Erika Kohut's Absence of Revolt

... Erika Kohut's Absence of Revolt Elfriede Jelinek's novel "The Piano Teacher" is a breathtaking, a shocking, a fascinating and a terrifying study case of human's emotional, sexual and societal repression. The book deals with three main characters, i.e. Erika Kohut- the daughter of Madame Kohut Senior, a.k.a. the Mother and Walter Klemmer- Erika's master student, and their relations to each other and to the outside world of classical music and clichés. Vienna is the setting for the drama, pain, humiliation, domination and love Erika experiences while dutifully teaching piano in the Musical Conservatory. The opening pages of the novel contain the essence of Erika's sufferings, and allude the reasons for her pathological behaviour to herself and to others:" She puts Erika against the wall, under interrogation-inquisitor and executioner in one, unanimously recognized as Mother by the State and by the Family" (p.3). This is the "nurturing and loving" home

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