Presence of Nothing

Let’s consider silence to be the absence of verbal communication. In televised media, this lack of dialogue powerfully portrays the presence of silence, a presence we see repeatedly in The Piano Teacher. If we consider silence to be the lack of communication, then Elaine Scarry would probably say it is antithesis of human extension, where “the voice becomes a final source of self-extension; so long as one is speaking, the self extends out beyond the boundaries of the body” (33). According to this view, silence exemplifies the extent to which characters fail to reach out beyond themselves, and shows how they fail to make connections with other people.

Since silence signals the lack external extension, it symbolizes a completely internalized state of being. Self-reflection. In the scene where Erika comes-on to her mom as they are laying in bed, silence ensues after a steamy kiss and confusing confession from Erika. Both women lay side by side breathing loudly, but neither says anything to the other. We only hear these women’s attempts to calm their sporadic breathing and recover. I think that in this moment, each woman is internalizing her feelings. They do not communicate with each other because they do not want to extend themselves out; they merely think to themselves.

But…there is not complete silence in this scene; we hear breathing. If we change our definition of silence from lack of communication to lack of any audible noise, then the presence of loud breathing becomes important. Why do we hear such loud breathing sounds? If you pay close attention, the women seem to be breathing in harmony. They inhale and exhale in a random, but harmonized fashion, perhaps showing that they are still connected in some way. Even though they do not extend themselves in a verbal fashion, they remain associated with one another by the mere fact that they are human and they are breathing and they are confused.