Masochism: A Means of Survival in The Piano Teacher

Abstract

Erika Kohut, the protagonist of Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher, experiences certain feelings that reflect her masochistic attitude towards life. Masochism, the activity of getting pleasure from being hurt or controlled by another person, dominates Erika's life and it connects her to the world by releasing utter loneliness and estrangement. Erika's escape from self, motivation to escape, link to sexuality gives a platform to reduce her anguish and to cope with the way of the world. Her inner self behaves the way Freud and Lacan scrutinized the psychoanalytic self. She goes through Durkheimian anomie that is the breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community. She is entangled between the world of sublime and the world of sexual attention and emotional wickedness. This paper is going to deal with masochistic agendas including masochistic desire of pain, submissiveness, domination, helplessness, embarrassing or humiliating experiences and how it relates with the action and experiences of Erika. It will also relate the sphere of gender and masochism along with the analysis of masochism is dominant in feminity or masculinity. The protagonist's relationship with masochism and estrangement are really assisting her in survival or not.