of her mother. It's a relationship which makes them pull each other's hair out - both figuratively and literally. Things degrade even further when Walter Klemmer arrives, a student of Erika's at the Vienna Conservatory. A mutual obsession develops and eventually launches them into a sadomasochistic relationship that reiterates the parallels between mother and daughter, captor and captive, and teacher and student.

In The Piano Teacher, Erika is caught between the conflicting demands of the universal norm and her own dark desires. Jelinek centers on the consequences and possibilities of female autonomy. She speculates on what would happen if a woman could loosen the grip of repressive societal laws and confront her own illicit desires. But what makes The Piano Teacher better than just the story of an unusual woman, is that it does not propose any answer to the questions it raises about power and violence. Although Jelinek clearly exposes the cliches of the gender binary, she does not offer any reiteration of familiar feminist ideals where some sentimental act of independence would symbolize triumph over female victimization. Instead, Erika is an androgynous tool- simultaneously an aggressive phallic force and a suffering, powerless woman. The violence she speaks of isn't  defined by gender, nationality, religious affiliation, or any other surface identity, which only makes it all the more terrifying.

Another thing that interests me about Erika, is that she is not solely the product of a consequential set of events, though her mother’s suffocating control is an important motivator in her life. Unlike many feminist characters, the ownership of these drives and conflicts are innately Erikas'. Jelinek does not divert the responsibility, which in my eyes allows Erika to take control of her own person and avoid further victimization in an society that insists on alienating females. Erika returns to self-mutilation and sadomasochism again and again, and although she is by no means a heroic female figure, her ability to accept these acts as her own decisions empowers her. She is not, as many would have it, simply the product of a bad childhood.

The Piano Teacher relates to my own work a lot through Freudian theory. Jelinek's characters almost can’t help themselves, their “id” being their sole motivator. Sadomasochistic appetites prevail as they relentlessly seek out perversions unmediated by the socially obliged "superego." In my own work, I am interested in how people can hinge on such extremes. I aim to communicate the awkwardness and anxiety of the psychological struggle to appease both our basic desires and our social obligations. In The Piano Teacher, the characters have gone a step further towards the "id." They have moved almost entirely past the struggle for balance to revel in their most crass and animalistic desires.

The Piano Teacher, like the psychological states it depicts, is disturbing and uncomfortable. It forces you to accept the reality of human capability and reflect on your own motivations and desires. Although the bluntness of the story can come across as vulgar, it holds an undeniable truth that can't be dismissed as simple indecency. In fact, the coarseness of Jelinek's writing reveals a strange naivety, which just makes Erika's hopelessness even more heartbreaking.