Silence and Pleasure

The relationship of silence and selfhood is interesting in The Piano Teacher, most likely due to the fact that Erika’s selfhood is so skewed and different from the norm and expectations of selfhood that other people have. It seems that Erika’s selfhood lies in many ways in her masochism; in her immense pleasure that she gains from her infliction of pain on herself and on others. Whether this is from putting glass in her student’s pocket because her student is better at piano than her, or this is through her sexual endeavors. Her sexual encounters definitely emphasize silence. For example, when she is in the bathroom with Walter, the pleasure is heard purely through breathing, and aside from that, there are basically no words spoken the entire time. Her pleasure is derived so much from other people’s pain that she in fact will not let him finish because by not letting him finish she is deriving satisfaction. The role of silence in this satisfaction is that it builds up Walter’s desire and need to finish, by showing the reader his heavy breathing for an awkwardly long amount of time. When she refuses to let Walter finish, the watcher can more or less experience the pain that this puts Walter through, especially when she yells at him afterward for trying to finish him self. Walter is the object of her masochist selfhood and is constantly trying to get away from this. Whether it is unfinished orgasms in the bathroom or her asking him to tie himself to her face and punch her in the stomach. The silence in her sexual interactions seems to emphasize the pain over the pleasure aspect by showing the pleasure that could have been derived and how unnatural it seems to stop that.